Gathering Storm (24 page)

Ram sighed heavily. “I’d feel better if I
had a deterrent. Somethin’ like wolfsbane.” He brightened.
“Demonsbane! Do you think they have some in the basement at
Edinburgh?”

Elora laughed. “I don’t
know if there even is such a thing as demonsbane. You can ask, but
even if it exists and they had some, they probably wouldn’t give it
to you.” She shook her head. “You know the worst thing he’s going
to do to you is squeeze your ass. Women have been dealing with that
kind of unwanted attention since the big bang.”

Ram turned his mega-kilowatt smile on her.
“You know I just realized there’s a sexual reference to ‘big
bang’.”

She laughed in spite of
not wanting to encourage him. “You’re hopeless, but I don’t like to
see you worried so I’ll talk to Litha and ask her to make sure
Deliverance knows you’re hands off.”

“Promise?”

She lowered her lids and
smiled in response. “Would that be an opportunity I hear presenting
itself? Sooooooo. What will you do for me?” she asked as she
finished fastening a fresh diaper for Helm.

“A deal is it now? I’m
thinkin’ Litha is a bad influence on you.” Ram lunged and growled
against her neck. “Will be lovin’ you past the end of
time.”

“Oh, well, all right then.”

Glen didn’t see Rosie for
nine days. Not because he didn’t try. He called and left messages
asking her to come see him or, if not that, to call back. She
didn’t reply to any voicemail, but finally, after four days, sent a
single text that simply read, “Busy.”

He sent other texts trying to tempt her with
her favorite things.

We could get ice cream from
the Hub and eat it at the duck pond.
Or,
I could give you another chance
to beat me at Y Box. You pick the game.

She didn’t even bother to respond.

Glen had weathered post
puberty as a kid who was confident, cute, sweet, funny and easy to
be with. Girls responded positively to the package and they did it
in a unanimous sort of way. It seemed those particular
characteristics were universally desired and
appreciated.

In late adolescence the
cute, sweet, funny kid took that inherent werewolf confidence and
upgraded to irresistible hawtness paired with just enough bad boy
vibe to get a nocturnal fantasy rating off the charts. That
combination meant that he was used to being in demand and being
pursued.

Not only was he
unaccustomed to being told no, but he found out that he also didn’t
like it. At all. And, it seemed, he
especially
didn’t like it coming
from Rosie.

If he’d had the option of
popping across the continental U.S. in a matter of minutes, he
would have done exactly that. He would have banged on her door and
demanded to have it out, but she was holding all those cards, which
made the aggravation even more grating.

He was struggling to keep
perspective so that the whole thing didn’t distract him from the
business of running J.U. That was the very last thing he needed.
Even before that incident, he had believed he was barely holding
down the fort.

Yeah. That’s me! Look Mom,
I’m holding down Fort Dixon.

He would have stopped and
laughed at his own joke, but he was just too mad at Rosie to find
anything that amusing. Not even himself.

By the time Elora came to
him with the question about setting Rosie up on dates, he was bona
fide combustible.

“What?!?”

Elora took note of the
fact that normally laid-back Glen definitely wasn’t himself. He was
out of sorts to say the least.

“I said, ‘Rosie’s mother
and I wonder if you know any nice boys your age that you might set
Rosie up with,” Elora repeated, ignoring the ballistic emoting. “We
think she’s ready to put a toe in the waters of the wonderful world
of dating.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

Elora’s eyebrows shot up
to her hairline. “I don’t think so.”

“Litha is in on this?” he
accused.

“Yes. She thinks it’s a good idea.”

“What is WRONG with you people?”

Elora’s confidence in her
wicked matchmaking skill was growing in direct proportion to the
level of fluster and frustration Glen was demonstrating.

“Nothing’s wrong with us,
Glen. You’re the one who’s yelling. Where’s that signature cool
that makes the girls throw panties? Whatever it is, maybe I can
help. Do you need somebody to talk to?”

“Okay. How about this? NO!
I don’t know anybody who wants to date children. If I did, I’d set
them on fire myself. AND NOBODY IS THROWING PANTIES!”

“Come to dinner tonight. I have the little
table in the wine room reserved. It’ll be nice and private. Just
the four of us. We can talk about it. Maybe clear up some of your
misgivings.”

“Four of us?”

“You, Litha, me, and Rosie.”

Glen’s head jerked up.
“Rosie’s coming?”

“Why, yes. Of course.”

“I accept. What time?”

“What’s good for you? Eight thirty?”

“I will be there. If she
thinks that I won’t have anything to say just because her mother is
there, she’s going to…”

“Yes?”

He thought better of
finishing that sentence. He realized he must really be losing it if
he came that close to telecasting a take-down ahead of
time.

“Never mind.”

“Is something wrong? If
it’s Jefferson Unit biz, maybe I can help. You know I will if I
can.”

When Glen looked at Elora,
it was plain that he was miserable. His eyes were almost pleading
for some kind of relief from an invisible source of torture. “You
can’t help.”

“Okay, then. If you’re sure.”

“Sure.”

“See you tonight.”

“Yeah.”

Elora was sure that no
matchmaking conspirator had ever walked away from putting out a
feeler with a greater feeling of satisfaction. She could hardly
wait to get out of sight and hearing distance – werewolf hearing
distance – so that she could call Litha and make a report. Love
between her two favorite new adults seemed like a farfetched fairy
tale, but many stranger things had happened in and around the
interests of Black Swan.

Glen arrived for dinner at
exactly eight thirty. Litha and Elora were waiting with warm smiles
and a nice Chardonnay, which he thought was a sissy drink, but
didn’t say no. The single dinner table set in the middle of the
wine room was intended for special occasions that required more
atmosphere and privacy than could be found in the Mess, even though
it was elegant by any standards.

The mother and adopted
aunt motioned for Glen to sit. He seemed unusually restless and
looked around nervously, like he was expecting an ambush. Litha
poured a glass of white and handed it to Glen.

“Thank you. So, where’s
Rosie? Did you decide it’s past her bedtime?”

Litha smiled indulgently. “Don’t tell Child
Protective Services, but I let her go to bed when she pleases.”

“Really,” Glen said with
an overtone of accusation. “Shocking, but not
surprising.”

“Why, Glen, are you judging my parenting
style harshly?” Litha asked.

He set the glass down
after taking a sip and seemed to be considering his response as he
sucked air through his teeth. “She’s your daughter and I’m sure
it’s not easy raising her with Storm away. It’s not my place to
judge.”

“Very diplomatic and cautious of you.” Litha
studied Glen for a minute. “She’ll be here shortly. She just needed
another minute to finish what she was doing.”

Glen snorted. “Video game or TV show?”

“No. I think it had
something to do with hair, but since we have a minute to ourselves,
I’d like to ask personally if you know some nice boys your own age
who could be trusted to gently introduce Rosie to the mine-field of
dating. Her circumstances have been so unusual that she hasn’t had
the opportunities most girls have to interact with boys growing up.
I think she needs to be eased in, don’t you?”

“As I told your cohort…”
Glen glanced at Elora.

“Cohort?” Elora
interrupted, registering her protest to the implication with an
amused twinkle.

He ignored that and
proceeded as if she hadn’t spoken. “…everybody I know who might be
up for blind dating would be expecting someone who is…”

“Sorry I’m late. Oh good. You didn’t start
without me.” Rosie had popped in behind Glen.

He turned in his chair
thinking he would give her a piece of his mind for the way she’d
behaved the past week, but when she came into view, he did a double
take and was dumbstruck. Rosie had aged physically to just about
the same age as Glen.

Her hair had grown so that
it fell around her shoulders. The sheer weight of those raven
tresses pulled a lot of the curl out and left her hair thick, wavy
and glossier than he remembered. The girlish eyes that had
glittered when she took his knight with her bishop now looked
almost identical to Litha’s. She was wearing a dark emerald green
silk dress that draped her body sensuously without being overtly
provocative. It made her eyes look…
captivating
. She had grown to about
the same height as Elora, which meant she got the tall gene from
her dad and her figure had curved into an hourglass shape that made
Glen swallow hard as the sweep of his eyes took her in.

Her breasts, full and
rounded, had captured his gaze so that he didn’t seem to be able to
look away. Rosie looked down at her chest like she was afraid
something was on the front of her dress. “What’s wrong? Did I
spill?”

Glen snapped out of it enough to stand.

“Hi, Glen,” she said
brightly while taking a seat. He was flummoxed that she said hello
as if everything between them was copacetic and totally cool. “I’m
starved. What are we having?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Litha said.
“Glen, what do you feel like?”

Glen was staring at Rosie
with his lips parted. It wasn’t a full on gape, but it was a
statement that he’d ventured way outside his comfort zone. Almost
in slow motion, like some part of his brain registered from deep in
a well that Litha was speaking to him, he brought his attention to
her.

“Food. Ah. No. I… It’s
Rosie’s evening. Let her decide.”

“Oh. That’s sweet, Glen.”
That one half dimple always left Glen wondering if he’d really seen
it when she smiled a certain way.

It was a miracle that he’d been able to put
together a coherent sentence and speak it out loud. He deserved
credit for that. What he didn’t deserve was to be accused of being
sweet.

Sweet?

Glen didn’t want Rosie
thinking he was sweet. Sweet was for kittens, pink hearts, glace
and other outrageously sugary substances. Sweet couldn’t run
Jefferson Unit in the absence of both Sovereign Nemamiah and the
next best thing – her father. Sweet wouldn’t be put in charge of a
life or death operation to rescue the Lady Laiken.

Glendennon Catch was not
“sweet” and he resented the implication. Sweet was not the word he
wanted to hear her use to describe him. He wanted to watch her look
at him while the perfection that was her bow-shaped mouth smiled
and said words like heroic, sexy, badass or irresistibly
delicious.

So he opted for acting
out, slumped back in his chair, tried to look bored and said,
“Whatever.”

“Let’s find out what Crisp
has to say about what’s going on in the kitchen tonight. So, Glen,”
Rosie started in a conversational tone so polished it sounded like
she’d been to finishing school. “How much longer will you be
running the show here? Is Sol ever coming back?”

“Next week.”

“Well, I’ll bet you can’t
wait to get back to doing whatever you were doing
before.”

“Whatever I was doing
before? Seriously?”

Rosie’s face fell when she heard that his
tone was clearly offended. “Well, I didn’t know you before, you
know.”

That seemed to bring the
conversation to an abrupt halt. Rosie and Glen stared at each
other. Litha and Elora sat quietly across from one another,
witnessing the exchange and occasionally glancing at each other in
wordless communication.

Glen seemed to be becoming
more surly and sullen by the second. Elora pushed back her chair
and stood. “I think I’ll go see what’s keeping Crisp.”

As suddenly as Glen had lost his voice, he
found it. He leveled a focus on Rosie she’d never seen before and
she had to resist squirming under the intensity of it.

He stood as he threw his
napkin down on the table without taking his eyes off Rosie. “Do you
think I might have a word with you? In private?”

She glanced at Elora, who
winked, and then at her mother, who was completely noncommittal.
Seeing that she was on her own, Rosie nodded to Glen and pushed her
chair back.

He held the door to the
courtyard open so that she could pass first. On her way by she
opened her mouth to say something, but he stopped her by holding up
a finger. He put his hand against the small of her back and guided
her to a door on the opposite side of the fountain. It opened to an
empty meeting room, the one where the French vampire had first
appeared in pursuit of Rosie’s mother.