To her extreme astonishment, he bent down and patted the biggest gator on the head. "Hey Beth, how's it going tonight?"
The gator snapped its jaw and hissed at him as if it had understood his question.
"I know, girl. I'm sorry, I forgot."
"What are you? Dr. Dolittle?"
He laughed again. "No. I found these two when they were small hatchlings and raised them. We're family. I've known them so long that I can almost read their minds."
Well, she had reptiles in her family tree too. Only hers walked on two legs.
The big one came up to her and eyeballed her like she was the daily special at the Crocodile Cafe. "I don't think she likes me."
"Be nice, Beth," Talon said.
The gator swished its tail, then ambled off the porch, into the swamp water. The other one looked at her, snapped its jaws, then joined its friend.
Talon opened the door to his cabin and turned on a dim desk lamp. Sunshine stepped inside hesitantly, half afraid he'd have the housekeeping abilities of her brother.
Or that there would be something worse than gators inside. Something like a monster anaconda he intended to feed her to.
She hesitated in the doorway.
The place was bigger inside than it appeared from the outside, but it was still basically only one room.
There was a small kitchen off to her left and a door to her right she assumed was the bathroom.
Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) He had three big tables set up with computers and other electronic equipment. And there was a large black futon on the floor to the rear of the cabin.
She was thankful everything was clean and sanitary. How wonderfully refreshing to know that all men weren't the pigs her brothers were.
"Interesting place you have here, Talon. Have to say I love the blank, black walls."
He snorted at her tone. "This from a woman who lives inside a pink cloud?"
"True, but everything here is so dark. Don't you find it depressing?"
He shrugged. "Not really. I no longer think about it at all."
"Not to be rude, but it seems to me that you do that a lot."
"Do what?"
"Not think about things. You're one of those guys who just exists, aren't you? No thought about the past or tomorrow. Just what you plan on doing in the next hour or so."
Talon dropped his keys on the table next to his primary computer. She was very astute. One of the drawbacks of immortality was the fact that you weren't really goal-oriented. His world existed of getting up, tracking and slaying Daimons, and then returning home.
A Dark-Hunter never thought about the future. It just kept on coming regardless.
As for the past…
There was no need to go there. All that would do was dredge up memories he was much better off not remembering.
He looked at her and the passionate gleam in her dark brown eyes. She had a love of life that glowed and it captivated him. What would it be like to live that way again? To actually look forward to the future and plan for it?
"You probably think about the future all the time," he said quietly.
"Of course."
"And what do you see in your future?"
She shrugged her backpack off and placed it by his desk. "It depends. Sometimes I dream of having my art hung in the Guggenheim or the Met."
"Do you ever dream of having a family?"
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"Everyone has those dreams."
"No, not everyone."
She frowned. "You really don't?"
Talon fell quiet as he recalled his wife's face and remembered the nights he'd lain awake while she slept by his side with his hand on her belly so that he could feel their son moving inside her.
The dreams he'd had then.
When he had looked into Nynia's eyes, he had seen into forever. Had imagined the two of them old and happy and surrounded by their children and grandchildren.
And with one overwrought emotional act, he had damned both of them and ruined every dream the two of them had shared.
Every hope they'd had.
He winced as pain lacerated his chest.
"No," he whispered past the sudden lump in his throat. "I don't think about having a family at all."
Sunshine frowned at the thickness she heard in his voice. He cleared his throat.
What about her question could have possibly hurt him?
As he showed her where to store her bag and backpack, the phone rang.
Talon moved to answer it while she set about unpacking a few essentials and laying them about the cabin.
"Hey Nick… yeah, I heard about Zarek." He gave her a sheepish look as he listened. "Nah, man. I…
um. I'm not alone right now, okay?"
He moved away from her, but still she could hear him plainly. He was acting kind of nervous and she wondered why.
"I spoke with Zarek earlier, and he had definitely been sucking on the red mojo juice right before that happened. I don't know what got into him, but he was in a foul mood." He paused for several minutes.
"Yeah, and listen, I have a woman here, her name is Sunshine. If she calls you for anything, get it for her without shooting off your mouth… Yeah, back at you." He hung up the phone.