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3
Grandmother Blake didn’twant to be close to Nicky and me after that, which was fine with me. I needed time to think about what the hell had just happened. In fact, she stayed silent for the short walk to the luggage carousels, though they never seemed very much like merry-go-rounds to me, more like flat metallic snakes. As a child on the last big vacation before Mom died, I remembered running ahead to see the carousel and being so disappointed that there weren’t horses to ride. Now I looked through the crowd of strangers waiting for their luggage to find my grandmother talking low and urgently with my father. She was fingering something at her throat, and I knew the gesture from childhood. It was the gold cross that she wore constantly. It must have been hidden under the blue button-up sweater and high-necked blouse she was wearing. My cross was hanging on a long chain under my clothes for safety, always so awkward to spill out around the vampires I loved, but in case there were vampires around that weren’t my friends I wore it anytime we weren’t at home. How had I never realized that Grandma Blake had her own spark of death magic hiding behind all her Catholic self-righteousness? Nicky leaned over to whisper, “How would untrained-child you know it wasn’t your magic?” He was right. It was such a small flash of power that even just ten years ago I wouldn’t have realized it wasn’t mine.
I smiled up at him and had to fight off the urge to hug him. God, I wanted the reassurance of touch from Nicky so badly.
“How about I take over bodyguard duty for a few minutes?” Ethan said as he came up to us to help with the luggage. I looked up into his perfectly gray eyes set into a handsome face with his white hair and its gray lowlights, that one dark red streak that went from the thick fall of hair near his eyes and all the way to where the back was so short it was partially shaved. The colors were all-natural, showing most of the different weretiger clans that ran through his genetics. The new haircut looked good on him, but it was his girlfriend’s approval that mattered, not mine.
“Your opinion matters,” he said, softly.
I shook my head. “Not as much as Nilda’s opinion matters.”
His face filled with the happiness of being in love with the werebear Nilda. It made me smile to see that look on his face and feel a wash of the emotions that went with it. I wanted to give him a hug, just because I was happy for him, but I couldn’t compromise both of them and I needed Nicky’s arms more in that moment.
I realized that it wasn’t just Ethan who was here to help with luggage and security. I hadn’t sensed them, and some of them were metaphysically connected to me. Shit, I had to do better than this in public.
Andria came to stand with us. “Is this another member of your poly group?”
I started to say no, then realized that Ethan and I did have sex occasionally and I was the only woman that Nilda was willing to share him with, so technically…“Yes,” I said without trying to explain more.
She did a quick eye flick up and down on Ethan, then looked at me with a smile on her face that I couldn’t quite read. “How do you find this many handsome, in-shape men to date when most women can’t find one?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” I said, because the real answer was too complicated for public, especially with someone who had never kept mysecrets the few times I made the mistake of confiding in her. We’d been kids, but I’d learned my lesson.
Nicky took my hand in his and turned me into his body like the beginning of a dance. I wrapped my arms around him, hands tracing the curve of his body underneath the leather jacket, so I could put my hands in that pocket of warmth behind his back where the jacket trapped the heat. I had to be careful to go above the gun at his waist so I wouldn’t raise the leather jacket and flash it to the general public. He looked scary enough without the gun. If his waist hadn’t been proportionally smaller than his upper body, I wouldn’t have been able to encircle him with my arms. I rested the side of my face against his chest, letting myself sink into the solid promise of him. His arms tightened around me with only a fraction of his strength pressing me closer. I knew how much tighter he could hold me, but now was not the time for that.
“Later,” he murmured, and laid the gentlest of kisses against the top of my hair. When we had sex it was rough, bondage that scared a few of my shared lovers who had seen us together, but we were also this together. It was the combination that made it work for us. Without these moments we’d have been play partners but not in love. Now it was like we breathed each other in, melted against each other’s bodies, and drew energy, love, hope from each other.
I drew back so I could gaze up at him, and he loosened his arms so I could do it comfortably. His face was open and shining with love, the smile too open for public, but I could feel that mine was the same. Love is great, but it’s different from beinginlove, like the difference between gazing over the cliff edge at the great view and leaping off, trusting that the love you share will catch you before you hit the ground.In lovewas a leap of faith.
“If this is how you are with the man you’re not going to marry, I can’t wait to see you with Jean-Claude,” Andria said. I think she was trying for teasing, but when I glanced at her face it didn’t match the lightness she was trying for; she looked serious, her eyes full ofunhappiness bordering on sorrow. She seemed to realize she’d shown me too much, because she blinked and turned away with “Your hunky security guards have all the luggage.”
“Then let’s head for the exit,” I said.
She turned back with a smile plastered on her face, but her eyes still held an edge of that unhappiness. What was happening in her life to put that look in her eyes? “I better go help with Grandma, and make sure she rides with Josh and me. You’ll have a hard enough time with Dad in the car with you, you don’t need both of them.”
“Thank you, Andria,” I said.
She smiled a little more, so her eyes looked less haunted. “You’re welcome, Anita.” Then she walked away to help wrangle Grandma Blake.
“I know you don’t know what that was all about,” Nicky said, “but I still want to ask it.”
“I have no idea,” I said. We extracted ourselves from the hug. He went back to being my main bodyguard like a switch had been flipped from romantic to threatening physical presence. Ethan went to help with my family and their luggage. I’d expected Judith and Andria to overpack, but they hadn’t been the only ones. We’d be lucky to fit it all in three SUVs.
4
Nicky had barelybacked out of the parking space and headed for the short upward-sloping tunnel that was the exit from the parking garage when my father said, “I know you’re upset that your grandmother is here, Anita.”
I turned around in the passenger seat as far as the seat belt would allow, trying not to yell at my dad but to still protect my personal boundaries and honor my own trauma. Yes, that is therapy-speak for trying to keep your shit together when you feel betrayed all over again by your parent who is supposed to protect you but keeps failing. Judith sat beside him, and for once she was on my side.
“Fredrick, how could you not call ahead and ask Anita if it was okay to bring your mother with us?”
“Mother would not take no for an answer, you know how she’s gotten.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes, or hers. He stared at a point on the back of the seat, and I finally realized that my father was at best far more passive than I’d ever realized, or at worst a fucking coward.
“Then you should have called me and told me she was coming,” I said.
His eyes flicked up at me and then back to the car seat. “I knew you’d refuse.”
“Damn right, I’d have refused!” I was yelling and I had to pauseto take a few deep breaths before I could control my voice enough to say, “She was horrible to me as a child. How could you bring that woman near me?”
