Laura?
No, no.
Hmmm.
“—no trouble to come back to the Cities with you.”
“You're sweet,” I said again, “but it's my mess to clean up, not yours. But think about what I said. About this fall.” I drained my tea and finished. “Now, if I expect to make some time before the sun comes up, I'd better book. Sorry to barge in on you like this.”
“Wait, wait.” Delk grabbed a Post-It and scribbled on it, then stuck it to my arm. “That's my cell. Call me and I can be in the Cities in less than a day.”
“Thanks,” I said, not mentioning that Tina had extensive files on various ways to track him down. I pulled it off my arm and stuck it in my pocket. “I'll treasure it always.”
“Say hi to Jessica and Marc for me.”
“Sure. Thanks for not staking me the minute I knocked on your door.”
“Aww. You're too cute to stake.”
All of a sudden I was in a big hurry to leave. I was afraid I'd weaken and tell him to come back with me—I was so tired of being by myself. And I felt guilty about his crush. He'd forgiven me pretty quickly for what I still considered to be an unforgivable act. Was that my fault? I'd never led him on deliberately. I didn't think.
“Want to hear something funny?” he asked, getting up to walk me to the door.
“Absolutely.”
“I wrote the publishing house. The one that's publishing Undead and Unwed? I pretended to be a reviewer, and they sent me an ARC.”
“ARC?”
“Advanced reader's copy. Of my book. It's kind of cute. It's told in first person. You know—you're telling your own story.”
Suddenly the front door was about a hundred miles away. Guilt was washing over me like a tsunami. “Oh?” I managed, trying not to gallop the rest of the way to the door.
“Yeah.”
“Delk, I'm—”
“I know.” He looked at me thoughtfully. I tried not to look at his nipples. “I guess if you're going to be the queen, you have to be the queen.”
Whatever that meant. “Yep, that's about right.”
“But I hope you'll remember that you were human first, and for a lot longer.”
“I try to.” Finally, a pure truth. “Every day, I try to. It's sort of what drives the other vampires batshit.”
He grinned. “Well then! An even better reason to keep it up.”
“Thanks for the tea.”
“Thanks for having the courtesy to come and see me yourself.”
He held the door open for me. We stood there, fairly awkwardly, while I tried to think of something to say. I didn't dare kiss him, not even a buss on the cheek. Shaking hands seemed kind of overly formal, given all we had been through. Not doing anything at all would be rude.
“Fuck it,” I said, and grabbed him and gave him a resounding kiss on each cheek, real smackers. “There. Bye.”
“Hey, if it turns out Sinclair is dead—”
“Stop.”
“Too soon for jokes?”
“Just a bit.” I started down the steps. “Behave yourself. Maybe I'll see you in September.”
“More like probably,” he said cheerfully. He let the porch door slam behind him and leaned on the railing. “It'd be worth it just to irritate the piss out of your runaway groom.”
"You're not staring at my ass as I walk away, are you?
“Of course I am!”
I grinned in spite of myself and shot him the finger over my right shoulder. He waved as I started the car and put it in gear, and I flashed my high-beams in response.
Cross another suspect off my list. But I felt slightly better for coming. And I made a promise to myself. Two promises. I would fix Delk up, and no matter what it took, I'd make sure he got the credit for Undead and Unwed, as well as the royalties.
How? I had no idea. But it was the least I could do.
Chapter 30
“I can't believe you're babysitting me."
“Hey, you didn't have to come.”
“Uh-huh. Rattling around that mausoleum you live in was a much better plan.”
“Mom, can I have some more paper?”
Jeannie and Lara Wyndham and I were back at the bridal shop. Tonight was the first night of the full moon. My wedding was in four days.
Denial? Was that why I was here? Pretending everything was fine and I really was getting married next week? Well, yeah. Besides, if Sinclair did show up (or if I was ever able to figure out where he was), I had no plans to walk down the aisle naked.
Given that I'd been planning my wedding since the seventh grade, it was slightly insane that I'd left the dress for so late. Not only did it have to be The Dress, but at this stage of the game it needed to require few if any alterations.
The florist was taken care of, ditto the reception menu. The justice of the peace was booked—he was a friend of my mom's. The RSVPs had all come in long before Sinclair had disappeared. It was a small civil ceremony, so there'd be no rehearsal. No bridesmaids, either, though I'd picked out designer suits for my girlfriends to wear, all Vera Wangs, all jewel colors.
Speaking of jewel colors, Lara was lying on the floor, drawing with Crayola Sparkly Markers. Jeannie was slumped in one of the armchairs, staring at the ceiling. And, what came as a pleasant surprise, she wasn't armed. And I was trying not to remember the last time I'd been at the bridal shop, when things had been almost normal.
“How was your wedding?” I asked, waiting for the clerk to haul out some dresses.
She snorted. “I didn't have one. The day I met Michael I got knocked up with this one.” She nodded at her daughter. “As far as werewolves are concerned, that was the wedding.”
“Really?” I was interested in spite of my own problems. “I'm kind of in the same boat. We've got this thing called The Book of the Dead, which foretold— uh—me. And my fiancé, Sinclair. So he always figured we were married, too. Even when I couldn't stand him, he assumed we were hitched.”
“Aggravating.”
“Say it twice. Anyway, the last thing he wanted was a real wedding with a dress and a caterer and a cake we can't eat.”
“Oh. And now he's gone?”
“Yeah.”
Jeannie was probably a lousy poker player. I was grateful she was too tactful to suggest Sinclair hadn't been kidnapped. She looked at me, bit her lip, and then went back to staring at the ceiling.
“I hope we get this cleared up sooner rather than later,” she fretted, shifting in her seat. Her shoulder-length hair, normally curly, was bordering on frizzy, thanks to the humidity, and she shoved a wad of it behind one ear and crossed her legs. “I haven't seen my son in a week.”
“Oh? How many kids do you have?”
“Lara here, and my son, Aaron. He'll be two next month.” She sighed. “Obviously this trip was too dangerous for a toddler.”
“Uh.” I glanced at Lara, reassuring myself she was engrossed and paying no attention. “Not to tell you your business, but I think it's too dangerous for anybody under thirty.”
She smiled thinly. “Lara will be the next Pack leader. The more she knows about the world before she has to take over, the better.”
“Yeah, but—not much time to just be a kid, huh?”
Jeannie said nothing. But I could tell she didn't like it. What must it be like, I wondered, to be a human in the middle of a bunch of werewolves? In love with your husband and glad enough to have kids with him, but caught up in a society with completely different rules?
I could so totally relate.
“So even though you have a little boy, Lara will—?”
“The mantle's passed down by birth order, not gender.”
“How refreshing!” And I meant it. Men usually got all the breaks.
“Yeah. But I see where you're going with all this. And yeah, I wish I could protect Lara from—well, everything. But a werewolf cub isn't like a human child. Even a half/half, like my daughter. They're bolder than we are, and faster, more pragmatic and. . . well, crueler, in some ways. From the day she was born she was different than any human baby. I swear, she was born without the fear gene.”