Cool Hand (4 page)

Why Jen decided shopping would be a good way to keep me chilled while I waited to go see Naryn, I didn’t know.

Alex had decided he suddenly felt too weak to come out with us, even when Jen said there was plenty of room to lie down in the back of the Cadillac limousine while we were in the mall.

Jen called in to the office and had them rearrange her schedule for the day. Pia’s too. Then she’d switched off her cell. She’d made an effort, and I felt guilty that I was having trouble responding.

I was nervy. The people wandering through the mall seemed threatening in some way I couldn’t quite pin down. I worried because I wasn’t carrying a weapon, and I found myself rubbing my sweaty hands down my jeans.

Julie and Pia walked just behind us. Both of them were discreetly armed. I kept reminding myself I’d trusted Julie with my life more times than I could count. There was no reason to worry. However upset she’d been that I pulled fangs on her husband, she’d managed to put it aside like a pro for the moment.

Keith was another matter. I had spoken to him for a few minutes and apologized, but it was going to take much more to make things better between us.

He’d been angry. Angry that I’d genuinely frightened him. Angry that Julie might be in danger from me. Angry that Julie still felt a commitment to me and Jen.

I wasn’t sure what I could do to fix things with him. But if I didn’t, I couldn’t expect Julie to stay. That thought really hurt.

Sensing my mood, Jen laced her arm through mine and guided me towards a casual clothing shop.

“Not more jeans?” I said. She’d bought me some last week.

“Can’t deny, you’re surely hard on clothes, honey,” she said, exaggerating her twang.

We came out after only ten minutes, so I couldn’t really complain. I even carried our purchases so Julie and Pia could keep their hands free.

“Home?” I asked, turning back hopefully.

“Oh, no.”

I groaned, only partly joking, but I couldn’t manage to be miserable for long. Not with Jen.

Sure enough, within minutes her wicked humor had wriggled its way under my mood until I was laughing. Shopping with her was certainly different. More fun than with anyone else, and after a while I was following her blindly, shopping bags hanging off me like a hat stand, not even bothering to look at the store fronts.

The snickers from Julie and Pia snapped me out of it.

I blinked and saw the dimly-lit, near-naked mannequins that were artistically posed on the walls like a frozen ballet. We’d just walked into
Tenero e Intima
, the ritziest, sexiest Italian lingerie shop in the entire state of Colorado.

The kind of lingerie I might like to take a look at alone. Secretly.

But with Jen, and in front of everyone? This was supposed to keep me calm? I gritted my teeth and forced a smile.

No one ever died from embarrassment
, said Tara in my head.

We walked out twenty minutes later with me carrying Jen’s distinctive, pink and black
Tenero e Intima
shopping bag front and center.

For such skimpy little clothes they sure came in big packages. No one would be in any doubt where we’d been.

“What were you laughing about with the cashier?” I asked, nudging her with my hip.

“She was just saying that these would be wasted on a guy. They don’t really appreciate them…”

Oh no.

“Jen. Quiet.”

“…so I just said they weren’t going to be wasted at all.”

She realized I’d stopped and looked up.

We were standing in front of Mom.

“Mrs. Farrell.” Jen recovered first. “Jennifer Kingslund. Jen, please.”

“Yes, of course,” Mom said. They shook hands awkwardly. “Stacy.”

“Um. Look, why don’t you try the coffee at Pietro’s?” Jen nodded at the café across the way. “They do a great macchiato. We’ll take these back to the car, and see you in a little while.”

She left with Julie escorting her. Pia’s eyes met mine and she strolled a few yards away. Close enough to keep an eye on me, far enough to give us some space.

Mom frowned and hugged me. “Does she have to hang around?” she whispered.

One of my sister’s ideas was that I had fallen in with a cult. And yes, just like it would be with a cult, Pia was there because I couldn’t be trusted on my own. The cult theory would get a boost from this. I’d have to find a way to defuse that, obviously without saying ‘actually, I’m a vampire.’

“It’s a security issue, Mom.”

“I guess we could have coffee,” Mom said eventually. “I hoped you’d drop in at home.”

“It’s—”

“Busy. I know.” Her lips made a thin line of exasperation. “Dangerous as well, no doubt. Oh, come on.”

We went into the café and sat down at a table in the window with our coffee. Pia sat a few tables away. A human wouldn’t have been able to eavesdrop, but Pia could, of course.

Not that there was anything to eavesdrop on.

“How are you?” we both said at the same time. It broke the silence and we could smile.

“Well,” I said. I felt awkward.

“You look tired,” Mom replied. She was being tactful.

“There’s a lot going on. Too much.” And so much that I couldn’t tell her.

Mom looked out the window at the stores outside. “This morning—”

“I’m waiting on a call,” I said, on the defensive. “Jen needed to do some shopping.”

“Yes, I could see that,” she said. “Essentials.”

She stopped, visibly biting off any more comments in that direction. She didn’t approve of rolling eyes, but she had this Mom way of doing it without actually moving her eyes.

“They weren’t for me,” I said. I winced inwardly. I sounded like a teenager.

That got the non-moving eyeball roll again. “I heard what she was saying, and believe me, Amber, those…” she waved a hand, “underwear things
are
for you.”

She bit her lip, her face screwing up as if she were about to burst into tears.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” I knew I was causing her worries, and I just couldn’t bear the thought of making her cry in front of everyone.

But she wasn’t hiding tears. She started giggling.

The relief at seeing that set me off as well, and then the pair of us couldn’t stop.

Curious looks from the other people in the café only made it worse.

“Oh, that’s better,” Mom said finally, blowing her nose. “Almost as good as a really good cry.”

“I miss you, Mom,” I said. “I really do, and I’m sorry I can’t be around more.”

“How are you really, my big little girl?” she said. The name she used to call me when it’d been just the three of us—Mom, Kath and me.

“Okay. Just okay. It’s hard at the moment.”

“I know.” She sighed and wiped her eyes with a tissue. “Your friend from the FBI stopped by.”

My heart missed a beat before she went on: “You know, Agent Ingram, that nice man from Texas.”

“What did he want?” If he was trying to pressure me by hassling Mom—

“Oh, it was a courtesy call. Isn’t he a wonderful old-fashioned southern gentleman?”

When he wants to be.

Mom didn’t see any of that. “He couldn’t tell me any more than you, of course. But he made a joke out of it—
if ah tol’ you she was helpin’ with inquiries, you’d get entirely the wrong idea
.” She got the accent quite well. She patted my hand. “I understand. You’ve gotten caught up in a federal operation because of that drug smuggling ring you helped the police with. Gangs and guns and big criminals. Horrible. You can’t say anything without breaching their protocol.”

I owed Ingram, big time. And he would know it. He hadn’t told her anything she couldn’t have found out reading between the lines in the paper, but because he’d said it, it was official.

“I suppose I should thank him for the extra security.” Mom’s eyes flickered across to Pia, who was carefully not smiling as she listened in.

“Ahh…yeah. Not everything is being provided by the FBI. Jen’s funding full-time security, and running that is one of my main jobs at the moment.” Well, not exactly a lie. I was officially Jen’s head of security, but Pia was not part of Victor Gayle’s security team.

“Well, that’s so much better than being a PI,” Mom said.

Hmm.
My life had become much more dangerous than when I was getting half my income from tracking wandering spouses and the other half from reading clients’ account files to figure out where their money was being stolen from.

I let it pass.

“I suppose, after this is all sorted out, you won’t actually need to work?”

Mom made it a question, and we were back on awkward ground.

She meant that, as Jen’s partner, any salary I made would be insignificant against Jen’s money. If anyone else had said that to me, I might have bitten their heads off, but she was saying it because she preferred me to be safe. Trouble was, I’d be bored being safe, and that was something else I wasn’t going to be able to explain clearly to her.

But, on the other hand, she hadn’t come at this in the way my sister Kath had, calling me Jen’s whore.

“I can’t tell when it’ll be finished.” I evaded the question, which she noticed, but didn’t follow up on.

“I’m concerned you’re vulnerable at the moment.” The way she said it, so carefully, showed it was something she’d spent a lot of time thinking about. She paused to sip her coffee and looked away. “I don’t mean the physical danger, though God knows that’s bad enough. I mean you might be in a place, you know, emotionally. You could be making some mistakes because you’re confused.”

“I’m not confused about Jen,” I said gently.

“You’d think a mother would have some idea about her own daughter’s true sexuality—” She stopped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to talk about this. She sat up straighter. “It’s your decision, your personal life, Amber. I’m fully supportive of you. It’s just I didn’t see this coming.” She faltered a bit. “That you would end up in a…a relationship with a woman. And it’s fine, of course. I’m sure Ms. Kingslund is a wonderful person, despite what you hear.”

“Jen
is
a wonderful person.” It felt as if it should have been harder to say something like this to Mom, but with everything hitting me over the last couple of weeks, there was an element of becoming punch drunk. And for my Athanate, the issue was clear; there was no denying my kin. Not even to be kind to my Mom. “And I love her.”

I knew Mom would have difficulty understanding. From her point of view, I’d known Jen for a month and it would be very quick for a human to make a commitment like that.

“Of course,” she changed tack, “after meeting Alexander, and getting along so well with him, I have to say I thought you two would have been good together. And it’s great that you’re still friends, that you share interests. You should never turn your back on friends.”

What she meant was that when I came to my senses, Alex would still be there. I could see the tracks in my mother’s mind. Jen gets tired of me, Alex and I pick up. Little church marriage, white picket fence, grandchildren. Bang, bang, bang. Result.

Damn.
This part was going to be even harder. There were things I couldn’t tell Mom. Alex is a werewolf. I’m a vampire. But there were things I could tell her, difficult as they were. And better that she found out directly from me, rather than Kath picking up some gossip and telling her.

“Yeah. About that. About Alex.” She looked at me as I hesitated. “It’s not that simple.”

“Simple!” She stopped herself from snorting and finished her coffee.

“No. You see, I love Alex as well.”

“You can’t. Oh, Amber! I mean, I understand that you think you love two people, but it’s not possible. It’ll only—”

“No, Mom. I’m different, okay? It’s not one or the other. It’s both. I can’t explain. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the way it is.”

“Everyone goes through a phase of thinking they’re different. This
is
crazy. This sort of thing can’t work. I mean, does Alex know? What does he think of it?”

“Both of them know, and they both understand.”

Well, that was true as far as it went. I was working on the rest.

But Mom didn’t understand. And it looked as if I’d convinced her I was unstable.

I should be telling her that I couldn’t have children. I knew that would be her next question. But I was lucky; I was wrong about that.

Instead, her eyes strayed across to Pia. She edged her chair closer to the table and dropped her voice.

“I read up on it, you know,” she said.

I missed the connection and blinked in confusion.

“PTSD,” she said the initials slowly, with the carefulness of unfamiliarity. “And I looked up lots of information on women in the military, too.”

I sat back with a little hum of acknowledgment. I guessed this meant that she accepted that Kath had been lying when she’d told everyone I had never been in the military. But where was she going with this?