Do you mean with him?”
Mick’s forbidding look fled, and he let out a laugh. “No way. I have better taste.”
Drake had no clue what they meant, but he did suspect he was being left out of a joke. He frowned at Mick and broke away before we reached the railroad bed.
Drake had a stash of clothes back here, I saw, packed away in a waterproof canvas bag. Made sense—that way, he could fly from the dragon compound in New Mexico, turn human, dress himself, and approach the hotel. I didn’t like the implication—that the dragons from the compound sent him frequently to look in on me.
Mick kept clothes in a duffel bag hidden behind scrub at the base of the railroad bed. He liked to have contingency stashes of clothing for when he had to unexpectedly shift to and from dragon.
Once Mick and Drake were clothed, Gabrielle enjoying herself watching Drake dress, we climbed the railroad bed.
As I stepped to the top, a waft of music floated out into the night. Low and mellow, the sound of a wooden flute drifted on the wind. It moaned, soft and sweet, the smooth shifting of notes followed by fluttering trills.
My feet fixed to the ground. I knew who played the flute with such an expert touch. It was my father, who must be outside on the grounds, or on the large patio behind the saloon Drake’s renovators had added.
I hadn’t heard him play in years—more than twenty at least. He’d played when I’d been a tiny child, out under the sky behind the house at Many Farms.
Grandmother hadn’t liked that. “He’s calling to her,” she’d snap.
She’d meant my mother. The men of our family made and played flutes, usually only for the women they loved. The music was a traditional ritual of courtship—legend said that woodpeckers showed the way for the first flute to be carved, and when that first musician played it, women were drawn to him. The other men, seeing this, had learned to carve them too.
My father had played for the woman he loved, hoping against hope that he’d see her again, no matter how dangerous she might be to him.
Then one day, he’d shut the flute away in a cupboard, never to take it out again. That day he’d decided, I realized much later, that my mother was never coming back.
Now my father was playing again. My heart turned over as I recognized his touch, the voice of his music. I knew also that he was no longer playing for my mother. He was playing for Gina.
Tears filled my eyes. My dad had been lonely for so long, and now he’d found a woman—a sensible, non-evil one—to share his life.
I was happy for him, ecstatically happy, but hearing him play for Gina gave me a small, left-out feeling. He’d never played the flute for me.
Mick’s large, warm hand landed on my shoulder. I looked up at him to find his blue eyes full of understanding. He knew me, did Mick, inside and out.
I gave him a shaky smile, nodded to indicate I was all right, and we headed down to the hotel.
***
My dad had drawn a crowd in the circular patio of the saloon. He stood off to one side, fingers moving easily on the flute, his head bowed and his eyes closed, his black braid unmoving on his back. Anyone might think him getting into his music, but I knew it embarrassed him when people watched him play. He didn’t mind if they listened, but all those eyes on him unnerved him.
My guests sat in groups around him, enraptured. Some of them were ordinary people who used the hotel as a point from which to explore the countryside and Indian lands. Others were magic-born, mostly witches, who came here for the auras of Magellan and the vortexes. One of the crowd was a Nightwalker, Ansel, restored and relaxed, a smile on his face.
Gina sat in a chair next to my father. She listened with silent intensity, the love in her eyes beautiful to see.
Gabrielle lingered at the edge of the crowd, eyes on my father, her expression strangely quiet. I left her there and silently entered the hotel through the back door into the kitchen.
Elena and my grandmother lingered, hands wrapped around steaming cups of tea at the table, while Don, the assistant, cleaned up the meal Elena had served my family. Grandmother and Elena looked up and gave me, Mick, and Drake identical belligerent looks.
“Too many