In a Fix (6 page)

Mark was over me in a flash, pushing up my eyelids to look at my pupils, moving one finger back and forth in front of my face to see if I could track it. “Can you smile for me, Edith?”

No problemo. In fact, I was having trouble not smiling.

“Good. Now can you lift both your arms for me at the same time?”

I did.

“Great. Now can you tell me how you’re feeling?”

“I’m feeling like you’re a big jerk,
Mark
.”

His eyes narrowed, and Billy jumped in with, “Mark? Is that you? What are you doing here?”

Mark looked over his shoulder at Mina. “I’ll explain later, Ciel. Or maybe I’ll let Billy here do that.” He stood up and booted my royal posterior. Not hard, but still.

“Ouch! I’m not Billy.
I’m
Ciel. Mina is Billy.”

Mark looked from me to Billy and back again. “At the risk of repeating myself, what the hell is going on here?”

I pulled myself up and shrugged, rebuttoning my shirt. “Nothing. Billy stole Mina from me and wouldn’t give her back, so I had to take the Queen—” Something occurred to me. “Hey, did you know Trey might be Mark all along?” I asked Billy. If he had, I was gonna kill him. Twice.

“I did
not
. If I had, I never would’ve gone after him.”

“Thanks a lot. See if I ever hire you again,” Mark said.

“Only because I’d have trusted you to get out of the mess yourself,” Billy explained, with a pretty Mina-smile, and then turned on me. “In any case,
you
shouldn’t have followed me. For God’s sake, you saw me take the gun. I had it covered.”

“Yeah, well, it didn’t look ‘covered’ to me. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“Jesus, Ciel, I’d just gotten there. I was still assessing the situation.”

I got right up in his pretty face, and jabbed his shoulder with my age-spotted hand. “Right. Because it’s so easy to ‘assess’ when you have a gun pointed at you. If you’d tried to go for yours, you could’ve been killed, and Trey—I mean, Mark—too!”

“I had it under control,” he said, voice escalating to match mine. “Mark would’ve been free in another minute even if you hadn’t arrived when you did, and believe me, the two of us wouldn’t have had any difficulty taking down the Swede.”

“And how in the hell was I supposed to know—”

A piercing whistle made us both wince. Trey’s ocean-blue eyes were stormy, and the non-Chiclets were nowhere in sight. “Both of you—quiet.” We obeyed. Very few people didn’t obey Mark when he used that tone. For the space of two hard looks—one for Billy and one for me—there was silence. “Now, then,” he said at last, softening it with a hint of amusement around his eyes. “I’m hungry. What do you have to eat around here?”

*   *   *

Half an hour later Mark, Billy, and I were seated around the glass-topped dining table, drinking beer, ready to chow down on newly delivered pizza. We had closed all the blinds and dropped our assumed auras as soon as the delivery boy left, a huge smile on his face at the size of his tip. All things considered, it was just less confusing to be ourselves for a while.

Since there was a severe shortage of men’s clothing around the place, Billy was wearing Edith’s pink flannel robe, and Mark was still in Trey’s bathing suit. I’d snagged one of Mina’s new outfits for myself, a floaty, multicolored drawstring skirt and matching spun-rayon tank top. The top was big and the skirt way too long, but it was miles ahead of anything in Edith’s wardrobe style-wise.

Yes, I’m short. My own hair is strawberry blond, my eyes are pale green, and “voluptuous” is not a word you’ll ever hear associated with my true form. Try to ignore the freckles. I know I do.

Mark, looking too damned delicious in Trey’s trunks, glanced at the clock on the wall. His build was similar to Trey’s, but his hair was a darker blond, and his eyes a shade of gray that oscillated between dove-soft and cold as steel. His features were sharp and rugged. If Trey brought to mind country clubs and polo, then Mark made you think back alleys and street fighting. Seeing him in his own form never failed to make my hormones do the happy dance. Billy’s dark curls and dimples were probably, from a strictly objective point of view, every bit as swoon-worthy, but the pink robe tended to detract from that.

Billy’s voice interrupted my mini-reverie on Mark’s physical virtues. “Nice job at the warehouse, cuz. Your screams sounded so
authentic
.” One of his hands crawled across the table toward me, squashing any hope that my reaction to the spiders would go uncommented upon.

“That hand gets any closer, and I swear to God I’ll smash it,” I said, my mostly full beer can held poised for attack. Mr. Crawly retraced his steps.

Mark gave my shoulder a squeeze, looking at me with what could have been pity, but I chose to believe was sympathy and understanding. He let go too quickly to suit me, and turned his attention to systematically devouring slice after slice of a Meat Lover’s Special. Between bites he grilled me about everything Trey- and Mina-related.

“… so, was there anything—anything at all—in Mina’s dossier that might point to a non–Agency-related reason for Trey’s abduction?” He timed the final question to coincide with his last swallow of beer.

“No,” Billy and I answered simultaneously.

I glared at Billy, who flashed me his best dimples-and-lashes look of pure innocence.
Note to self: beef up security at my office
.

“Okay,” Mark said. “But we better look at it again. I’ll have a copy sent over in the morning. In the meantime, I have to go check on our new friend.” He dropped a kiss on the top of my head (a waste of good lips), ruffled my hair, and was Trey again before he got to the door.

“Wait a minute,” I called after him, my mind backspacing to what he’d said about Mina’s dossier. “You mean to tell me you have a copy of Mina’s file, too?” Damn it, was there anyone who didn’t have access to my office?

“Later.” He lifted one hand in a casual wave, without turning around, and let himself out.

I turned to Billy, who was studiously selecting his next slice and avoiding my eyes. “Billy,” I started in conversational tone, “how did Mark get the file from my office?”

“About that…” He cleared his throat and took another swallow of beer before continuing. “Well, you see…” He looked at me and must’ve seen the murder in my eyes. I’m no good at hiding my feelings when I’m in my natural state. “I suspect he has people for that sort of thing, don’t you? Clerical help.” He took a humongous bite of his new slice.

“Did you give a copy of Mina’s file to Mark? Or did you make him steal his own?”

He chewed thoughtfully, taking his time before swallowing. “There’s no good answer to that, is there? I’m screwed either way. You probably won’t even be mad at Saint Mark, you’re still so besotted with him.”

“That is not true!” I felt my cheeks flame.

“Is so. Why else do you think you were so attracted to Trey? You’ve worked plenty of jobs with good-looking men, and never turned into a quivering mass of hormone-rattled goo before. You were obviously picking up on his underlying Mark vibe.”

Oh, my God—was it true? Did I subconsciously know it was Mark all along? Was I really that miserably stuck on him? I spat a piece of thumbnail into my napkin.
Shit
. I hadn’t even been aware I was chewing it. I pushed my chair away from the table, not hungry any longer.

“Don’t worry, cuz. Your secret is safe with me.” He leaned back, a smug look on his face. Probably because he had successfully diverted my ire from his wavy-haired head.

“You’re being ridiculous.
If
I was attracted to anyone, it was Trey. Mark is too good an adaptor to let any of himself slip through. If I responded at all, and I’m not saying I did—”

“Right.”

“
If
I responded, it was a purely physical reaction to a nice male specimen. That’s
all
.”

“God, you’re cute when you’re mad. By the way, I like your hair short like that, sticking out all over, kind of post-modern punk.”

My hands flew to my head and smoothed my flyaway tresses. I’d gone short since the last time Billy saw me—but not, I stress, “punk”—in hopes it would make me appear older. Wearing my hair long had made me look about fourteen, and I was sick of getting carded in bars. I was also sick of my cousin’s barbs.

He winked. “Unclench your fists, cuz. I’m not wearing a cup today and I’m feeling rather defenseless.” His eyes softened, losing their teasing glint. “I meant what I said. You’re adorable, you know that, right?”

I dropped my head back and stared at the ceiling. “Uh-huh. I’m irresistible. Just ask Mark.”

“He cares an awful lot about you.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m the little sister he never had.” I grabbed the pizza box and trudged toward the kitchen. “You have no idea how frustrating it is to really, really like someone who only sees you as an annoying relation.”

Billy gathered the empty beer cans and followed me. He crushed them one at a time and tossed them in the bin while I shoved the leftover pizza into the fridge. “So, you ‘really, really like’ Mark, huh? You mean, like,
like
like?”

I had to admit it sounded pretty juvenile. “God. I’m pathetic, aren’t I?”

“Absolutely,” he said, draping an arm over my shoulder. “But on you it works.” He kissed my forehead and walked me back to the living room.

“If I’d had half a brain when I was growing up, I’d have gradually adapted myself to be tall and curvaceous as soon as I was through puberty. Now everybody in the family knows what I really look like, so I can’t do anything about it.” I shrugged out from under his arm and sprawled backward on the couch.

“Not even you can hold an aura forever, Supergirl. Somebody would have caught you eventually,” he said reasonably, sitting next to me and pulling my feet onto his lap.
Gaaaah.
There is nothing better than a foot massage, except for chocolate, and maybe sex. I felt my whole body relax as he worked the arch of my left foot with strong, gentle fingers. Make that a big maybe on the sex. Nothing I’d experienced in that department thus far came close to being as good as a foot massage. He switched to my right foot. “Now, which speech do you want—‘Appearances Are Shallow’ or ‘It’s What’s on the Inside That Counts’?”

I felt a tug at the corner of my lips. “Neither. I’d rather bitch and moan some more.”

He went on massaging. “If you must. But could you give me a heads up when you’re done, so I’ll know when to start listening again?”

I peered at him from beneath half-closed lids. “It’s easy for you, you know. You’d be singing a different tune if you still looked like your sixth-grade school picture,” I said, just to be evil.

He laughed in good-natured agreement, and started in on my toes. “Not a good year for me. If I’d been capable then, I’d have gone to school every day looking like the teenage heartthrob of the week.”

I suppose it’s just as well our talent doesn’t emerge fully until adulthood, even if it does make middle school hell. “What about now? Are you really as gorgeous as you look? You aren’t fudging it even a tiny bit?”

“You think I’m gorgeous? I’m flattered.” He batted his eyelashes so fast I could almost feel a breeze.

“Oh, come on. You know you are—why else would all those women chase you? Stop avoiding my question. Do you cheat or not?”

He hesitated. “Well, there is one part of me I alter on occasion.”

“I knew it!”
His eyelashes. It had to be his eyelashes
. “What is it?” I sat up eagerly, but kept my feet where they were. They didn’t want to leave yet.

“Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“Yes. Now spill.”

“If you must know, Miss Nosy, it’s my”—he turned away from me, pained—“my manhood.”

I poked him in the belly with my big toe. “Oh, come on. Get serious.”

He looked wounded. (He did wounded well.) “Fine. Be that way. See if I ever open up to you again,” he said, with just the right amount of hurt in his voice, so I knew he was full of shit.

“Golly gee, Tiny, I’m sorry. It was insensitive of me not to take you seriously. Hey, I got some e-mail the other day that might help with your problem. Want me to forward it to you?”

“It’s obvious you don’t understand the true nature of my dilemma. The fact is, if I don’t scale it down to normal proportions, I demoralize my pals at the gym and frighten the women I date.” He laughed when I rolled my eyes, and shoved my feet off his lap. “My turn. Time to pay the piper.”

“It’s really not a fair exchange, you know,” I pointed out after he plopped his feet onto my thighs. “There’s a lot more acreage here than you have to cover with me.”

“Whine, whine, whine. Shut up and knead.”

At least they were nice feet, clean and well kept. I applied myself as assiduously as he had, tit for tat. The temptation to tickle was strong, but I knew from experience I’d never come out ahead in that game. “When do you suppose Mark will be back?”

“Why? Planning on waiting up for him?”

I shrugged. “I’m thinking about it.” He laughed and wiggled his toes, drawing my hands to where he wanted them. “Well, it does involve Mina,” I said, tackling each little piggy in turn. “I should know what’s going on. Aren’t you going to wait up?”

“Nope. Not my client. I’ll be sleeping the sleep of the blessedly conscience-free. You can have Mark all to yourself.”

*   *   *

“Howdy?”

I jumped at the sound of Mark’s voice, quiet though it was. “Howdy” was his childhood nickname for me, short for Howdy Doody, who had more freckles than I did when I was ten, but not by much. Leafing through magazines—and, okay, maybe dozing a tiny bit—I hadn’t heard him enter the bungalow. Super Spy was just that stealthy.

“Sorry,” he said, sitting next to me sideways, one knee up, ruffling my hair before he draped his arm over the back of the sofa. “Didn’t know I’d be so late. You should’ve gone to bed.”

He was fully dressed now, having gotten hold of some faded jeans and an equally faded Hawaiian shirt. On him, faded looked good. (Admittedly, I’d never seen anything on him that
didn’t
look good.) I tossed the magazine onto the coffee table and stretched, stifling a yawn. “I wanted to talk to you. What’d you find out?”