Thoroughly Kissed (15 page)

“That's no excuse,” Michael said. “Why do people always assume that cats are not intelligent enough to learn discipline?”

“We don't,” Emma said. “They are too intelligent to listen to anyone else's instructions.”

“Even when it saves lives?”

Darnell looked up at him and growled.

“Hey, pal. I'm not the one who has poor impulse control.” Michael pulled off a bit of morning bun and handed it to Darnell. Darnell forgot all about the iron railing and whatever lurked below, and swallowed the piece whole.

“I try not to feed him people food,” Emma said.

“Yeah,” Michael said sarcastically. “I can tell.”

She sighed and grabbed a bun for herself. It was a cross between a cinnamon roll and a sugared donut, only with a light and fluffy French pastry feel. She took a bite and relished the taste, knowing she wouldn't find it anywhere else.

“You know,” Michael said after he had eaten the last bite of his, “I hope you're not planning to eat all our meals at waysides. We really should stop at restaurants and sample some local cuisine.”

“What about Darnell?” Emma asked.

“What about him?”

“We can't very well bring him inside a restaurant.”

“No, but many places have take out or they let you eat outside.” Michael grinned. “At worst, we could tell them he's a seeing eye cat. That leash might convince them.”

She wouldn't smile. She didn't want him to think he was amusing. “There are stores along the way. I'm sure we can make do.”

“I don't want to make do,” he snapped.

“Well, I can't imagine the local cuisine would vary much from Wisconsin to Oregon.”

He frowned at her. “You mean you don't know?”

She raised her chin, trying to ignore the funny panic in her stomach. For some reason she felt as if another embarrassing moment were on the way, and she didn't know why.

“That's right,” she said. “I don't know.”

“Didn't you drive that lovely car out here? Or did you buy it in Madison?”

“I drove,” she said. “I had to. I had Darnell.”

“People fly with cats.”

“Not Darnell.”

Darnell had wrapped his leash around her legs and had fallen asleep between her feet. For the first time in her memory, he didn't spend all of their rest stop eating grass.

“You drove all the way out and you never ate at a restaurant?”

She shrugged. “It wasn't practical.”

“Well, we're changing that.”

She straightened. “No, we're not.”

“Emma, I'm not going clear across country and eating from 7-11s all the way.”

“It'll change to Circle K's long about Montana.”

“Whatever,” he said. “I'm not.”

She took a deep breath. “But what if my magic goes off in a restaurant? What'll we do then?”

“Make it better,” he said. “Isn't that why I'm here?”

“It doesn't always go back the way it was,” she said.

He grinned. “Then we'll beat a hasty retreat.”

She glanced at the river. He was changing everything. Didn't he know that routine made trips easier? Didn't he understand that the less change the better?

“If you're so worried about that,” he said, “why are we staying in hotels along the way? Where's the tent?”

“I don't own a tent,” she said between her clenched teeth.

“One of those women too good to own a tent?”

She glared at him. “I've stayed in very primitive conditions, thank you.”

“What? A place with no blow-dryers?”

She let out a small sigh. She wasn't about to tell him everything. “Something like that.”

“Then what's wrong with a tent?”

“I like beds,” she said. “And showers, believe it or not.”

“Why should that be hard for me to believe?” he said. “I hadn't noticed that you had a problem bathing.”

Her flush grew deeper. In every conversation she said the wrong thing. He didn't know that she used to be afraid of running water, that plumbing was nearly her undoing on the day she had awakened from her magic coma.

“Was I supposed to notice?” he asked with a little too much amusement.

She grabbed the morning bun bag and tucked her water bottle under her arm. “Get Darnell's stuff,” she said. “I'll meet you in the car.”

“Emma—”

“I don't need you hassling me,” she snapped and started forward. Only then did she remember that Darnell's leash was wrapped around her legs. She tripped, caught herself, and dropped the bottle. Water splashed all over Darnell, whom she had apparently dragged along behind her.

He woke up, hissing and spitting, slapping the water bottle with both paws, and only succeeding to make himself wetter. He looked like a cat stuck in a ferocious battle with a vicious squirting hose.

Water alternately splashed and poured out of the bottle, depending on how hard Darnell whacked it, and Emma was getting drenched. Michael was making strange choking sounds that were too much like laughter for her tastes.

Finally she snatched the bottle out of the way, only to lose her grip on its slippery sides again, and watch it bounce toward Darnell. The cat hissed and backed up, wrapping the leash tighter around her legs. This time, she lost her balance and fell backwards into the soaking wet grass.

Michael stared at her for a moment, then offered her his hand. His expression was carefully neutral, the choking sounds he had been making a moment before gone.

Her eyes narrowed. The last thing she wanted to do was accept his help. Again.

Darnell shook himself off, spraying water all over Emma. Then he looked at her as if he were proud of himself, as if this had been all her fault.

The water was soaking through the seat of her jeans, and the leash was cutting off circulation in her left leg.

She looked at Michael's hand, then leaned over and snatched Darnell off the grass. Darnell's eyes widened in horror—and for a moment, she realized that he was afraid she was going to spell him. She had held him just like that the last time. Instead, she held his damp, squirmy body with one hand while untangling the leash with the other.

Michael continued to watch, his mouth twitching suspiciously. His hand was at his side, waiting, it seemed, for her to need its services again.

“Don't laugh at me,” she snapped.

“I'm not laughing at you,” he said, but it was clearly a lie.

“You are laughing at me,” she said. “I don't like it.”

“It was funny,” he said.

“It was not,” she said. “And you're being a jerk.”

His eyes widened. “
I
am?”

“You are.”

“Really,” he said.

“Really. You're one oversized jerk.”

His cheeks flushed. “That's what you think I'm doing,” he said. “Being a jerk.”

“Yes.” She slapped the leash into Michael's hand. He looked at it like it hurt. It probably did.

She didn't care. She carefully set Darnell down, and stalked away from them both, trying to look dignified. She got a change of clothes from the car, and headed to the ladies room. She didn't look at either Michael or Darnell, but she knew they knew how mad she was.

As Aethelstan once said to her, her anger was hard to miss.

But she didn't care. Michael would just have to get used to her anger, like everybody else.

***

Michael managed to pull Darnell to the car where he dried both of them off with one of the towels Emma had so thoughtfully put in the back.

The cat didn't seem to mind his ministrations. In fact, the cat seemed as confused as he felt. He had actually felt close to Emma Lost for a moment, but clearly she hadn't felt close to him.

She came out of the ladies room wearing a pair of shorts that showed more leg than he had imagined she had. At that moment, a breeze came up, chilling him as much as a cold shower would have.

Thank heavens. He didn't want to ogle when he was mad at her.

She had actually accused him of being a jerk. When he had dropped everything to join her, a woman he barely knew.

“What was that about?” he asked as she approached the car.

“What?” she asked, her eyebrows raised, all innocence.

“That anger.”

She shrugged and looked away. “I should have warned you. I have a terrible temper.”

“No kidding,” he said.

“It flares out of control and I can't—”

“Everything about you seems to be out of control, Emma.” Michael stopped in front of her. “Your magic, your temper, your research.”

He added that last because he knew it would piss her off. And, not surprisingly, it did.

“You shouldn't bring my research into this!” she said.

“No,” he said, “I shouldn't. I'm sorry.”

Her mouth was open as if she were going to continue berating him, but she stopped, narrowed her eyes and looked at him sideways, as if that would make her see him clearer.

“You shouldn't?” she asked as if she didn't trust him.

“I shouldn't. But someone let you get away with that temper much too often.”

Her beautiful eyes narrowed.

“You act like a spoiled child.”

“I do not.”

“Do too.

“Do not.”

“See? I haven't had that argument since grade school.” Michael crossed his arms. “If you want me to continue on this trip—”

And as he said that Darnell's head popped out of the towel, his expression panicked. Apparently the cat wanted him to continue on this trip.

“—you're going to have to learn some control.”

Emma crossed her arms over Darnell, trapping him against her. “Men always say that to me. Are you afraid of a woman with a temper?”

“Only a woman with an out-of-control temper and out-of-control magic,” Michael said. “Somehow I have a hunch that's a bad combination.”

He might have been wrong, but it looked to him as if the cat were nodding.

“You can't not go with me,” Emma said.

“What?” Michael asked. “Why can't I?”

“Because you promised you'd help.”

“I have helped. You're going a different route.”

“You think that's enough?”

“Yes.”

“And what if it isn't?”

He stared at her for a long time. “Maybe that's your problem.”

“But you already said you'd stay.”

“I did not.”

“You said if I want you to continue on this trip. Sounds like that's my decision.”

“Sounds like.” Michael kept his voice deliberately flat.

Darnell was watching them both, his head whipping back and forth as if he were a referee in a tennis match.

“I want you to stay,” she said.

“Then it's up to you. That temper stays under control.”

“I'll lose my temper if I want to,” Emma said.

“Fine,” Michael said. “You'll do it alone.”

Darnell raised his head, his eyes imploring.

“And I'll take the cat,” Michael said. “Then you won't have anyone to inflict that temper on.”

He reached for Darnell who crawled toward him like a whipped dog. The cat was a bad actor, but effective. Emma clutched at him as if her life depended on it.

“You can't take him. He's my familiar!”

“Why would it matter?” Michael asked. “Your magic is out of control. What difference would a familiar make?”

“He'd keep it from harming anyone.”

Michael looked at Darnell. “Do you believe that?”

Darnell shook his head and pawed at Michael's arm.

“You can't take my cat!” Emma said, sounding panicked.

“I can and I will,” Michael said. “He doesn't deserve this any more than I do. In fact, I think after that lion stunt, he's suffered enough.”

Darnell was still pawing at his arm. Emma clung to the cat.

“You're going to make me beg, aren't you?” she said, and it seemed as if her temper was about to flare again.

“No,” Michael said. “I'm just asking you to show the same kind of self-restraint most grown-ups use.”

“I'm not a child,” she hissed. “I'm older than you.”

“I doubt it,” he said.

“I am,” she said. “Much older. That's why I'm having this problem.”

“Of an out-of-control temper? That's a child's problem, not an adult's.”

“No!” And then she tilted her head back as if she had said something she shouldn't have. “Please, Michael. Don't take Darnell. Stay.”

She was begging, and it clearly embarrassed her. But he was angrier than he had thought he would be.

“All I'm asking, Emma, is that you control your temper.” He made himself speak calmly.

“The thing is,” she said softly, “I don't know if I can.”

Michael looked at her. “You've never learned how to control your temper?”

She shook her head.

“You mean your parents let you run amok?”

“My parents…” She sighed. “Believe me, you wouldn't understand.”

“Try me.”

She reached across the distance between them and petted Darnell's head. The cat buried his face in the crook of Michael's arm.

“How about I say that I'll do my best to control my temper?”

“Not good enough,” Michael said. “I didn't do anything except agree to accompany you across country. I'm doing you a favor. It would be polite if you remembered that.”

He said that last with more force than he intended.

She looked up, her eyes wide with wonder. “You're mad.”

“I guess so.”

“Why can you lose your temper and I can't?” she asked.

“I haven't lost mine.”
Yet
, Michael thought.

“Even though you're angry.”

“Yes,” he said. “Even though I'm angry.”