“Why not roast them? All it takes is carrots, olive oil, and a little salt. The high heat caramelizes the sugars. Delicious.”
“Have you done that?” she demanded. When he admitted he had, she asked, “How long does it take? The quiche will be in the oven.”
“About twenty minutes, but they can go on the bottom rack while the quiche bakes above.”
She sighed in relief. “You’re in charge of carrots, then. Here.” She pulled two pounds of carrots from the refrigerator. “The quiche takes fifty minutes.”
Toby finished vacuuming and was immediately put to work setting the table. Rule was scraping carrots when his phone beeped. “Toby, would you answer that for me, please? My hands are messy.”
His phone was in its holster, hung from his belt. Toby retrieved it. “Hello, this is Toby Asteglio. My dad’s peeling carrots.” He listened a moment. “Okay. Dad, it’s Alex Thibideux. He wants to know if he should call back later.”
“No, I’ll take it.” Quickly Rule rinsed his hands. He gave Toby a smile. “Alex is the Leidolf Lu Nuncio. I am always available to him.”
Toby didn’t say anything, but the face he made when Rule said “Leidolf” spoke for him. It was a prejudice he needed to put a stop to—now more than ever. “You’d like Alex,” he said casually, drying his hands. “He’s an honorable man and an excellent fighter. Your uncle Benedict considers him one of the few who can make him work for a win.”
Toby perked up slightly. “Yeah?”
Rule nodded. “He probably saved my life during the, ah, commotion following the Turning. Thank you,” he added, taking the phone. “Yes?”
Alex’s gravelly voice greeted him. “What’s this ‘probably,’ Nokolai whelp?”
Rule grinned. He and Alex got along well these days. Odd as it seemed, they might be on their way to real friendship. “Probably, Leidolf runt,” he repeated. The “runt” was carefully chosen. When on two legs, Alex was six feet and well over two hundred pounds, all of it muscle. His wolf was equally outsize. “I wasn’t, perhaps, in the best shape at the time—”
Alex snorted.
“—but my nadia was present. She might well have retrieved one of those rifles before Brady finished me.”
“She doesn’t lack guts, I’ll give you that. Here’s the deal. I drove up so I could look over the area you’ve proposed for the gens compleo. Been in those woods before, but it’s been years. Thought I could give you a hand selecting the spot.”
“I’d appreciate that. You’re in Halo now? Where are you staying?”
That’s when Rule lost control of the situation. He couldn’t say later how it happened, except that Louise overheard and would not hear of Rule’s friend eating in “some burger joint,” especially when he would make their numbers right. They’d sit eight at the table if he joined them, she said, as if that were the clincher.
When Rule gently pointed out that Alex would make them nine at table, not eight, she immediately switched course and nine was the magic number; and besides, her table had two leaves, so there was plenty of room, and she’d already decided to make two quiches. So Rule ended up inviting the Leidolf Lu Nuncio to dinner with his son, his friend, his mate, his son’s mother, his son’s mother’s new husband, his son’s grandmother, and his son’s grandmother’s neighbor.
He began to see what Toby meant about his grandmother and parties.
“Rule, do vegans drink wine?” Louise called from the pantry.
“As far as I know.”
“Vegans,” Alex repeated, his voice lacking all inflection. He would, of course, have heard Louise—who probably didn’t realize that.
“Yes, Louise’s new son-in-law is vegan. She’s making a wonderful spinach and tofu quiche that should work for him.”
Alex was silent a moment. “Thanks, Turner. I’ll be sure to eat a couple burgers first.” He disconnected.
So did Rule. If he became Alex’s Rho permanently, there would be no chance of friendship between them. Alex would despise him. Rule regretted that possible loss keenly.
“The spoons go with the knives, right?” Toby called from the dining room.
“Yes. The blade should face the plate, not out.” But that regret was nothing, nothing at all, compared to what he felt as he watched his son align knives and spoons carefully on the wrong side of each plate.
LILY blasted through the door at six twenty. Connie Milligan was in the kitchen with Louise; the other guests hadn’t arrived yet. Rule had just come upstairs to shrug into his suit jacket, so he heard her rapid-fire apology to Louise as she streaked for the stairs. Apparently she believed six thirty meant six fifteen at the latest.
He met her at the head of the stairs. She handed him a folder. “Here. It’s incomplete. Ruben had one of his hunches.”
He looked inside. His eyebrows lifted. “You asked Ruben to run the check on James French?”
“Not exactly. Like I said, he had one of his hunches. I’ll explain later. I’ve got to get ready.” She cast a regretful look at the door to the bathroom. “Not enough time for a shower.”
“We don’t have to be down at the stroke of six thirty.”
“Yes, we do. In my mother’s eyes, tardiness for a family dinner is a decapitation offense.”
He ran his hand along her neck. “Hmm. Still attached.”
“My father routinely commutes the sentence.” She laid her hand over his. Her eyes darkened with feeling, but her voice was quiet. “Rule? Did Cullen . . . What did he say?”
He jerked his head, indicating their room. She followed him in; he shut the door. And she put her arms around him, bringing him the rightness of her scent, the living heat of her body. She didn’t speak. She just held him.
And undid him. A slow tsunami shuddered up his spine, all the crammed feelings unwinding in a mudslide of fear and fury, razors and sludge. All, all at once, rolling up through him so that all he could do was hold on. Hold on.
He wrapped himself around her and inhaled hard, bringing the citrus of her shampoo inside him, the musk of her skin, the slight tang of cinnamon from her breath . . . red hots. She loves those cinnamon red hots. The thought was absurdly comforting, unleashing another flood, this one of fondness for all the small pieces of her he’d picked up along the way, like shells washed ashore by the ocean.
He rubbed his cheek against her hair, resting in her, man and wolf leaning into love as if it were a pillow, a bed, a stream he could float on.
Overload, then release. It was no wonder his eyes filled. That was all right. He was safe here. He didn’t have to hide.
Except that he did. Not the feelings, but some of the facts. Some, he realized, not all. And there can be enough space between some and all to wedge in some truth.
Hadn’t Toby done the same thing? “Nadia,” he murmured to her hair, then straightened so he could see her face. Worry, fear—he saw those plainly. She’d held them close, held herself silent, so she could give him what he needed.
He touched her cheek. “I’ve convinced you Cullen’s news was bad. It wasn’t, not wholly, but it was difficult. It brings me a choice that’s all edges, and—Lily, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you what he said. He needed my word not to repeat him, and I gave it.”
A carefully chosen promise, he understood now, and wanted to hug Cullen—and slap himself for not catching on earlier. Cullen had steered the conversation so that Rule promised specifically not to repeat Etorri’s secret. He hadn’t promised to keep that secret. Keeping it would mean safeguarding it, doing all he reasonably could to be sure no one learned of it through him.