Cipher (13 page)

She didn’t have the guts to charge forward. But she didn’t retreat, either, and at least it was something. A step.

Smiling, she turned to kiss his palm. “You should go back to sleep. Sera’s pulling an early shift at Dixie John’s tomorrow, and if I don’t turn up and let her yell at me, she’s going to be unlivable.”

Andrew brushed a kiss over her chin. “We can stop by for a late brunch.”

“Good. And after that…” The zip drive was buried in one of her bags, wrapped in a scarf for safekeeping. “You have a key to Alec’s place, right?”

“Course I do.”

“Instead of hitting the parts store or Craigslist, I thought we could head over there. He’s the only person I know who still uses a computer with a zip drive.” Though
use
might be a generous term. As far as Kat knew, the last time anyone had booted the damn thing up had been when she’d done it a year ago just to see if she could. “It’s worth a shot.”

The corner of Andrew’s mouth twitched. “You’re brilliant. If anyone’s going to be stuck in 1995, it’s Alec.”

“Then all I have to worry about is platform and software and encryption…” She closed her eyes. “Andrew, can I ask you something?”

He wrapped a lock of her hair around his finger. “Sure.”

“Are we sticking together because I’m in danger? Or are we…starting something?”

He stared at her for a long moment, considering. “Starting something, or picking up where we left off? Either one works, I think.”

“Except we didn’t leave off with crazy orgasms.” She settled her cheek against his chest, mostly because it was easier to say the words when she didn’t have to look at him. “We were so close to starting something. Or maybe we weren’t and it only felt that way to me because I wanted it to be true.”

He combed his fingers through her hair. “We
were
, but…something wasn’t right yet. Me, I guess. People around here don’t exactly have nice, uncomplicated relationships, you know? Being comfortable, being friends… It felt so good I didn’t want to let it go.”

His heart thumped under her cheek, just fast enough to prove his casual words a lie. He’d been scared, and she could feel the echoes in him, as clearly as she could feel the pleasure he took in touching her. “You were human,” she said softly. “I never was, not entirely. It
would
have been complicated.”

“It seems stupid now,” he admitted. “It feels like I wasted so much time.”

“No.” At least there was one thing she could reassure him about. “I skipped grades, a few of them. I graduated early, went to college early. I was never really around people my own age, so I missed out on the social stuff, and the empathy only made it worse. I was young a few years ago, Andrew. I wasn’t ready. But I would have been so afraid of missing my chance, I couldn’t have said no. Not to you.”

“And with both of us not ready…”

Maybe it would have worked. Maybe it would have been a mess, and ruined any chance they had. Either way, there was no going back. “I know we keep saying we’re not going to talk about the big stuff, and I don’t want to, not yet. But I need something to hold on to.”

“I’m here,” he said simply. “I’m in it, Kat. Not going anywhere, and we can figure it out together.”

“So we have a thing.” It brought a goofy-feeling smile to her lips. “Can I wear your letter jacket?”

Andrew laughed. “They don’t let you letter in being a giant dork, remember?”

“Depends on where you go to school.” Peace settled over her, following the path of his fingers as he stroked her hair. She yawned and snuggled closer. “If you don’t have a letter jacket, we’re going to have to rethink this whole thing.”

“Obviously I’m worthless without one.”

“Obviously.” Another yawn, and this time she didn’t try to fight it. “Except you’re warm. And surprisingly cuddly, for a big mean council member.”

“That’s exactly what it says on my business cards.”

Chapter Eight

If there was one thing Andrew had never expected Alec Jacobson to master, it was videoconferencing. The man avoided technological advances with singular dedication.

Still, necessity compelled even the most drastic changes, and it looked like it had dragged Alec into the twenty-first century. At least, it seemed so until the blurry picture on the laptop screen slid into sharp focus to reveal not only Alec, but his smiling wife as well. “There,” Carmen said. “I think that should work.”

Alec made an annoyed face, his lips tugged down and his eyebrows pulled tight together. “I gave up ten minutes of my life so Andrew could
see
how pissy I am over the fact that I can’t just use a fucking telephone. How is this progress?”

“Don’t be grumpy.” Carmen waved. “Hi, Andrew.”

He waved back. “Is this a bad time?”

“Not at all.” She kissed Alec’s cheek as she rose, and paused to smooth the frown from between his brows. “I’m going to make French toast for breakfast. Don’t forget we have that thing this morning.”

When she was gone, Alec sighed. “She’s bribing me so I don’t choke anyone at our ten o’clock meeting.”

“Must be damn good French toast.”

“Not that good.” Alec ran his hand over his disheveled hair and shook his head. “It is not a good time up here. John Peyton’s got some upstart on his council poking at him, and things are…unsettled.”

Knowing Alec, it was the understatement of the decade. “I wouldn’t have bothered you, but I ran into trouble in Alabama. Car chase that ended badly for the other guy, but someone might have gotten a license plate. I thought maybe you could call McNeely—”

“Hold up.” Alec ducked out of view and reappeared a moment later with his cell phone in hand. “I thought I gave you McNeely’s number. Maybe Julio has it.”

“Well, I have it, but…” But he wasn’t really in charge, wasn’t the one with the authority to call up a lieutenant in the New Orleans Police Department and ask for favors.

“Oh Jesus, kid.” Alec leaned forward until his face all but filled the screen. “Okay, listen to me. I’ve been letting this slide because you need to find your footing, and we’ve been between crises. But shit’s liable to hit the fan any day now, so the training wheels are coming off. You know what to do, and you need to start doing it without checking with me first.”

Andrew choked back a growl. “It might be that simple for you, Alec, but my situation’s a little more complicated.”

“Yeah, on the subject of complicated, have you heard from Derek this week?”

“No.” Andrew tensed. If he’d somehow heard what happened to Kat…

Alec sighed again, something that was starting to sound like a nervous tic. “Great. Okay, I’m telling you this because the rumor’s spreading so fast you’re probably going to hear it before he calms down enough to call you. Nicole’s pregnant.”

“Holy shit.” It seemed like the sort of thing Derek would want to shout from the rooftops, and the fact that he hadn’t made Andrew’s hands clench into fists. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing life-threatening, but Nick’s not feeling well. Sicker than usual, I guess. Carmen’s tried to tell him it’s all manageable, but Derek watched his wife’s twin sister go through a miserable pregnancy and premature labor, so panic has set in pretty hard. He’s calling Carmen at all hours, damn near every time Nick twitches a toe.”

They were going to have a
baby
. “He hasn’t told Kat yet, either. She’d have mentioned it.”

Alec’s eyebrows climbed up. “I thought you and Kat weren’t talking.”

It was stupid to feel as though he’d gotten caught smoking under the bleachers. “That was the situation. I was helping Kat with some stuff about her mom.”

“Uh-huh.” Alec scrubbed his hand over his hair again, leaving it half sticking up this time. He looked ragged around the edges in general, as if it’d been a few days since his last shave—or his last full night of sleep. “Shit. Okay, you’ve got to handle this, Andrew. Derek can barely handle himself and his wife, and John Peyton’s got a daughter to worry about and that cagey little shit on his council who’s stirring up trouble. Can you and Julio keep Kat safe and get this shit done?”

“Yeah, I’ll get it done.” For the first time, Andrew caught a gleam in Alec’s eyes, a satisfaction that belied his apparent frustration. For all his exasperation, he was in his element. “This thing with Kat’s mom might be big, Alec.”

“I don’t doubt that. I know Derek’s never thought her mother’s death was really an accident. Is she digging around again? She was obsessed with it for a few months when she was nineteen and had just gotten access to our list of contacts at the detective agency.”

“Yeah, she was digging.” And she just might have broken the whole thing wide open. “What do you usually buy McNeely to say thanks when he’s just saved your ass? Scotch?”

“Not anymore. McNeely’s on the wagon. Get him some music. A CD or two.”

“Done. Thanks, Alec.”

“Hey. If shit gets so bad you can’t figure out your next move…call me. But if you know the next move, take it. You’ve got the instincts, kid. Time to start trusting them.”

“Right.” Julio had undoubtedly already been taking care of business while Andrew kept his head in the sand, but that was going to change. “I’ll keep you posted.”

“You do that.” Alec paused. Frowned. “Tell me one thing. Are you tangled up because it’s Kat?”

“Yes,” he replied readily. “And also because her contact was looking for protection from the Southeast council. It had to be me or Julio, and Julio wasn’t touching it.”

“No, I didn’t mean—” He made an amused noise. “Is your head tangled up? And your instincts? That girl has never made it easy for you to think.”

“My brain’s working fine, Alec.” It was even mostly true.

“Uh-huh. It’s the rest of you working just fine that I’m worried about.”

Andrew couldn’t resist an arrogant grin. “That’s working all right too.”

Six months in New York had perfected Alec’s exasperated peevishness. “God help us all. Don’t be an idiot.”

“No more than usual, you have my word on that.”

“Good.” Alec’s finger rushed toward the screen, diverting at the last moment to crash into the keyboard, judging by the sound. He looked back up at Andrew, cursed, then pounded another key before bellowing, “Carmen, how the fuck do I turn this thing
off
?”

The call dropped, and Andrew muffled a snort as he closed the laptop. Things may have changed a hell of a lot over the last year, but some things never would. It was comforting, in a way.

Not that he had time to sit around and ponder it. He had to get on the phone with McNeely and clean up his mess, and then he had to figure out what to tell Kat about her cousin’s impending fatherhood—and what it could mean if she chose to pursue her investigation.

Dixie John’s was the sort of restaurant tourists would have driven miles out of their way to visit, if they’d had any way of knowing the place was there. Once in a while, a tourist wandered in and enjoyed a meal, utterly oblivious to the fact that they were surrounded by witches and priestesses or psychics and shapeshifters.

Not that everyone who visited the place was a supernatural, but the humans who tended to return were the sort who didn’t mind the rumors that Dixie John dabbled in voodoo. If patrons saw the regulars acting oddly, they shrugged it off and went on about their business.

They probably didn’t imagine that the pretty redhead taking orders turned into a coyote sometimes, or that the bartender wasn’t just skilled at anticipating their orders—he really
could
read their minds.

Kat loved Dixie John’s. During the worst months after Andrew had been attacked, John had given her sanctuary within the walls of his restaurant. At Mahalia’s, she always felt compelled to paste on a smile and pretend she felt healthy and happy, or the staff would tell their boss—and their boss’s husband. Derek had enough to worry about without reports that she was moping about, even if she was.

John never tattled. Kat had written her thesis in a cozy corner booth, sustained by coffee, music and some of the best damn cooking in the state. John had even given Sera a job, one where she made decent enough money to feel independent as she struggled to find her place. There was something soothing about the big man’s steady presence, an odd mixture of determination and utter belief in fate.

It had done wonders for Sera, that was for sure. Kat pushed through the front door and found her roommate bent over a table, making faces at a toddler whose shrieks of laughter hit Kat a moment before the wave of youthful glee.

The few minutes it took to settle her psychic barriers firmly in place gave Sera time to cross the room. Even in jeans and a T-shirt, Sera attracted the gazes of most of the men she passed. Her curvy, pin-up girl looks made Kat feel like one of Cinderella’s stepsisters, an insecurity not soothed when Sera nodded to the back booth. “Anna’s waiting for you. I’ve got to get a couple orders in before I take my break.”

Time alone with Anna. Fabulous. Kat managed a smile. “Okay.”

Sera sighed, clearly exasperated by the lukewarm response. “Be nice, Kat. Be nice, and I’ll bring you coffee, okay?”

“I’m nice.” But the admonition reminded her of a blurry moment in a motel in Alabama. Andrew, holding her foot and whispering that he’d never be nice about Miguel.

As she started toward the booth, Kat forced herself to admit that it was hard to be nice about Anna. Blonde, petite, practically a damn
bounty hunter
—Anna was everything Kat wasn’t. Including a shapeshifter, one who’d been able to handle Andrew’s strength in the first months after his transformation. With a shapeshifter’s instincts, she’d understood him, probably in ways Kat never would.

Every time she looked at Anna, all Kat could see were the ways she hadn’t been enough.

Even now. Anna was halfway through one of John’s omelets, and she waved at Kat as she lifted her coffee cup. “This place is insane. Did you know John mixes his own andouille?”

“Is that the sausage?” Kat slid into the opposite side of the booth and dropped her bag onto the seat next to her. “He’s a great cook.” See, she could be nice. She was the damn queen of polite, meaningless chitchat about breakfast foods.