Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(47)

Metaphorical armor and literal weaponry in place, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was still wet and fell in loose curls. She considered putting her hair up to complete the look. But she wasn’t going on a job interview, so she left it down. It would dry better that way.

Charles was wearing a long-sleeved ivory shirt she’d bought for him, the stretchy fabric clinging lightly to bone and sinew. He’d rebraided his hair and tied it off with a piece of leather the same color as the shirt. The jeans and worn black boots shouldn’t have looked right, but they did.

He frowned at her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him, trying to get another look at herself. She hadn’t seen anything out of place in the mirror, but maybe she had a pant leg tucked into a sock or something.

“You covered up the freckles,” he said, folding his arms across his chest.

She felt her face light up. If she ever got a chance to really time travel, she’d go back and tell her thirteen-year-old self to quit worrying that her freckles would drive away any chance she had to date. The scariest and sexiest man in the universe was going to pout when she concealed them with foundation.

She put her hands on his forearms and used that to lever herself up and him down so she could kiss him.

“Sorry,” she told Charles. “But I’m trying for a professional look today.”

She rubbed her lipstick off his mouth with her thumb.

“Even without freckles, she still outclasses us,” Tag said.

Anna had to laugh. She was . . . ordinary. Something that neither of the men she was with would ever be. She turned to say something smart-assed back but shut her mouth when she got a good look at Tag.

His bright hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. He’d lost the stubble on his face, which had a tendency to lengthen into a bedraggled beard before he did anything about it. He wore slacks and a casual jacket over a button-up shirt.

Other than the long hair—and the outrageous color—he would not have looked out of place working at a bank. Or at least he didn’t look as though he intended to rob one at gunpoint—which was an improvement. And then he produced a pair of mirrored sunglasses straight out of the costume design for a 1970s antiestablishment movie sheriff and put them on.

Anna got into the SUV and started it, thinking about those sunglasses. She looked over her shoulder at Tag and cleared her throat.

“Um, why the cool shades?” she asked.

Charles belted himself in and snorted. “Vanity,” he said.

“Hey,” complained Tag, shutting his door. “I resemble that remark.”

“Don’t you mean resent?” Anna asked, pulling out of the campground.

Tag smiled and she got the full effect of all his white teeth—almost the only thing she could see of his features between the facial hair and the sunglasses. “Not at all,” he told her.

“The shades come off before you leave this car,” she warned.

Tag’s smile got sharper. “Of course.”

“If you laugh,” said Charles, “you only encourage him.”

And that made her laugh.

She found it interesting that she wasn’t the only one who had dressed up to face Dr. Connors—outside of Tag’s sunglasses. She knew why she had. She suspected that the men had done the exact same thing—for exactly the opposite reason: to look less dangerous. Or at least more civilized.

Happy Camp, California, was a very small town—about the size of Aspen Creek, though Anna was pretty sure that it had been bigger at one time.

Tag frowned, looking at a cleared area beside the highway. “Used to be a damn big lumber mill over there,” he said, sounding a little disconcerted.

“Things change,” said Charles. “When I was last here, there wasn’t a real town at all. More a series of small encampments while people sluiced and dug and mined for gold.” He turned his head to Tag. “Towns have life cycles, just like people do. They just take longer. It’s not any easier when they grow than when they shrink. Just talk to Asil about why he left Spain.”

Tag seemed to shrug off the odd mood. “Not on your life,” he said. “He and I deal better when we stick to events of the present time. We were on opposite sides of too many wars to discuss the past. Here’s a gas station, Anna. Might as well fuel the pig up.”

He was right; the SUV got better mileage than she’d expected, but it wasn’t a hybrid. The man working the gas station was a Native American somewhere in his fifties. He gave Charles a narrow-eyed look.

“Salish,” said Charles.

The clerk smiled. “Fishermen,” he said in satisfaction. “Karuk.”

“Fishermen,” agreed Charles gravely. “We drove down from Montana to do a little hiking. I’m Charles.”

“Rob,” offered the clerk.

They shook hands. Rob rang up their purchases—mostly water and Tag’s junk food.

“Lots of hiking around here,” he said. “Careful of fires. We’ve got one going about twenty miles away—started this morning. If you stay south or east of town, you should be okay.”

“Appreciate it,” Charles said gravely.

“Watch out for Sasquatch,” said Rob, tapping the side of his nose.

“I always do,” Charles agreed. “But I’m more concerned with the Singer in the Woods.”