The hand resting in the crook of his arm tightened, and Ruby came to a standstill. Damon turned to find her regarding him with a mixture of frustration and puzzlement.
‘What?’ he said. ‘You asked, I answered. I was just …’
‘Filtering,’ she said wryly. Which he had been. ‘Trust me, Damon. I know this game. My father never talked much beyond the moment either. You’d have liked him, by the way. He could have certainly shown you a trick or two about sliding graciously past a question you’re not inclined to answer.’
‘How would he have slid past that one?’
‘Oh, I dare say he’d have started spouting rhetoric about the measurement of man,’ said Ruby with a smile. ‘From there you might have swung through a deeply philosophical discussion of the education system or if he gauged you differently perhaps he’d have offered you a champagne and piled on the flattery as he guessed which of the top twenty learning institutes in the world you graduated from.’
‘Have you heard from him today?’
‘Why do you ask?’
Damon shrugged and realised he didn’t have any good answer other than Ruby drew him in, even when he didn’t want to be drawn, and got to him when he didn’t want to be got. ‘Maybe it’s because I know what it’s like to wait for word that never comes.’
‘He hasn’t been in touch.’
And then she leaned into him, butting up against his arm with her body as if she craved connection, and he knew that feeling and that shoulder shove because he’d used it on Poppy as a child. Remember me, it had been shorthand for. The one who cost us our mother by dint of being born. The one who never quite managed to shake his feeling of isolation, even within the arms of family.
So he did what Poppy used to do, and put his arm around Ruby’s shoulder and hugged her to his side and kept her there. He could do that much for her. He did it without thinking.
‘I really hoped he’d call, you know?’ she said finally, with her arm around his waist and their footsteps in sync as they followed the path before them. ‘So that I’d know he was okay. That he was alive. That’s the worst part of all of this mess. The not knowing anything.’
He should have realised that a woman of Ruby’s ilk would have thought past the most obvious reason for her father’s absence from her life. That she would have considered all sorts of explanations for her father’s disappearance, few of them palatable. ‘You think there’s been foul play?’
‘I don’t know,’ she murmured. ‘My father had many faults, don’t get me wrong. Branding him a hero’s just … dumb. But I always thought he cared for me, and the way he left—without even the slightest goodbye or heads up … it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t feel right.’
‘Maybe he was protecting you. You know the terminology, Ruby. Accomplice. Accessory after the fact.’
‘He was smart enough to avoid all that and still say goodbye.’
If he’d wanted to. But Damon didn’t say that and Ruby didn’t go there either.
‘So what do you think did happen?’ he asked quietly. ‘You think he could have been trying to stop the theft?’
‘If I thought that, I’d have to prepare for the possibility that he’s dead. I don’t want to prepare for that possibility, Damon.’
‘It seems to me you already have.’
‘No.’ Ruby looked to the sky and the skyscrapers that crowded into it. ‘I haven’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Not as long as there’s hope.’
Not a fine Christmas Day for Ruby Maguire at all. In behind the peacock feathers and the smiles, Ruby Maguire was hurting.
‘You know what you need this afternoon?’ he said, and pressed his lips to her hair for good measure. ‘A strictly temporary, don’t read anything into this, distraction. Lucky for you, I’m a past Master at distracting people. As every last one of my school reports will attest.’
‘Why, Damon West.’ She sounded less morose already. ‘Was that freely volunteered information?’
‘I think it was. But don’t distract me while I’m busy trying to distract you. I hear there’s a hell of a roller-coaster ride around here somewhere.’
‘Yes, but in order to get on it one has to plan ahead.’
‘Or we could go and play on the midlevel elevators, that’s always fun.’
‘Well, if you’re a two-year-old …’
‘Golf!’ he said, inspired.
‘Spare me.’
‘Shopping?’
Ruby Maguire rewarded him with a smile. ‘I’m vastly impressed by your sacrifice, but no. Nothing much is open.’
‘Swimming?’
‘Maybe later.’
‘Mah-jong?’
‘But we’d need a third player.’
‘Poppy’ll play if we ask her. She might even know how.’
‘Meaning you’ve never played?’ asked Ruby delicately.
‘No, but how hard could it be?’
‘I like your optimism.’ Her smile had widened. Her eyes held a hint of mischief. ‘I suppose I could teach you the basics and then if Poppy wanted to join us she’d be most welcome. Were you to, say, enhance the speed of your learning experience by putting your money where your optimism is I would indeed be most delightfully distracted.’
‘You have all the essentials?’
The peacock feather bobbed up and down vigorously as she nodded. ‘Everything but your blank cheque.’
Ruby’s apartment held its own when it came to luxury and location. Size wise, it only had two bedrooms, one of which she used as an office, but the lounge and dining area was plenty large enough for a crowd, and more than large enough for a fleecing.
‘There’s a kitten around here somewhere,’ she said as she put her handbag on the side table and picked up the remote and switched the music on and drew the curtains back. Not Christmas tunes, heaven forbid, but rather a brother and sister duo whose music played light and ethereal and wormed its way into the soul one wisp at a time.
‘You mean this kitten?’ Ruby turned and there was the kitten, creeping out from behind the couch and venturing closer to Damon than he’d ever ventured to her without serious coaxing.
‘That’s him, and you’re doing well. He’s the wary type. I like to think he’ll turn out to be a sweet and loving companion once we move past the outright mistrust stage but that’s just pure and hopeful speculation.’
‘Have
