Now That You're Here. Lynnette Kent

o’clock, boss. That makes this the afternoon.” She winked at him. “But listen. I’ve got good news and bad news.”

      “Hit me.” He eased his sound hip onto a bar stool.

      “The good news is that I ordered Chinese and there’s enough for an army.”

      “And?”

      “The bad news is I ordered in lunch because Hank quit.” Hank Rawlins was the only cook he’d hired in the past year who’d stayed more than a couple of weeks.

      Jimmy swore. “Why?”

      “Something about a fight in the alley last night. He said he didn’t get paid enough to risk his life.”

      “Great. Fantastic.” Jimmy tossed his sunglasses onto the bar. “What a way to start the day.” Thanks to Harlow and company, The Indigo was now missing a cook. And while the food wasn’t the draw, people usually liked something to eat while they drank. “Did you call the agency, see if they had any temps?”

      “I did. And they didn’t. I also called to put an ad in the paper. But that’ll take a few days to get results. Meanwhile…”

      “Meanwhile, dammit, I do the honors.” Eyes closed, he waited out the urge to throw something. He opened them again on a deep breath. “Those are the breaks, right?”

      Tiffany shook her head, her smile sympathetic. “I can help you get ready.”

      Jimmy put a hand on her shoulder. “That’s okay. You’ve got all you can handle out here. I think I can manage cutting up lettuce and tomatoes. I’ve got to make a call first, then I’ll get started.”

      In the office, he pulled out the phone book and found the number for Emma’s hotel. With his finger on the button, though, he stopped and put the handset down. Unlocking the desk drawer, he reached in, then sat looking at the walnut box resting on his palms.

      Without lifting the lid, he could visualize the medallion inside. Most likely Navajo or Hopi or Zuni work, the Southwestern tribes were known for their expertise with metals and stone. The route the piece had traveled from Arizona to South Dakota might be interesting to follow. If you cared about things like that.

      Jimmy didn’t. He’d decided a long time ago that his Indian background created more trouble than it was worth. His ambition from the age of eight had been to get off the reservation and forget he’d ever been there. For the most part, he’d succeeded.

      Until now. Emma had brought the reservation back into his life. Seeing her, getting at all close to her, would most likely involve him in the search for the background on the medallion.

      But not seeing her again…he didn’t like that option, either. She wasn’t the girl he’d known that long-ago summer—redheaded, reckless and sassy, a strange combination of English manners and outright hell-raising. They’d caused some trouble and some talk when they were together, and why her dad hadn’t horsewhipped him Jimmy never knew. Maybe Aubrey Garrett just never noticed what had gone on under his nose.

      Now there were shadows in Emma’s sweet blue eyes, pain in the set of her mouth. She’d just lost her dad, that was part of it. But there was something else, and he wanted to know what. He wanted to know about where she’d been these twenty years, and who’d been with her. There had been other women in his life, off and on. Had Emma loved other men? Had she been…was she married?

      Jimmy swore and put the walnut box back in the drawer. It was a little late to be jealous. Or whatever the hell this gnawing in his gut was called.

      The fact remained that he couldn’t see her tonight for dinner. He tracked down the number for the hotel and dialed, then asked for her room and waited to be connected, wishing that Hank had quit just a week later. Or a week ago.

      “Hullo?” She sounded barely awake.

      “Hey, Emma. Still in bed?” Bad question, raising possibilities he shouldn’t consider.

      “Um…yes, actually.” Jimmy could hear her waking up. “Jet lag, I suppose. How are you?”

      “Okay. But I’m going to have to break our dinner date.”

      There was a pause. “Well, that’s all right.” Her tone had cooled down considerably.

      “No, it’s not. But my cook quit. I can’t get hold of a temporary replacement this quick, and so I’m going to end up in the kitchen tonight.”

      “That’s really too bad.” Emma thought she heard exasperation in his voice, along with regret, which lightened her plummeting spirits considerably. “I was looking forward to a chance to talk.”

      “Me, too. I can’t even promise tomorrow night, since I don’t know when I’ll be able to get somebody in the kitchen.”

      In the silence, she thought she heard drums. “Is that the band? Are they rehearsing?”

      The sound stopped as he chuckled. “No, it’s just me. I have a bad habit of beating on any flat surface nearby. Listen, how about lunch tomorrow, before I go to work?”

      “That sounds good.” A long time to wait, though. “I’ll see you then.”

      “You bet.”

      After they’d hung up, Emma gazed around the hotel room, wondering what she would do for the rest of the day. She did not want to play tourist—at least, not without Jimmy as the tour guide. For the first time in twenty years, she had no reading to do, no paper to write or examinations to grade. Just…time. Empty time.

      Finally she connected her laptop computer to the Internet port provided by the hotel and signed on to check her e-mail—a couple of notes from friends, commiserating with her on the loss of her teaching fellowship, then the usual and irritating advertisements for sound equipment, airplane-fare discounts and instant riches. She replied to the notes and started to sign off, then reconsidered.

      Her first search for Native American artifacts turned up thousands of sites. She went through them slowly, gathering scraps of information here and there. When she narrowed the search to metalwork, the Southwestern focus of that particular art became apparent. So Jimmy’s medallion wouldn’t have been made near the Sioux reservation. That argued for trade between tribes or, possibly, commerce between Southwestern tribes and whites, who then traded again with the groups on the Plains.

      By dark she had quite a stack of note cards, her preferred method of keeping important information, and a few hints as to the meaning of the sun-over-mountains design. She also had a list of galleries and museums in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona specializing in Native American metalwork. With a car, she could reach most of them in a day’s drive.

      Stretching out her stiff neck muscles, Emma acknowledged that she would much prefer a day’s drive with Jimmy to one without him. If she didn’t ask him to go back to South Dakota, but only to Santa Fe, or even across Denver, would he cooperate? Was it just the reservation, or was Jimmy avoiding a more fundamental issue?

      And what right did she have to ask? Or to push him into an enterprise he had already refused? After twenty years, she had no claim on Jimmy Falcon other than the fact that he had been her first lover and she, his. Not much of an obligation, especially since Jimmy had probably made love to any number of beautiful women since. His charm and magnetism guaranteed female attention.

      But then again, her dad had asked them to trace the medallion. He felt “strongly,” the note said, that Jimmy should have this particular piece. Aubrey Garrett had gotten a bit, well, mystic, as he grew older. He’d studied the Native American legends and myths with great intensity.

      There would be a reason her dad wanted Jimmy to know the history of the disk. And a reason he’d insisted that she deliver the box herself. Don’t mail it or ship it, he’d instructed. Take it to him yourself.

      Perhaps he suspected Jimmy would resist the true message behind the medallion. And perhaps he counted on her to overcome that resistance. Her parents had enjoyed a long-standing joke comparing