Windfall

Chapter Two

By the time we broke up the Great Mall Trek of 2004 for lunch, Sarah, Cherise, and I had enough shopping bags to outfit an Everest expedition, if the climbers were planning to look really, really adorable and hang out extensively at the beach.

Sarah had always been a natural-born clotheshorse. Not as curvy as me, and with the kind of perfect angular proportions that sparked envy and were held up as examples by plastic surgeons to keep them in the lipo and sculpting business.

Life with the French Kiss-Off (as I decided to title Chrêtien) hadn’t ruined her, except that she had some lines around her eyes, a good haircut gone bad, ugly shoes, and a generally sour attitude about men. A nice toning lotion took care of the lines. Toni & Guy bravely addressed the hair issues. Prada was very willing to practice some accessory therapy. I didn’t think anything could possibly help her with the attitude, except massive applications of chocolate, which with her figure she wouldn’t accept. After half a day of it, I was ready to send Sarah to the Bitter Ex-wives Club for an extra session of getting in touch with her whiny inner bitch.

“He was a lousy lover,” she declared, as she was trying on shoes. She had perfect feet, too. Long, narrow, elegant—the kind of feet men liked to think about rubbing. Even the salesman, who surely must have had his fill of stinky, sweaty toes, was looking tempted as he held her by the heel and slipped her into a strappy little pointy-toed number. Personal service. It only happened at the best stores these days, but then, he was trying to sell her shoes worth more than your average television set.

“Who?” Cherise asked, inspecting a pair of kitten-heeled pumps. She must have missed the entire ongoing monologue about the flaws of Chrêtien. I stared gloomily at the ruby red pair of sandals I’d been saving up for, which were likely to go out of style and come back again three generations from now before I could actually afford them again, at the rate Sarah was shopping.

Not that I hadn’t asked for it. And it was in a good cause. But I really needed to introduce her to the concept of outlet malls.

“The ex, of course,” Sarah replied, and tilted her foot to one side to admire the effect of the shoe. It was, I had to admit, very nice. “He had this terrible habit; he’d do this thing with his tongue—”

Okay, that was too much information. I shot to my feet.

“I really don’t think I’m ready for this level of sister-bonding. I’m going to get a mocha. You guys—shop.”

Sarah smiled and waved. As well she should. She had my Mastercard in her purse, and I had exactly ten dollars and change in mine.

Being the younger sister sucked.

As I walked away, Sarah was amusing the shoe salesman and Cherise with an account of something having to do with her husband, a Spider-Man costume, Silly String, and Velcro sheets.

I walked faster.

Outside, the mall was starting to buzz. It was packed with moms, squealing kids, harassed-looking singles clutching shopping bags, and a grim flying squadron of gray-haired mall walkers in heather gray sweats. Some had canes. I had to hug the wall to avoid a rumbling wagon trail of mothers with strollers, and then a flock of businesswomen with scarves and briefcases.

Men, apparently, no longer malled. Or at least, not alone. Every one that I saw had a female solidly by his side, like a human shield.

The coffee shop was busy, but efficient, and I walked away with mocha gold. As I sipped I window-shopped, and I was admiring a dress that was very, very me—and very, very not my budget—when I caught sight of someone in the mirror-reflection of the glass, watching.

I turned and looked. LVPD Detective Armando Rodriguez smiled slightly, leaned against a convenient neon-wrapped pillar, and sipped on his own cup. Smaller than mine. Probably black coffee. He looked like an uncomplicated sort of man, in terms of his caffeine tastes.

I walked right up to him with fast, impatient clicks of my heels.

“Look,” I said, “I thought we were sort of done.”

“Did you?”

“You need to leave me alone.”

“Do I?” He sipped coffee, watching me. Big eyes with warm flecks of wood brown in an iris nearly as dark as his pupil. He was wearing a jacket, and I wondered if he’d worn the gun inside—a pretty big risk, these days—or had stashed it in his van. Not that I thought he’d particularly need it. Even his casual moves seemed graceful and martial arts–precise. He’d probably have me on the ground and handcuffed inside of five seconds, if he were given the least excuse. In the harsher light of the mall, he had rough skin and a pockmarked face. Not a pretty man, but an intense one. Those eyes didn’t blink.

“If you keep following me, I’m going to have to call the cops,” I said, and was instantly sorry I had when he smiled.

“Yes, do that. All I have to do is flash my badge and ask for professional courtesy. Or I might possibly show them the surveillance photos, and request their assistance. I’m sure they’d be happy to help me out in questioning a suspect.” He shrugged slightly, never taking his eyes off me. “I’m a good cop. Nobody’s going to believe I’ve driven all the way here to stalk you. And a word of advice: I don’t think a drowning person really ought to be flailing around in the water. Could draw some sharks.”

I didn’t say anything for a few seconds too long. A runaway five-year-old darted between the two of us, brushing my legs; I took a step back as the mom charged after and veered around us, yelling out the kid’s name. Both Rodriguez and I watched as she caught up to the escapee and marched him back toward the Food Court, where evidently a firing squad of fast food awaited.

Rodriguez said, still looking away from mother and child, “Quinn was my partner. He was my responsibility. Do you understand?”

I didn’t like what I was understanding.

“I’m not going, sweetheart. Mira, you and I are going to get very, very friendly until you tell me what I want to know.” He finally turned his gaze back on me.

Dead-eyed and intense.

“Don’t you have a job? Family? Someplace to be?” I was used to handling difficult situations, difficult people, but he kept throwing me off my stride.

“Come on, this is ridiculous. You can’t just—”

“Quinn had a wife,” he cut in. Those eyes were glittering now. “Nice woman. You know what it’s like, living with that kind of uncertainty? Knowing he’s probably dead, but you just can’t move on because you can’t really know? You can’t sell the house, you can’t get rid of his clothes, you can’t do anything, because what if he’s not dead? His insurance won’t pay out. His pension’s locked up. And what if he comes walking in the door and there you are, in a brand-new life you made without him?”

“I can’t help you,” I said around a sudden lump in my throat. “Please leave me alone.”

“Can’t do it.”

And I couldn’t give in to him, even if he’d hit me hard and in a vulnerable place. “Fine. Prepare to admire my ass for an extended period of time, because it’s all of me you’re going to see,” I said. “This is our last conversation.”

He didn’t bother to debate. I took off so fast I splashed mocha on my fingers.

As I sucked it off, I looked back.

He was still leaning against the pillar, watching me. Impassive and impartial as a hanging judge.

I met Cherise and Sarah coming out of Prada with a fresh bag. I winced to think what kind of bar tab this latest binge had run up, but smiled gamely and stepped back to admire the effect. Sarah was now dressed in a peachskin sundress in splashes of tangerine and gold, with lavender trim; her makeover at the Sak’s counter, like the wave of a fairy godmother’s wand, had returned her gleaming skin and butter-smooth sophistication. The shoes added just the right touch of sassy cool.

Of course, she was still broke. But she looked damn good.

And now I was broke. The karmic circle of life continued.

“So,” I said. “Lunch?” I walked them through the neon gates of Calorie Paradise.

About thirty culinary choices, everything from Greek salad to Diner Dogs.

“I’m starving,” Sarah admitted. “I could murder a prime rib. I haven’t had a prime rib in ages.”

“It’s the mall, honey. I don’t think the Food Court does prime rib.”

“We could go to Jackson’s,” Cherise piped up cheerfully. She was loaded up with bags, too, mostly having to do with hiphuggers and shiny belts. “They have prime rib. And steaks to die for.”

“Do you know what it costs to eat at Jackson’s?” I said. She gave me a blank look, because, well, of course she didn’t. Cherise wasn’t the kind of girl who picked up her own check. “Think pocket change, people.” I steered them toward the choices I could—barely—still afford. The ones with a bright-primary-color decorating sensibility.

Eyeroll. “Fine.” Cherise marched—how one marched in jeweled flip-flops, I have no idea—up to join the overweight queue standing in line at McDonald’s. “I am not eating anything fried. I have a weigh-in coming up, you know… Do they have anything organic?”

“It’s food,” I pointed out. “It digests. By definition, organic.”

We bickered companionably about the usual food-related topics, which had to do with all-natural and bug-munched versus pesticided and bug-free, as the line wandered up toward the counter. The three sulky teens in front of me giggled and whispered. Two of them had tattoos. I was trying to imagine what would have happened if I’d gone home with a tattoo at their age, and decided I had enough nightmares in my life and besides, it made me feel old. Even Cherise had a tattoo. I was starting to think that I’d missed an important fashion trend.

Someone joined the line behind Sarah. I glanced back at her and caught an impression of a tall, lean man with slightly shaggy caramel-colored hair, and the kind of beard and mustache that always makes men seem to be faintly up to no good even while giving them a debonair kind of mystery. It looked good on him.

He was scanning the menu and smiling gently, as if he thought the whole McDonald’s experience was about to be very amusing.

“Sarah?” I asked. “Anything look good?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “What about the cheeseburger? Oh, no, wait… salad … they have so many kinds!” My sister, the decisive one. This, I remembered from childhood. She sounded on the verge of panic. Salad choices apparently unnerved her. “I don’t know what to get.”

“Well, I wouldn’t recommend the caviar,” the guy behind her said in a warm voice—not to me; to Sarah. He had bent slightly forward, not quite intruding. “I have it on good authority that it’s not really Beluga.” Definitely not a Florida accent… British. Not upper-class British, more of a comfortable working-class sound to him.

Sarah turned to look at him. “Were you talking to me?”

He snapped upright and out of her space, eyes going wide. They looked blue or gray, but it was tough to be sure—a changeable kind of color. Depended on the light. “Er… yes, actually. Sorry. I just meant—” He shook his head. “Never mind. Sorry. I meant no disrespect.” He took two steps back, clasped his hands together, and tried hard to look as if he’d never opened his mouth.

Cherise had turned around at the sound of his voice. She grabbed my wrist and squeezed, dragged me close, and hissed, “Jesus, what’s your sister doing?”

“Confronting,” I said. “She’s in a mood.”

“Is she nuts? Look at him! Cute British guy! Hello!”

“She’s on the rebound.”

“Well, get her ass off the court and let me play!” All of this delivered in a fast, rapid-fire hiss that wouldn’t carry even as far as Sarah’s ears, much less those of Cute British Guy, who was looking increasingly uncomfortable as Sarah continued to stare at him.

“Oh, you get enough court time, believe me. Go order,” I said, and nudged Cherise toward the tired-looking order-taker at the register, who mumbled something about being welcome to McDonald’s. Cherise gave me a theatrically harassed look and made a production of ordering a salad, interrogating the pedigree of every tomato and carrot while she was at it.

Cherise’s performance was distracting enough that I missed the historic moment of détente, when Sarah overcame her bitter hatred of men. When I looked back, she was extending her hand to Cute British Guy. “Sarah Dubois,” she said, and I saw a tremor go right through her. I could just hear her thinking, Oh, Jesus, not Dubois, you idiot, that’s Chrêtien’s name, your name is Baldwin!

Unfortunately, it was a little late to backtrack on the surname. At best, it would sound loopy. She covered with an especially glittering smile, greatly enhanced by the new Clinique lipstick we’d bought for her earlier.

Cute British Guy folded his fingers over hers in a friendly grip, and wow, those were some long fingers. About twice as long as my own. Concert pianist hands, well manicured and soft and graceful. “Eamon,” he said, and gave her a slightly shy smile and an inclined head that was like a hint of a bow. “Lovely to meet you, Sarah.”

She glowed like a sun at the attention. I mean, honestly. This, from a woman who was bitching half an hour before about how she’d rip the liver out of any man who tried to buy her a drink. She might have just set a new land speed record for rebounding.

Cherise grabbed my shoulder and yanked me off balance. I tottered on my high heels, caught my balance, and turned as she shoved me up to the order window.

“Get something fattening,” she said. “If you’re forcing me to eat here, I want to see you suffer.”

Just for sheer perversity, I went with the Quarter Pounder with Cheese. And fries.

Sarah, locked deep in conversation with Eamon, ended up snacking on a side salad and bottled water at another table, and forgot all about us.

I half expected Sarah to run off into the sunset, drop me a postcard from London thanking me for the use of my now-devastated Fairy Godmother Card, and live happily ever after until her next marital emergency, but no. The nice lunch with Eamon ended on a handshake parting that looked like no handshake I ever got from a lunch date, all eyes and smiles and long, beautiful fingers wrapping all the way to her wrist.

And then she was back with us. Glowing and smiling like the Madonna after a visitation.

“I’m done here,” she announced. Cherise, who was clearly not enjoying her salad, glared, but hell, at least she’d bought herself some nice hiphugger capri pants and matching shoes. Except for coffee and Mickey D’s, I hadn’t spent a dime on myself.

But then, my shopping enthusiasm was somewhat dampened by the dark, relaxed figure of Armando Rodriguez, who had taken up a seat at a table about twenty feet away, sipping even more coffee. Apparently, he intended to never, ever sleep again. Or leave me alone.

“Fine. Let’s go home,” I said, and piled trash on my tray. The place was giving me a headache, anyway. Too many people, too much noise, too many flashing, blinking, spinning lights.

By the time we were out of the mall, the rain was over, but the parking lot shone in slick black puddles that rippled and shuddered in the wake of passing cars. Humidity was murder, closing warmly around me like a saturated, microwaved blanket. I herded Cherise and Sarah and the profusion of bags to the car; by the time we were getting inside, our preferred, close-in space was being scouted by an eagle-eyed old vulture in a shiny Mercedes and a determined-looking teenybopper with the ink still wet on her learner’s permit. I pulled out and fled before the combat could get up to ramming speed. A few sullen raindrops spattered the windshield. Overhead, the sky was lead gray and utterly wrong; the patterns were definitely wonky. There was wobbling all up and down the aetheric, and little sparks of power as some other Warden made slight corrections. Nobody seemed too exercised about it, at least not yet; it was obviously not developing into the storm of the century. What was worrying to me about it was that I was supposed to be the only free-range talent out here. And somebody had messed with the weather to make this happen.

Thunder rumbled on cue. Resentfully.

“His name is Eamon!” Sarah said, leaning forward over the seats as I made my way toward the road. “Did you hear his accent? Isn’t it adorable?” Sarah always had been a sucker for a foreign accent. Hence, the whole French Kiss-Off debacle.

“Yeah. That’s Manchester, by the way, not West End London,” Cherise said, and inspected her fingernails in the sunlight to admire the glitter effect.

“Probably hasn’t got a dime, Sarah.” Never mind that she was tripping all over herself to get his attention before Sarah had captured the English flag. “I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you. He’s pretty, but he’s probably… you know.”

“What? Gay?”

“Nah, didn’t feel gay to me. Kinky. Most English guys are.”

“You think so?” She sounded interested, not alarmed, but then Sarah, I remembered belatedly, had stories about Spider-Man costumes and Velcro sheets.

Oh dear God. Top of the list of things I didn’t need to know about my sister …

I felt compelled to run the train off the tracks. “Oh, c’mon, he was just being friendly,” I said.

“Who are you kidding? He was jaw-droppingly cute,” Cherise said. “Cute guys are never just being friendly when they throw out pickups in the fast-food line.”

True. Cherise was heartless, gorgeous, and very perceptive. “It wasn’t like he kissed her or anything. It was a handshake.” I shrugged. “I’ll bet he didn’t even give her his phone number.”

“Actually…” Sarah said. I looked in the rearview mirror. She was dangling what looked like a crisp, white business card.

“Oh, kill me now,” Cherise sighed, and slumped down in the passenger seat. “I schlepped around the mall all day carrying another woman’s packages and what do I get? Dissed by a Brit. Man, I may just have to go seduce Kurt to restore my self-image.”

“Set yourself a challenge, at least,” I said. “Go for Marvin.”

“Ewwwww. Please. I need to have a self-image at the end of it. That’s just gross. You go for Marvin. He’s hot for you, you know.”

Sarah was reading over the business card. I distracted myself with that, to drive away the image of Marvin in his skivvies, leering at me. “So what does he do, your knight in shining tweed?”

“And don’t tell us he’s got some kind of title and a castle, or I really will commit suicide by Marvin,” Cherise said.

“He’s a venture capitalist. He’s got his own company. Drake, Willoughby and Smythe.” Sarah ran her newly manicured finger over the card type. “Raised printing. He didn’t just run it off on a laser printer or anything.” She frowned. “Although I guess he could be broke. Did he seem broke to you, Jo?”

“Hey, he could have lifted the card off of some guy he murdered at the airport,” Cherise said. “And then he stashed his body in a steamer trunk and checked it through to Istanbul. He’s probably a serial killer.”

We gave a moment of silent homage to the fact that Cherise’s mind actually worked that way. At least she’d steered away from any explanation involving aliens and body-switching.

I felt duty-bound to try a defense, even though I barely knew the guy. “First, Cherise? Way too many scary movies; second, Sarah, it might be a little early in the relationship to run a full Dun and Bradstreet on the poor man,” I said. “So? Are you going to call him?”

“Maybe.” That secret little smile again. “Probably.”

I couldn’t be too unhappy with that. If Sarah was dating, she wouldn’t be looking to hang with me quite so much, and her stay in my guest room would be very limited. Nothing like potential romance to get a woman motivated to be independent.

“Hey, Jo? That van’s still following you,” Sarah said. She was looking out the back window again, frowning. “I thought you said it was no big deal.”

“It’s not.”

Cherise piped up, “Then why’s he following you? Don’t tell me you have a stalker. You already have a boyfriend; it’s not fair you have a stalker, too. You’re not that cute.”

I eyed the van in the rearview. It was weaving in and out of traffic fluidly, not drawing attention but staying glued to my tail. Detective Rodriguez wasn’t worried about anonymity; he wanted me to know he was watching. A little psychological warfare.

He’d have to step up some to equal the stress of squiring around both Cherise and my sister.

“He’s not a stalker,” I said grimly. “He’s a cop.”

There was a short silence, and then Cherise said, “Cool. You’re two-timing the cute boy with a cop? Man, Jo, that beats Cute English Serial Killer Guy. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

The clouds cut loose with a vengeance, torrential curtains of silver rain shimmering like silk and pounding like hail against the windshield. I flipped the wipers into grumpy motion and slowed down; Mona didn’t like the rain, and I didn’t like the idea of controlling a skid in these conditions. Or repairs to a Viper, perish the thought. Paying off Sarah’s binge would take the rest of my working life as it was.

Behind me, the white van ghosted out of the rain and kept pace. I felt a snap of energy up in the aetheric, and a lightning bolt tore the sky with a sound like ripping silk, followed by vibrating thunder. I also felt the Wardens responding, this time with more force. It’s not me, not me… How exactly was I supposed to make myself look innocent? Actually being innocent wasn’t going to do it. I knew the Wardens far, far too well. They were already out for blood.

Cherise said, “I’m glad I put the top up on the car. You know, Marvin’s percentage keeps holding. I mean, no doubt he’s a total tool, and a real pervert, but he knows his weather.”

I bit my tongue. Hard.

I was going to have to look into Marvin, and the Percentage.

Cherise took off for parts unknown upon arrival at her car, walking the five steps to her convertible under the protection of an umbrella big enough to shelter an entire football team. No way was she going to get so much as a drop on her flawless shell. Sarah and I divided up the packages and ran for the apartment door, breathless and soaked to the skin in about five seconds flat.

The rain was hard-driving and cold, and it stung with the force of tiny, hard pellets. Shimmering silver curtains of it flared and billowed in the glow of streetlights. It was dark enough to be twilight, but it was—I checked my watch—only a little after two in the afternoon.

There was nothing currently brewing up out in the open waters off the coast of Africa… even if I hadn’t had a vested interest in the weather, as a Warden, I would still have known what was on the radar. Floridians follow hurricane season with at least as much attention as they give to professional sports.

There weren’t any tropical storms out there, at least none big enough to register at this point, though there was a low-pressure system hanging out there, waiting.

But this storm didn’t make sense. It shouldn’t have been here, and it didn’t look like it had any intention of moving on. And I couldn’t seem to really get a decent look at it, either. I was sluggish on the aetheric. Slow.

Maybe I really was tired. It had been kind of a full half day.

We made it to the apartment, dumped packages and wet shoes, and I squelched back to grab towels for us. Sarah’s hair fluffed out to look gleaming and fabulous.

Mine just looked frizzy. I glared at it in the bathroom mirror and decided on a hot bath and something tasty for dinner.

As I was laying out tomatoes and onions, the better to make some homemade Mexican food, the doorbell rang. I put the chopping knife down and tapped Sarah on the shoulder. She was sitting at the small kitchen table next to the water-rippled patio door, cutting tags off of her precious new acquisitions.

“Chop now,” I said. “Clothes maintenance later.”

She gave me an absolutely childish pout, but got to it. Sarah had taken culinary classes; it was one of those things you do in California when you’re rich and bored. I paused on the way to the door to watch her take my knife and start a rapid-fire slice-and-dice of the tomato, as competent as any sushi chef.

The bell rang again. I sighed and pushed my curling hair back from my face.

Still damp. I used a tiny spark of power to evaporate the moisture, was rewarded with dry hair and a white-blue static discharge from my fingers to the doorknob when I reached to touch it.

“Who is it?” I yelled, and pressed my eye to the peephole.

My heart did that funny little thumpy thing at the sight of the tall, brown-haired man standing out in the hall, hands jammed in the pockets of his blue jeans. I unzipped the chain and swung the door wide with a genuine smile.

“Lewis!”

“Hi,” he said, and came forward to fold me in a hug. He had to stoop a little to do it, and I wasn’t all that short; where he touched me I got that familiar sensation of vibration, of energy feeding and building up between us. Lewis was, without any doubt, the single most powerful Warden I’d ever known. A friend.

More than a friend, that would be fair to say… if it hadn’t been for David, probably a lot more. He fascinated me, and frightened me, too. He’d saved me and betrayed me and saved me again… complicated, that was my boy Lewis.

“What the hell happened to you?” I asked.

“What?” He stepped back, blinking.

“Last time I saw you, you looked like warmed-over death,” I said, and studied him more carefully. He actually looked as if he’d gotten some sun and discovered food again. “Remember? Lobby of the hotel in Nevada? You were still—”

“Shaky,” he supplied, and nodded. “I’m better.”

“How?”

He gave me one of those smiles. “Earth Warden.” He shrugged. “Rahel helped it along. I heal pretty quickly when I need to.”

“I’m glad. I was worried,” I said, and couldn’t quite keep the smile from my face. He just had that effect on me. “Oh, try not to say anything, you know, confidential. I have company.”

Lewis cocked an eyebrow toward the ceiling as he shut the door. “Male company?”

“Female. As in, sisterly.”

“I forgot you had a sister.”

“I spent most of my life trying to forget, too. But she’s family, and she needs a little—help. So I’m helping. You said something about Rahel helping you. Is she—are you—um—”

“She’s fine,” he said, which wasn’t an answer, and he knew it. Lewis wasn’t one to talk about his personal life, even to me. “David?” Equal parts genuine concern and irony. He and David liked each other well enough, but Lewis and I had history, and David knew it. “Doing better?”

I cut my eyes toward the kitchen, where the sound of chopping went on, opened my mouth to reply, and was interrupted by Sarah yelling, “Jo! Is that Eamon?”

Which stopped me in my tracks for a second. I held up one finger to Lewis and backtracked a couple of steps to look around the corner at Sarah, who was finishing up chopping the tomato and sliding the mathematically perfect cubes into a bowl. “Excuse me?” I asked. “Why would it be Eamon at the door, exactly?”

She glanced up, then set the bowl aside and made herself busy rinsing off the cutting board of tomato blood before putting the onion on the chopping block.

“Did you tell Eamon where I live?” I pressed.

“Well, you know, I gave him my phone number and—”

“Did you tell Eamon where I live?”

She pulled her lovely, ripe lips into a stubborn line and started attacking the onion. “I live here, too,” she said defensively.

“Wrong. You’re staying here, and Jesus, Sarah, you barely unpacked and you’re already giving out my home address to guys you meet at the mall… !”

I felt warmth behind me, and Lewis’s hand fell on my shoulder. “Sorry. Just thought I’d say ‘hi,’ and sorry, I’m not Eamon… Who’s Eamon?”

“Sarah’s mall pickup.” I sighed. “Sarah, meet Lewis. Old friend from college.”

She’d stopped chopping, instantly, and I could see her snapshotting him. Cute, she was probably thinking. But way too flannel. And she was right. Lewis was all about the old blue jeans and worn checked shirts. His hair was getting too long again, curling halfway down his neck, and there were smile lines around his eyes and mouth. I knew for certain that he’d never in his life owned a suit, and never would. He’d never have a hefty bank balance, either. Not Sarah’s type.

She smiled impartially at him. Sarah’s version of Hi, how are you, now go away.

I could see she was disappointed that Eamon hadn’t come calling to whisk her off to an evening of prime rib and a selection of stout British ales.

“We’re making Mexican food,” I said. “You’re staying, right?”

“Sure.” Lewis looked around. “Nice place, Jo. Different.”

“Thrift store,” I said, straight-faced. “Kind of like my life right now.”

“Could be worse.” Didn’t I know it. His gaze brushed mine, warm and full of concern. “I need to talk to you for a few minutes. Somewhere private?”

Which made all of my warm fuzzies curl up and die. I nodded silently and led the way out into the living room, then hesitated and took him into the bedroom and closed the door. The bed was still unmade. In normal times, Lewis might have made a sly little joke out of it, but he just sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at me, hands clasped loosely between his knees. He was a lanky thing, all awkward angles that somehow always looked weirdly graceful.

It made me feel… well. I’d missed him.

“Where’s David?” he asked.

“Let’s change the subject,” I answered. Not angrily, just with finality. The last time we’d had dealings, he’d been in a scheme to separate me from David, and I wasn’t having any of that, ever again. Lewis was probably the only Warden who knew I still had him, and that made me a little bit wary of the whole reunion vibe.

“You don’t want to talk about it, fine. I respect that.” Lewis rubbed the pads of his thumbs together and looked down at the carpet. “I’m only asking because I want to be sure you have… protection. People are asking questions about you.”

“People?”

“The wrong people. There’s a big discussion going on, and a pretty sizeable number are yelling about how you shouldn’t have been let out of the Association without—” He didn’t say the words being neutered, but that was pretty much what we both knew he meant. “—making sure you don’t continue to use your powers. They’re pointing to some anomalies down here as proof you’re still playing Warden without a license.”

That… wasn’t good. And it explained my visit from the Three Amigos yesterday morning. “Have you told them I’m not? That I’m abiding by the agreement?”

“I’m not telling them anything.” Lewis shook his head slowly. “Look, I’m in the Wardens now, but I’m not really… in the Wardens. You know what I mean. Whatever I have to say, it’s not likely to help you. They respect me. They don’t like me, and trust doesn’t enter into it.”

I did know. Lewis had spent a lot of years on the outside, making himself thoroughly lost from the Wardens, including me. A substantial number of Wardens probably didn’t want him around at all, and an even greater number thought he was useful but didn’t trust a thing he had to say.

“Then what’s Paul saying?” Paul Giancarlo, current acting National Warden, was a friend, too. But Paul had a streak of ruthlessness about a mile wide, and friendship wasn’t going to alter that one bit. Our friendship had taken some pretty good hits in the past few months, too. I wasn’t sure I could ever really forgive him for what he’d done to me in Nevada.

It’s one thing to put me in danger. It was quite another to blackmail me with the life of my lover. Not a thing friends did.

“He’s been trying to keep things reasonable.” Lewis looked up at me with those warm, compassionate eyes. “I’m just guessing on some of this, but from the level of conversation going on, somebody has information, and it may not be in your favor. It might be smart for you to lose yourself for a while. Just take David and go someplace new.”

“Just pick up and go?”

He nodded. He’d abandoned the Wardens early, and it had taken them years to find him. Actually, it wasn’t so much them finding him as me finding him, and he’d let himself be talked into staying. More or less. I suspected some days a lot less. “I think it would be a good idea for you to not present them with such an easy target right now. There’s too much going wrong, and nobody to blame for it. Too few Djinn, the Wardens are falling apart after that screwup at the UN Building—it’s a mess. Paul’s doing everything he can to hold things together, but honestly, Jo, I think they’re starting to look for people to scapegoat. You’re an obvious choice.”

“I haven’t done a damn thing.”

“I know. I’ve been watching.”

“What?” I took a couple of steps toward him, then stopped. “Want to rephrase that in some way that doesn’t sound, oh, creepy and stalkerish?”

“I wish I could, but it is what it is. Paul sent me. He wanted to be sure there was no truth to what was being said about you.”

“I haven’t been manipulating the weather!”

He nodded. “I know that. But somebody around here has been. Subtle, mostly, but that Tropical Storm Walter thing was a big screwup. You must have noticed—” He gestured at the windows, where rain lashed and lightning flashed. “I’m just saying that in the absence of a suspect, you’re looking awfully tempting. Whatever I say.”

“But you’ll tell them—”

“Yes. And do you really think they’ll care, in the end? Jo, I’m not exactly the fair-haired boy around there anymore. Besides, we have… history. It’s not a secret.”

He had a point. A kind of scary one, actually. “So what do I do?”

“Like I said, leave,” he said. “Or join the Ma’at. They can protect you.” The Ma’at were his own creation, a kind of low-wattage version of the Wardens—there weren’t any true powers in it, except for Lewis himself, and one or two others. Its strength had to do with its ability to negate power, not generate it. It was designed to restore balances that the Wardens—wittingly or unwittingly—had knocked out of whack.

Useful suggestions. However, I wasn’t generally fond of them, either. Wardens, Ma’at… none of them had gone out of their way to make sure I was taken care of, in the end.

Everybody had their own agendas. I’d quit because I was sick of being at the mercy of everyone else’s priorities but my own.

Speaking of that, Lewis was right. I should just go my own way. I should toss stuff in a suitcase, leave Sarah the keys to the apartment, and head out of town, David in the passenger seat and the road in front of me. But God, how long had I been doing that? Since the night that Bad Bob and I had fought, and I’d started running, I hadn’t had a home or a place in the world, and I was tired. I wanted… I wanted to rest.

I wanted to belong again, and to be part of the world.

“I’m staying,” I said softly. “I’ll be careful, okay? But I’m staying. I don’t want to live like that for the rest of my life, looking over my shoulder.”

Lewis reached out and took my hand in his. Big hands, scarred and a little rough in places. Strong fingers and a tight grip. “I’m your friend,” he said. “I’ll do what I can for you, you know that. But Jo, if it comes down to it, you have to be prepared to run. I don’t want to see you destroyed, but I don’t want to have to choose which side I’m on.”

I leaned forward and put a kiss on his forehead. “You won’t have to.” He was still holding my hand. His grip tightened, just a bit, and I felt that power humming between us again. We had a kind of complementary vibration to our talents, something that built in waves. Powerful. Dangerous. Kind of sexy, too.

It had always drawn us together, and at the same time, driven us apart. We’d had exactly one truly intimate encounter, and that had been pretty much earth-shattering, in a literal sense.

Lewis wasn’t a safe date, even if my heart didn’t already belong to David.

Sarah knocked on the bedroom door. “Hey! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do in there!” she yelled. “And the tomatoes and onions are chopped already. Do you want me to brown the meat?”

“Yes!” I yelled back, and rolled my eyes as I stepped back.

Lewis let go of my hand, stood up, and said, “You know, your sister reminds me a lot of you.”

I gave him a dirty look.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

I opened the bedroom door and went out to help make dinner.

It turned out to be okay, really. Lewis was pleasant company, Sarah more or less behaved herself, apart from grilling him mercilessly about the nature of my relationship with him, and going on and on about David, whom she hadn’t actually met, which sort of set my teeth on edge.

Lewis kissed me good night chastely on the cheek and strolled off into the night air, hands in his pockets, looking as if he might be planning on kicking back at the beach and doing nothing much. In reality, he was probably off to save the world. That was Lewis. False advertising in battered hiking boots. I wondered what Rahel and the Ma’at were up to.

Decided firmly that it was none of my business.

Sarah didn’t do dishes. Apparently they didn’t teach that particular skill in snobby culinary classes for bored, rich housewives. I did the dirty work and got to bed at about my normal time, set the alarm, and settled in for a short night’s sleep. I tossed and turned and missed David, missed him a lot. Hugged my pillow. Reached in the drawer, took out his bottle, and ran slow fingers over it.

But I didn’t call him back, and in the end I fell asleep touching the cool glass, imagining he could feel my hands on him.

Which led to a very nice dream. Which was cut short by the ringing of the telephone. I rolled over in bed, flailing, knocking over small, knockable things—luckily not the bottle still lying on the sheets next to me—and squinted at the red digital numbers on the bedside clock after combing the mess of tangled hair out of my eyes.

Three thirty in the morning.

It took six rings to remember where the phone was and fumble it to my ear; when I finally did, I heard a conversation already in progress.

“… a good day, then?” A velvety-smooth British voice, spiced with a lilt. Liquid and fast and a little spiked with adrenaline. “Sorry to be calling so late. I promise not to call you at this ungodly hour again; I was just on the phone with New Zealand and I forgot what time it was here. Will you forgive me?”

It took my sleep-fuzzed brain a minute to figure out why that voice was familiar. Oh, yeah. Eamon. I started to tell him to call back at some hour when people were actually awake, but Sarah’s voice interrupted me in midbreath.

She sounded languid and relaxed and very glad to hear from him. “No, not at all. I wasn’t really asleep.” Liar, liar, panties on fire.

My inner Miss Manners, who was barely awake and bitchy as hell, told me to hang up the phone before I heard something personal. Which I was going to do. Any second.

“Did you enjoy your day out with your sister?”

“Jo? Oh, yeah. She can be sweet, you know?” That was surprising. It threw me off track for a second, until she continued, “Well, when she wants to be. She’s been a total bitch to me most of our lives, though.”

Well, fine. Then I felt no guilt in listening, and besides, who the hell did Mr. Sexy English Guy think he was, calling up my sister at oh-dammit in the morning? I had to get up in an hour! And it was my apartment!

Miss Manners woke up a little more and reminded me that I’d be pretty damn pissed if she’d picked up the phone and listened in on, oh, say, me and David having intimate moments. I debated about it long enough to hear Eamon say, “No more trouble from the ex, though? Not got anyone else looking for you, has he?” He sounded genuinely concerned. “I just worry, you and your sister all alone. It’s a dangerous town, for two beautiful women on their own.”

Trouble? What trouble? There’d been trouble with Chrêtien? From the version Sarah had given me, the trouble had been with the lawyers. Nothing about physical danger.

But then Sarah sometimes omitted facts. Such as the initial significant detail about two-timing Chrêtien with his business partner. That hadn’t exactly been up-front information.

“You’re sweet,” Sarah said, in that half-asleep, breathless tone. I heard sheets rustling. If I could hear them, Eamon was hearing it, too. Sarah always had known how to work the flirt better than anyone I’d ever met. “No, I think he’s given that up. He just calls me, when he can find me. And says… cruel things.”

“I’m sorry.”

“At least he isn’t actually doing the cruel things anymore. Just talking about them.”

Chrêtien? Cruel? New idea to me. I mean, he’d always been shallow and supercilious; I just couldn’t see him as abusive. And she’d have told me, right?

Even if I was a total bitch. My sister would have told me if she’d been married to someone who hurt her.

Right?

“Sarah, he has money and a grudge,” Eamon said. “Bad combination. Does he know where you went?”

“He can guess. I haven’t got a lot of family.”

“Still worried, then?”

She sighed. “A little. About Jo. She’s—she doesn’t know when to quit, sometimes. I’m afraid if he does send someone, she might get hurt.”

“It may sound forward, but… you know that you can call me. Any time. Day or night. I’ll come right over,” Eamon said, and it was delivered in a half whisper, low in his throat. And yeah, I had to admit, my instant answer might have been Oh, yes, please, come on over right now, baby. But that would have been my silent internal answer. Right before I calmly told him no, thank you, right out loud.

Right, I reminded myself from the lofty moral high ground. Because you’ve never done anything like that. Hell, I’d picked up David as a hitchhiker on the side of the road. The lofty moral high ground and I were the proverbial slippery slope.

Sarah gave a low-voiced laugh. “You’re an awful flirt.”

“Not at all,” he said. “I’m an honorable man. I’d sleep on the couch, love. Completely platonic. Pure as the driven snow.” His voice dropped even lower. “Sarah. I know all of this is really sudden—but I like you. And I want to get to know you better. I hope you don’t think that’s inappropriate.”

“No.”

“Good.” I could almost hear the smile through the phone. “Then you don’t mind if I call again? Or see you in person?”

“Not at all,” she purred.

Not at all, I mocked silently, making a face at the phone. And held my breath as I slid it into the cradle and hung up, finally convinced that maybe I was a little out of line.

As I did, warm lips touched my shoulder, and David said, “What are you doing?”

I yelped—loudly—and twisted around in the sheets, ending up wrapped like a mummy, and saw him up on one elbow, stretched out in the moonlight. Gorgeous as a midnight dream, with those eyes burning like low-banked fire. “What are you doing?” I demanded breathlessly. “Hey! You should be—”

He put two fingers on my lips to hush me. “I should be here,” he said, and replaced fingers with his mouth, a warm, liquidly intimate kiss that melted me into butter-warm contentment from the inside out. There was tongue, and hands sliding under the sheets, and oh my God, it was nice. My sleepy nerve endings came awake with an electric hum.

Outside, the rain was still falling, a steady whisper against the glass, and it reminded me that I had an hour before I had to shower and drive to the studio to be humiliated again by Marvelous Marvin and his horse’s-ass predictions that seemed way too lucky to be true.

“I have to get up soon,” I said, and worked my way down his bare chest with slow, damp circles of my lips and tongue, over the trembling, velvet-warm planes of his stomach…

I heard the breath come out of him in a slow, moaning rush.

“Then we should hurry,” he whispered, and stroked the curls from my hair.

In the morning—well, the predawn darkness—the rain finally stopped just in time for me to pull into the parking lot. My carefully straightened hair looked glossy and gorgeous when I checked it in the mirror; I did makeup fast, forbade Genevieve to backcomb anything on me, and then got a look at the outfit she had hanging on the rack next to the door.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. She shrugged massive, muscular shoulders.

“Oh, God, I’ll pay you money if you say you’re kidding.”

“You can’t afford me, darling,” she said, and lit up a Marlboro. There was no smoking in here. She never had cared. I held my breath and got out of the chair to take my costume off the hanger, and held it up to the light.

Apparently, Marvin’s prediction was going to be sunny and warm. I was going to be wearing a huge, clownish, foam rubber yellow sun, with a hole cut in it just big enough for my face. Armholes and legholes, and yellow tights.

“No,” I said. “I’m not wearing this. Tell Marvin—”

“Tell me what?” Marvin walked up and threw a heavy arm around my shoulders, leaned in, and looked down my shirt. He smelled like bad cologne and breath mints and a sour aftertaste of alcohol left over from the night before. His hair implants still looked like seedlings, but he’d cover them up with the toupee before going on the air, Visine the reddened eyes, and do a quick white-up on his teeth. Marvin knew television the way other, better meteorologists knew their way around a satellite graphic. “What’s wrong? Don’t like the outfit? Should have come to breakfast with me yesterday, heh heh.”

I forced a smile and reminded myself that I needed a job, and this one paid better than working the register at the 7-Eleven, with a slightly smaller chance of being robbed. “I’d rather not wear it,” I said. And tried to sound professional about it. “How about something else? Something less—”

“Kids love Sunny,” he said, and squeezed the foam rubber, right about where my chest would be. “She’s just so huggable. C’mon, Jo. Be a sport.”

The jovial tone wasn’t fooling me; his eyes were mean and bright, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer. The news director, a harried young guy by the name of Michael, wasn’t going to be taking any moral stand against foam rubber, and so far as I knew, there was no Weathergirl Union to protect me from this crime against fashion.

“Fine,” I said, and forced a smile. “No problem.”

He winked, swear to God. He did.

I had to sincerely fight the impulse to channel a lightning bolt.

The segment went about as badly as I could ever hope. My lines were stupid, the foam rubber sun suit was hot, Marvin was obnoxious, and Cherise was notoriously absent from the moral support trenches. They threw more water on me, this time to warn of some unusually big waves. One of the stagehands giggled.

As I was stripping off the sticky, sweaty tights, Genevieve took time off from her smoke break to toss me a towel and say, “You know, you’re better than he deserves. You actually make him look good. Me, I’d forget my lines and throw up on him.” She raised an overplucked eyebrow significantly and flicked her Bic on a fresh cancer stick.

I dropped the damp tights into the laundry basket—three points—and wriggled my toes in the ecstasy of freedom. “Would that work?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said. “Worked for the last two girls. Well, okay, one of them went postal and beat him with a rubber fish. But actually, ratings went up, so maybe it’s not such a good idea to go that direction, especially with the fish. Hey, you know what? Your hair looks good. You ought to take a beach day. It’s supposed to be sunny.”

We both laughed, and I smacked palms with her and left her to backcomb the noon anchorwoman into submission.

The weather was clearing in the east, but as I stood and felt the wind, I knew that it wouldn’t stay that way; another wave of damp, cool air was moving in over the ocean, and the collision with the existing high-pressure system was going to drive more clouds. Rain today. Rain tomorrow, probably. Sunshine, my ass. Marvin had to be wrong, or else he had a Warden in his back pocket. But who? Not me, obviously. And since the local office here was run by John Foster, one of the few truly honest Wardens I’d ever known, I couldn’t see it. But John had a flaw. He trusted people, until they let him down.

I wondered if I should start seriously looking around for the culprit. In self-defense.

You have power, I reminded myself. You can call storms and lightning and water. You can kick ass if necessary. Yeah, and get my ass dragged in for a magical lobotomy for my troubles. Not a good situation. I was too aware of what Lewis had said. I hadn’t used my powers at all, and even so, the Wardens were turning against me. If I used them now, even in self-defense…

As I rounded the corner heading for my car, I spotted a depressingly familiar white van. It was sequined with leftover rain that glittered orange in the rising sun.

Dammit.

Rodriguez was sitting in the driver’s seat, eating the last crumbs of a Danish.

He had a tiny little LCD television plugged into the lighter on the dashboard, tuned to WXTV. He’d been watching—and no doubt enjoying—my morning’s humiliation as Sunny the Wonder Idiot.

Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better.

“Having a good time?” I asked him. He wiped Danish from his mouth with a napkin, licked his lips, and sipped coffee. “Because this is getting old. Go home. I can’t tell you anything.”

“Sure you can,” he said. “Hop in. Explain to me how you knew Tommy Quinn, and what happened to him. Confession is good for the soul.”

“This is a waste of time. Yours and mine both.”

“Well, I’m on extended leave, so my time is my own,” he said. “And about your time, I don’t particularly give a shit. You are going to talk to me. Sooner or later.”

I was tired, pissed off, and felt violated by the morning in general; nothing like being the foam rubber butt of bad jokes to put you in a great mood to start the day. But even more than that, I was just tired. I felt… heavy. Exhausted. Gray.

And maybe that was why I made the snap decision to shoot my mouth off.

“Fine,” I snapped. “Thomas Quinn was not a nice man, and if he was your friend, I’m sorry, but believe me, you’re better off without him. He’d have stuck a knife in your back in a second if he’d thought it was worth the trouble. And I don’t mean figuratively.”

Rodriguez had gone still and very, very cold, watching me. Cop-cold, with a human fury burning somewhere underneath.

“Tommy was a good man,” he said with deliberate calm. “A good cop. Good husband, and a good father.” The fury underneath burned its way to the surface. “I saw him pull a six-month-old baby out of a burning building and puke his guts out when it died in his arms. You don’t know a fucking thing. He was a good man.”

I remembered Quinn, all those facets and impressions I’d had of him. I’d liked him. I’d feared him. I’d hated him. I hadn’t known him at all, and neither had Armando Rodriguez, regardless of what he might think. People like Quinn weren’t really knowable. They never showed you their true faces.

“He was also a murderer and a torturer and a rapist,” I said. “But you know, nobody’s ever just one thing.”

I was walking away, digging for my car keys, when Rodriguez said from behind me, “Hold up. You said was. Past tense.”

I kept walking, cold settling in between my shoulder blades. I heard the creak of metal, heavy footsteps on wet pavement behind me, and I had time to think oh, shit just before he grabbed hold and shoved me forward into the wet, slick finish of the Viper’s passenger-side door. The breath puffed out of me; partly shock, partly the impact, and before I could even think about resisting he had both my arms behind my back, gripped in one huge hand, and the other hand holding my head down, pressed painfully against the roof of the car. My hair had fallen in a black curtain over my face, and it puffed in and out with my fast, scared breathing. I was off balance and shocked and my arms felt like they were about to be ripped right out of my sockets.

I felt myself reflexively reach for the air and water around me, and forced myself to let go of it. I had bigger problems than Detective Rodriguez.

“Settle down,” he growled at my ear. Another jerk on my arms. “Settle.”

I wasn’t even aware I’d been fighting, and it damn sure didn’t matter anyway; there was no way I was breaking free. I had no leverage at all. I forced myself to relax, and the pain in my arms reduced to a dull throb. I couldn’t fight with supernatural means. For all I knew, the Wardens were parked across the street, monitoring my every move.

“You’d better listen to me,” Rodriguez said. “I’m not playing with you. You know what happened to Tommy; you’d better tell me right now or I swear, I’m going to toss you in the back of that van and we’re going to go someplace we can talk in private a really, really long time. You got me? I can make you hurt. Believe it.”

“Okay,” I whispered. Metal felt cold against my cheek, the raindrops as warm as tears. “You don’t want to know this. I’m not kidding you, you really don’t. Let him be who you think he was. Let his family remember him that way. I can’t do anything to make it any better—ah!”

That last was a sharp cry, just short of a scream, ripped out of me when he wrenched up on my wrists and dug a knee into my ass to grind me harder against the car. Nothing sexual about this; it was all pain. He didn’t care that I was a woman. I was just a suspect, and I had something he wanted.

Just then, a car turned the corner and slowed down to pull into the parking lot.

Not one I recognized. Not Cherise’s flashy little chickmobile; this was a conservative black sedan, with rental plates. Two people in it, that was all I could make out through the veil of my hair and the tears in my eyes.

It screeched to an abrupt halt, and the driver’s side door flew open.

I felt a sudden, visceral rush of relief as Armando Rodriguez let go of me. I collapsed against Mona’s sleek finish, knees wobbling, and clawed hair out of my eyes to look over my shoulder.

The cop walked quickly but without panic back to his white van, got in, and gunned the engine. He’d picked the premium getaway spot, I noticed. It was a slick exit. He turned right and disappeared into traffic within seconds.

A strong pair of hands gently closed around my waist and helped me steady myself. I smelled expensive cologne. “All right?” a low, liquid voice asked. I managed to nod. “Do you know that man?”

I looked up to see my rescuer, and for a panicked second I didn’t recognize him.

Then all the pieces clicked together. Slightly shaggy brown hair, beard, mustache. Warm British voice.

Eamon.

I didn’t have either the breath or the time to answer his question. “Oh my God! Jo, are you all right?” Sarah’s shrill voice ratcheted a couple of octaves higher with fright. She hit me in a flying rush, hugging me, and I winced when I felt strained muscles creak.

And then I hugged her back, grateful for the unquestioning love and concern in her embrace.

Eamon stepped away and watched the two of us, blue-gray eyes bright in the morning light. After a moment, he put a hand on Sarah’s shoulder.

“It’s all right, she’s safe now,” he said in a steadying voice. “Joanne? Are you hurt?”

I shook my head and pulled back from Sarah’s hug. “No, no, I’m all right. Thank you.”

“We were coming to see if you wanted to go to breakfast,” Sarah blurted. “Oh my God, Jo, that man—that was the same van! He was—was he trying to abduct you? Did he—”

“I’m okay,” I interrupted. “Really, Sarah, I’m okay. He was just trying to scare me.”

Eamon, apparently reassured that I wasn’t bleeding profusely or otherwise horribly injured, took a step away and looked at the street where Rodriguez’s van had disappeared. His eyelids dropped slightly, hooding the hard light in his eyes. “Looked like more than a scare to me, love,” he said. “Looked like he was really trying to hurt you.”

“As big as he is, if he’d wanted to hurt me, I’d be hurt,” I said, which was pure wishful thinking; actually, I was hurt. My arm ached like a son of a bitch.

I didn’t want to move it much. “Besides, he’s—” A cop. I don’t know why I didn’t say it. Years of concealing things. Old habit. “—He’s gone.”

“And what if he comes back?” Eamon asked, reasonably enough. “Seems persistent.”

“I can take care of myself.”

He turned that look full on me, and I felt something inside both shudder and jump at the force of it. “Can you?”

I straightened and nodded.

“Well, then,” he said. “I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“But—” Sarah frowned.

Eamon took her hand in his, and she went quiet. Well, I would’ve, too. There was something gentle and persuasive in the way he did it, not a shut up kind of gesture, but something reassuring. Comforting. “Let’s talk over breakfast,” he said, and led her back to the rental car. Handed her into the open passenger side door with an old-fashioned grace, then turned to me as he shut it. He was wearing a dark shirt today, top two buttons undone, and a freshly pressed pair of dark pants. Long, thin shoes—I was no expert on men’s couture, but the shoes looked vaguely like Bruno Magli. Expensive. Maybe even custom.

He sure didn’t look poor. Not at all.

“Coming?” he asked me, and quirked his eyebrows.

I took a deep breath. “Sure.”

He opened the back door and held it for me like a gentleman while I slid inside.