Blue Moon

11

Richard and I compromised. He came along and swore to stay in the car. I brought along Shang-Da, Jamil, and Jason to make sure he stayed in the car, though if push came to shove, I wasn't sure they'd listen to me over Richard, not even if it was for his own good. It was the best I could do. Some nights that has to be enough, because that's all you've got.

The Happy Cowboy, which was one of the worst names for a bar I'd ever heard, was on the main highway. It was a two-story building that was supposed to look like a log cabin and managed not to. Maybe it was the neon horse with its cowboy rider on the sign. The lights gave the illusion that the horse was going up and down, along with the cowboy's arm and hat. He didn't look particularly happy riding the neon horse, but then maybe that was just me. I certainly wasn't happy to be here.

Richard had driven his four-by-four. He'd finally gotten around to blow-drying his hair. It was a thick, wavy foam around his face and shoulders. It looked so soft, you wanted to plunge your hands into it. Or again, maybe that was just me. He'd added a plain green T-shirt, tucked into his jeans, and white jogging shoes.

Jamil and Shang-Da were riding shotgun in the middle seat. Jamil was still wearing his cut-off smiley T-shirt, but Shang-Da had changed. He was all in black from his soft leather loafers to his belted dress slacks, to the silk T-shirt and tailor cut jacket. His short back hair was gelled into a crop of spikes on top of his head. He looked relaxed and at home in the clothes and the hair. He would also look utterly out of place at the Happy Cowboy. Of course, being over six feet tall and Chinese put him behind the game when it came to blending in here. Maybe he, like Jamil, was tired of trying to pass.

That was why Jason, still in his grown-up blue suit, was with us. Nathaniel had wanted to come, but he wasn't old enough to go into a bar. I didn't know how good Zane was in a stress situation yet, and Cherry always made me feel vaguely protective, so Jason it was.

"If you're not out in fifteen minutes, we're coming in," Richard said.

"Thirty minutes," I said. I did not want Richard near Ms. Betty Schaffer.

"Fifteen," he said, voice very quiet, very low, very serious. I knew that tone of voice. I'd gotten all the compromise I was going to get.

"Fine, but remember that if you go to jail tonight, your mom may go with you."

His eyes widened. "What are you talking about?"

"What would Charlotte do if she saw her little boy being dragged away to jail?"

He thought about that for a second, then bowed his head. He laid his forehead on the steering wheel. "She'd put up a fight for me."

"Exactly," I said.

He raised his face and looked at me. "I'll behave for her sake."

I smiled. "I knew it wasn't for mine." I got out of the car before he could answer that one.

Jason settled into step beside me. He'd straightened his tie and buttoned the first button on the jacket. He'd also tried to slick back his baby-fine hair, but it escaped all efforts in tiny wisps. His hair was very straight and very fine, and it would have looked better either much shorter or much longer. But hey, it wasn't my hair.

We were both carded at the door by a muscular guy in a dark blue T-shirt. The crowd was divided almost down the middle. There was the tight jeans, cowboy boots crowd, and the short skirts, business jackets crowd. There was some intermingling. Some of the women in cowboy boots had short skirts. Some of the business jackets were wearing jeans. It was the only alcohol for a twenty-mile radius, and it served food. Where else were you going to go on a Friday night? I'd have rather gone for a moonlit walk, but I didn't drink. Come to think of it, I didn't dance, either, though Jean-Claude was working on both. Corruption at every turn.

There was a live band playing country music so loudly it might as well have been hard rock. A haze of cigarette smoke floated over everything like a late-night fog. The entrance was on a little raised platform so you could look around before plunging into the sea of bodies. Charlotte is actually an inch or two shorter than I am, so I didn't bother scanning for her. I looked for Daniel. How many six-foot-tall, tanned guys with wavy, shoulder-length hair could there be? More than you'd think.

I finally spotted him near the bar because he was waving to me. He'd also tied his long hair back in a very tight ponytail, which was why scanning for the hair hadn't worked. His hair was nearly identical to Richard's except it was a more solid brown, a rich chestnut. His skin was the same tanned shade as his brother's. The same high, sculpted cheekbones, solid brown eyes, even the dimple in the chin. Richard was a little broader through the shoulders and chest, just physically more imposing, but other than that, the family resemblance was almost scary. All the brothers looked like that. The two oldest had cut their hair, one of them was almost a blond, and the father was going a little grey, but the five Zeeman men in one room was a testosterone treat.

And the matriarch of this pile of masculine pulchritude was standing about six feet from her son. Charlotte Zeeman had short blond hair that framed a face that looked at least ten years younger than I knew she was. She was wearing a butter yellow suit jacket over dress slacks. She was also poking her finger into the chest of a tall blond woman.

The second woman had a mane of curled blond hair, but I was betting that neither the color nor the curl were real. It had to be Betty Schaffer, and the name didn't suit her. She looked like someone named Farrah or Tiffany.

I waded into the crowd with Jason behind me. The crowd was thick enough that I stopped saying excuse me about halfway across the room and just started pushing.

A tall man in a plaid work shirt stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. "Can I buy you a drink, little lady?"

I reached back and got Jason's hand. I raised it where it was visible. "Taken. Sorry." There was more than one reason I'd wanted to bring Jason with me to a bar on a Friday night.

He stared down at Jason, way down, making a show of how very tall he was. "Don't you want something a little bigger?"

"I like them small," I said, my face very serious. "It makes oral sex easier."

We left him speechless. Jason was laughing so hard, he could barely keep his feet. I pulled him through the crowd by the hand. Holding his hand seemed to be hint enough for the rest of the cruising males.

The crowd was clearing around the bar. People had moved back to form a semicircle around Charlotte, Betty, and Daniel. He had stepped up behind his mother, laying a hand on either shoulder trying to pull her back. She shrugged him off rather violently and ignored him. He let her do it.

Charlotte got up in the woman's face. I was close enough to catch a word or two above the band, "Liar … whore … my son … rapist … " To hear even that much, Charlotte was screaming at the woman.

Betty was tall, but the spike-heeled boots put her at six feet. The jeans were painted on, the blouse was midriff, and there was no bra. She had small enough breasts that she could get away with it, but it was still noticeable and meant to be. She looked like a cowboy hooker. Richard had dated her. It made me think worse of him.

Two large guys wearing T-shirts that matched the guy who had carded us at the door were at the edge of the crowd. I think they were sort of puzzled by Charlotte. She was tiny and female and hadn't hit anyone yet. She also looked older than the general crowd, though not really like anyone's mother.

Betty had finally had enough. She was screaming back words like, "He did, rapist, bastard."

I let go of Jason's hand and stepped up beside them. They both looked at me. Charlotte was the most startled. Her large, honey-brown eyes went wide. She said, "Anita," as if no one had told her I was in town.

I smiled. "Hi, Charlotte. Can we talk outside?" I had to put my face nearly next to hers to be heard.

She shook her head. "This is the whore that's lied about Richard."

I nodded. "I know. Let's take it outside, though."

Charlotte shook her head again. "I am not leaving until she tells the truth. Richard did not rape her."

We were yelling, with our faces almost touching, to be heard. "Of course, he didn't," I said. "Water is wet, the sky is blue, and Richard isn't a rapist."

Charlotte stared at me. "You believe him."

I nodded. "I got him out on bail. He's waiting to see you outside."

Her eyes went even wider, then she smiled, and it was beautiful. It was one of those smiles that made you feel warm down to your toes. Charlotte was like that. When she was happy, everyone around her was happy. When she wasn't happy … well, that spilled over, too.

She yelled in my ear, "Let's go see Richard."

I turned to go through the crowd and heard a gasp. I turned to see Betty Schaffer wearing the dripping remnants of a beer. Betty slapped Charlotte. Charlotte returned the favor but with a closed fist.

Betty was suddenly on her butt in the floor, blinking up at us.

The bouncers moved in, as Charlotte moved in to finish the job. I threw Charlotte over my shoulder. She weighed more than she looked like she did, and she was struggling. Unlike most women, she was good at struggling. I didn't want to hurt Charlotte, but she wasn't returning the favor. She kicked me in the knee and I dumped her onto the floor hard.

She lay there for a second, breath knocked out of her, staring up at me. Daniel moved forward to help her up, and I stopped him with a hand on his chest. "No."

The band had fallen silent with a last twangy guitar string. Into the sudden silence, my voice sounded loud, "You can walk out of here on your own, or you can be carried out unconscious, Charlotte. Your choice, but you are leaving."

I went down on one knee, carefully, because Charlotte didn't fight like a girl. I lowered my voice for her ears alone. "Richard will come in here in just a few minutes to see what's wrong. If he gets near her again, the local cops will revoke his bail and lock him up again." It was only partially true. Legally, he had every right to enter the bar, but I was betting that Charlotte didn't know that. Most law-abiding citizens wouldn't have.

Charlotte looked at me for a second longer, then offered me a hand. I helped her stand, still cautious. She had a hell of a temper once it got started. Admittedly, it took a lot to get her this mad, but once she reached it, it was every man for himself.

She let me help her to her feet without trying to slug me. An improvement. We made our way through the crowd with Daniel and Jason trailing behind us. No one crowded us as we went for the door. They stared, but didn't crowd.

The bouncer at the door said, "She doesn't come back in here."

Charlotte opened her mouth to say something, and I gripped her shoulder. "Don't worry. She won't."

He looked at Charlotte but nodded.

I let her get about three good steps ahead of me as we reached the parking lot. Call it an instinct. She whirled, and I think would have hit me, but I was out of reach. She stared at me with those big honey-brown eyes, made somehow paler by the halogen lamps. "Don't you ever lay hands on me again," she said.

"Behave like Richard's mother and not his outraged girlfriend, and I won't."

"How dare you!" she said. She moved closer. I moved away. I didn't really want to have a fistfight in the parking lot of a bar with Richard's mother.

"If anyone should be trying to beat the shit out of Ms. Peroxide Blond, it should be me."

That stopped her cold. She stood straight and looked at me. I could almost see her sanity returning. "But you aren't dating him anymore. Why should you care?"

"That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn't it?" I said.

Charlotte smiled suddenly. "I knew you couldn't resist my boy. No one could."

"If he keeps dating everything in sight, I might."

She frowned. "I can't believe he ever dated that thing," she said.

We both turned and watched Richard walk towards us. There were nearly identical looks on our faces. We disapproved of Ms. Schaffer — a lot.

Her first words were, "I cannot believe you dated that woman. She is a whore."

Richard looked embarrassed, more than I'd gotten from him. "I know what she is."

"Did you have sex with her?"

"Mother!"

"Don't you mother me, Richard Alaric Zeeman."

"Alaric," I said.

Richard spared me a frown, then turned back to his mother. "No, I never slept with Betty."

He was saying he'd never had intercourse with her. Charlotte would take it to mean that no sex at all had happened, just like I had. I remembered what Jamil had said about alternatives, but I kept quiet. I didn't want to upset Charlotte, and I didn't want to know.

"Well, at least that shows better sense," Charlotte said. She walked up to him and smoothed the front of his T-shirt, then bowed her head, and I realized she was crying.

I couldn't have been more surprised if she'd bitten him, maybe less.

Richard's entire face crumpled into helpless lines. He looked at me as if for help, and I backed up. I shook my head. I was no better around crying women than he was, maybe less.

He hugged her to him. I heard her murmur, "I was so worried about you in that awful jail."

I backed up out of earshot, and Daniel joined me. He didn't seem eager to join them, either. Of course, Charlotte didn't have to cry to unman Daniel.

"Thanks, Anita," he said.

I looked up at him. He was wearing a red tank top that was almost a twin of one Richard had. For all I knew, it was the same one. He looked tanned and handsome and very grown-up. "You're assertive around everyone but your parents. Why is that?"

He shrugged. "Isn't everyone like that?"

I shook my head. "No."

Jason moved up beside us. He echoed me: "No." Then he laughed. "Of course, my mother would never have gotten into a fight in a bar, no matter what I did. She's much too … decorous."

"Decorous," I said.

"My last roommate had a word-a-day calendar," Jason said.

"You've been reading again," I said.

He hung his head, looking abashed, then gave me rolled eyes and a grin. It was such a mix of shame and utter cuteness that I laughed. "I can't donate blood and have sex twenty-four hours a day. There's no television at the Circus of the Damned."

"If there was?" I asked.

"I'd still read, but don't tell anyone."

I put an arm around his shoulders. "Your secret is safe with me."

Daniel put his arm around Jason from the other side and said, "Won't breathe a word of it."

We walked towards the four-by-four, arm in arm. "If Anita was in the middle, this would be perfect," Jason said.

Daniel just stopped in his tracks, staring at Jason. I pulled away from both of them. "You just don't know when to stop, do you, Jason?"

He shook his head. "No."

Richard walked over to us. He sent Daniel to their mother, and Daniel didn't argue with the order. He sent Jason on to the car, and Jason didn't argue. I stood looking up at his suddenly serious face, wondered what my orders were going to be, and bet I would argue with them.

"What's up?" I asked.

"I'll have to go with Daniel and my mother to calm her."

"I hear a but coming," I said.

He smiled. "But there's a ceremony to meet my lupa tonight. It's customary before two packs share a full moon that they be formally introduced."

"How formally?" I asked. "I didn't pack for formal."

The smile widened into that wondrous smile that was his mother's. It had that same utter good humor to it. Contagious. "I don't mean that kind of formal, Anita. I mean there are rites to observe."

"Rites, as in what?" I asked. I sounded suspicious, even to me.

He hugged me, spontaneously, not girlfriend-boyfriend, but just a happy-to-see-you hug. "I have missed you, Anita."

I pushed away from him. "I make a suspicious comment and you say you've missed me. I don't get that, Richard."

"I love all of you, Anita, even the suspicious parts."

I shook my head. "Stick to business, Richard. What rites?"

The smile faded, the good humor dying from his eyes. He looked suddenly sad and I wanted to take it back, to have him smile at me again. But I didn't. We weren't an item anymore, and he'd been dating little Miss Schaffer, the cowgirl hooker. I didn't understand that at all. She puzzled me even more than Lucy.

"I have to go with my mother for a while. Jamil and Shang-Da can explain what you have to do as my lupa tonight."

I shook my head. "One of the bodyguards stays with you, Richard. I don't care which one it is, but you don't go out there alone."

"Mom will not understand a chaperone that isn't family," Richard said.

"Don't go all momma's boy on me, Richard. I've had enough of that from Daniel for one night. Explain it any way you like, but you aren't leaving here without backup."

He stared down at me, and his handsome face was serious, arrogant. "I am Ulfric, Anita. Not you."

"Yeah, you're Ulfric, Richard. You're in charge, fine, then do a good job of it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that if the bad guys find you out alone tonight, they might not wait to find out if you're leaving tomorrow. One of them might get a little eager and try to hurt you."

"If it's not silver bullets, they can't kill me."

"And how are you going to explain to your mother that you survived a shotgun blast to the chest?" I asked.

He glanced back at her and Daniel. "You cut right to the bone, don't you," he said.

"It saves time," I said.

He turned back to me. Anger had darkened his eyes, thinned out his face. "I love you, Anita, but sometimes I don't like you very much."

"It's not me you don't like, Richard, not on this issue. You're terrified that if Mommy Dearest finds out you're a shapeshifter, she'll think you're a monster."

"Don't call her that."

"Sorry," I said. "But it's still the truth. I think you're underrating Charlotte. You're her son, and she loves you."

He shook his head. "I don't want her to know."

"Fine, but choose a bodyguard. Why not tell your mom that he's backup in case the police try to make trouble? It's the truth."

"As far as it goes," Richard said.

"The best lies are always at least partially true, Richard."

"You're much better at lying than I am," he said. I looked for anger in the words, but there was nothing. It was just a statement of fact that left his eyes empty and sad.

I was tired of apologizing, so I didn't. "Do you want to take their car and I can drive the four-by-four back to the cabins?"

He nodded. "I'll take Shang-Da with me. He doesn't like you much."

"I thought he might have warmed up to me since the fight this afternoon," I said.

"He still thinks you betrayed me," Richard said.

I didn't even try to touch that one. "Fine, I'll take Jason and Jamil with me. They can give me lessons in werewolf etiquette."

"Jason won't be much help. He's never been part of a healthy pack."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"It means that because our old lupa was such a sadistic bitch, we were all afraid of each other. A normal pack is much more touchy-feely, more casual with each other."

"How touchy?" I asked.

He smiled, almost sadly. "Talk to Jamil. He'll teach you and Jason, too." He seemed to think about that.

"What about the wereleopards, and the vampires?"

"I already asked Verne. They are our guests tonight."

"One big happy family," I said.

Richard looked at me. It was a long, searching look. It took a lot to meet his eyes and not to flinch. "It could be, Anita, it really could be." With that, he turned and walked to his mother and brother.

I watched him go and wasn't sure what to make of his last comment. I used to wonder why he put up with me, but after meeting his mother, I knew. It had taken me three Sunday dinners to realize why Charlotte and I were either in perfect agreement or on opposite ends of any discussion. We were too much alike. A family, like a pack, can only have so many alphas or it tears itself apart. Only Richard's brother, Glenn, is currently married, and his wife and Charlotte butt heads constantly. Aaron is a widower. I'm told the fights between Charlotte and Aaron's deceased wife were legendary. They'd all gone out and married someone like mom. Glenn's wife, though full-blooded Navajo, was still petite, and tough. The Zeeman men seemed to have a weakness for small and tough.

Beverly, as the only girl and the eldest, was wonderfully dominant. She and Charlotte had almost not survived her teenage years, according to Glenn and Aaron. Bev had settled down, gone to college, married, and was pregnant with her fifth child. She had four boys and was trying one last time for a girl.

I'd paid attention to Richard's family because I'd thought they were going to be my in-laws. That didn't seem likely to happen now. Oh, well. I had enough problems with my own family. Who needed a second one?