Free The Orange Cat & other Cainsville tales by Kelley Armstrong Page A

like that where I went.”
    Jeanne relaxed now. Again, Ricky knew better than to be too pleased by the accomplishment—his Cŵn Annwn blood meant he understood how to put people at ease.
    “Our stories are different from theirs,” Jeanne said. “But the core concept would be similar, as my granddaughter would say. There’s an entire world out there in the forests. Experiences that suggest we aren’t alone. If we’re looking for answers, it makes more sense that they’re in the forest rather than up there.”
    She pointed at the sky, and Hildy sighed. “I never said . . .” She trailed off and looked at Ricky and Liv. “Would you like tea? Or would you prefer to listen to my accountant mock me?”
    “I won’t mock you about your little people if you don’t mock me about mine.”
    Liv chuckled. “Tea would be wonderful. And, Mrs. . . .” She looked at the old woman.
    “Jeanne.”
    “We don’t want to be a bother, but is there any way we could convince you to join us for breakfast? I would love to talk about local folklore. We did have something odd happen out there. A couple miles up the highway, off a trail. There was a swimming hole—”
    Liv stopped short as Hildy crossed herself. Jeanne sighed and waved at the innkeeper. “And she calls me superstitious.”
    “So there’s local lore surrounding the swimming hole?” Liv said.
    “It’s cursed,” Hildy said.
    Jeanne sighed again and shook her head. Then she turned to Liv. “Yes, there is plenty of lore about it, but don’t be asking her, or you’ll get a lot of nonsense. Why don’t you two come to dinner? My granddaughter’s home from school. I’m sure she’d love the company.”
    Liv accepted, and Jeanne said they could walk back with her in an hour or so. Then Hildy showed them out onto the back deck.
    “You’re okay with dinner, right?” Liv said as the door closed behind Hildy. “I am curious about the folklore.”
    “And I thought you were just finding an excuse not to go to our room. Worried you might surrender.”
    She smiled. “Oh, I’m not the one who needs to worry about that. As for the interlude I proposed, I’m still planning on that. Just running on a slight delay.” She sobered. “I do want to hear the lore of that swimming hole, see if it helps solve our mystery. Unfortunately, it won’t solve theirs. I almost wish the fae had stolen that baby. At least then we could be of some help. But that’s not how changelings work.”
    “I heard a baby in the forest.”
    “What?”
    “Up at the swimming hole. I thought I heard a baby. I didn’t mention it because I figured it was just a bird or something. But, yeah, that’s not how changelings work. While that’s the folklore—that fairies steal human babies for themselves—it’s not the reality.”
    Hildy brought out tea and oatcakes. When she’d left again, Ricky said, “Maybe, just to be sure, you should see if Patrick or Rose know of any fae that might take babies. You could ask Gabriel to run with it. You know he would.”
    Liv paused, and Ricky’s gut tightened. He should be happy she didn’t want to involve Gabriel. Just like he should have been happy she didn’t want to return Gabriel’s calls. Ricky wasn’t the oblivious idiot who thought it was really nice that his girlfriend had such a close platonic relationship with her boss. It was platonic—in the physical sense. But emotionally platonic? At one time, he’d tried to tell himself it was. When he got the full Matilda/Gwynn/Arawn story, though, it only confirmed what he’d always known. That there was more between Liv and Gabriel, would always be more.
    So if Gabriel had hurt Liv, and she’d backed off, Ricky should be happy. Except he wasn’t because Liv wasn’t happy.
    He looked down at the tattoo on his forearm. A Celtic moon and sun entwined. Matilda’s symbol—night and day, Cŵn Annwn and Tylwyth Teg. On her ankle, she had a moon. For Arawn. For him.
    Every time he saw that tattoo on