Free War for the Oaks by Emma Bull Page B

and shivered. "What's taking him so long?"
    "Maybe he found a cat to chase."
    Then the door opened and the phouka was there, bowing low. His jacket had reappeared on him, and he was exquisitely out of place in her shabby apartment. "Enter, my little snowdrop. All is in order."
    Everything did seem to be all right. The kitschy lamp by the sofa—the one with the copper quarter horse statuette for a base—was on. By its light Eddi could see the magazines neatly stacked on the trunk, and the sofa cushions smooth. "How about the bedroom?" she asked.
    "I checked there, too. You may sleep the sleep of the efficiently protected."
    "Yeah," she said, "but did you find anything?"
    "If I told you 'yes,' you would be frightened, and if I told you 'no,' you would think you didn't need me. Silence is my wisest course." He finished with one of his taunting grins, but Eddi thought she'd seen some other expression in his eyes for a moment.
    Carla had headed for the stereo. Now the opening bass riff of the Untouchables' "Free Yourself kicked out of the speakers. "Easy for them to say," Eddi muttered.
    "You want coffee?" she asked Carla.
    The phouka turned to Eddi. "You make
coffee?"
His voice was full of longing.
    "Oh, I love coffee." "Oh, God, just what we need." Carla sighed. "A mad dog with coffee nerves."
    Eddi ignored that. "Why didn't you say something this morning? We could have had it at breakfast."

    He looked embarrassed. "Yes, well, that was my treat, you see. And I don't know how to make coffee."
    "You can make pancakes, and not coffee?"
    "Pancakes, my inquisitive flower, are a profoundly primitive and practically universal item, in one form or another."
    "So's coffee," said Carla.
    "Not," the phouka said disdainfully, "where
I
come from."
    Eddi looked at the phouka's brown skin and giggled. He raised an eyebrow at her. "I'm gonna go make some now," she said, and headed for the kitchen.
    The growl of the grinder blotted out the music for a minute; when she turned it off, Rue Nouveau's "I Was a Witness" was playing. Carla liked it for the artsy drum part. Eddi plugged in the coffeemaker and went back to the living room.
    Carla sat hunched forward on the sofa, her index fingers following Rue Nouveau's drummer on the edge of the trunk. The phouka was stretched out on the rug on his stomach. He poked his thumb toward the speakers as the lead vocalist began the second verse. "She's very good."
    "That's nice. Why don't you draft
her
, and I'll stay home?"
    The phouka shook his head and looked uncomfortable.
    Eddi sat down on her heels in front of him. "I've asked this before, and you never answer it. Why me?"
    His index finger burrowed a path through the rug, and he seemed to be watching it intently.
    "Was there some particular reason? Or did you just stumble on me, and now that you've decided, you can't throw me back?"
    He looked up at her through his lashes. Ridiculously long and thick, they rimmed his large almond eyes like eyeliner. "Don't ask me, please," he said, barely loud enough for her to hear over the stereo. "If you ask me again, I shall tell you, and that would be the wrong thing to do."
    Eddi heard the appeal in his voice and shrugged angrily. Yet she didn't repeat the question. "Will you ever be able to tell me? I'd feel better knowing I wasn't in danger out of sheer dumb luck."
    "After May Eve—after the battle," the phouka replied. "If still you want to know, ask me then."
    The coffeemaker gave the death rattle that meant it had done its job. "Better than a timer," said Carla.

    "I'll get it," the phouka said, and went to the kitchen.
    Carla murmured, "Careful. He may be trying to make up for those first impressions."
    Eddi plowed her fingers through her hair. "I feel like a Russian dissident under house arrest. And no matter how nice a guy the jailer is, it's still a jail."
    "Comforting to hear you say so."
    Eddi grinned. "What, you thought I was on the rebound from Stuart?"
    "Maybe. All I know is, this kid's cuter