Asher just looked at me with his pale, pale eyes. "Your life means more to him than mine does, Anita. If it did not, he would be in my bed and not yours."
He had a point, but ... "It would kill something inside of him to kill you personally."
"But he would do it," Asher said.
"Why? Because he said he'd do it?"
"No, because he would always wonder if I allowed you to die as revenge for his failure to protect Julianna."
Oh. I opened my mouth to say more, and the phone rang. Daniel's voice came low and panicked, backed by country music.
"Anita, we're out at the Happy Cowboy on the main highway. Can you come down?"
"What's wrong, Daniel?"
"Mom's tracked down the woman who accused Richard. She's determined to make her stop lying."
"Are they fighting yet?" I asked.
"Yelling."
"You outweigh her by over a hundred pounds, Daniel. Just toss her over your shoulder and get her out of there. She'll only make things worse."
"She's my mother. I can't do that."
"Shit," I said.
Asher asked, "What has happened?"
I shook my head. "I'll be there, Daniel, but you're being a wimp."
"I'd rather take on every guy in the bar than my mother," he said.
"If she makes a big enough scene, you may get your chance." I hung up. "I cannot believe this."
"What?" Asher asked again.
I explained as quickly as I could. Daniel and Mrs. Zeeman were staying at a nearby motel. Richard hadn't wanted them at the cabins with so many shapeshifters running around. Now I wished we'd kept them closer to home.
It would have been nice to have changed out of the blood-splattered blouse, but we were out of time. No rest for the wicked.
The real trick was what to do with Richard. He'd want to come along, and I didn't want him anywhere near Miss Betty Schaffer.
Legally, he could enter the bar and sit down beside her. There was no court order to stay away. But if the sheriff realized we weren't getting out of town, he'd look for any excuse to get Richard back behind bars. I didn't think Richard would have nearly as pleasant a second visit as he had a first. Their ambush today had backfired. They'd be frustrated and scared. They'd hurt Richard this time. Hell, they might hurt his mother. Charlotte Zeeman and I were going to have to have a little talk. Come to think of it, I was with Daniel. I'd have rather faced a full-blown bar fight than have a talk with his mother. At least she'd never be my mother-in-law. If I was going to have to punch her out tonight, that was almost comforting.
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.