“But it wasn’t Kate’s fault,” Tom protested.
Mary waved her hand to silence him. “I know. I know. But that won’t keep them from blaming her, now will it?”
6
« ^ »
“If you were alone, we’d insist on keeping you overnight.” The doctor was grumbling. His choice of words told me that he wanted me to stay anyway, but wouldn’t force the issue.
“My fiancé is a fireman,” I replied. “He’s also had EMT training. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
The doctor didn’t like it. I could see it in his eyes. They clouded, and his mouth tightened into a grim line. He looked from one to the other of us, trying to find the weak link.
“I’ll make sure she rests, and will bring her in if there’s any sign of any problem,” Tom promised. There was a coolness to his voice that was unusual. I dropped my shields enough to know that, sure enough, the doctor tingled of Thrall. Not as bad as if he’d been fed from recently. In fact, it could just be from associating with the doctor who’d been in the ER when Dusty came in. Whatever the reasons, Tom was going to get me out of here one way or another. I was glad. I so didn’t want to spend the night at the hospital. I didn’t want any trouble with the vampires. I just wasn’t up to it. Besides, I might not feel great, but I’d feel just as good (or bad) sleeping in the hotel bed with Tom as I would in a hospital next to the garrulous old lady who’d moved into the second bed. The minute they’d wheeled her in she turned the television on to Jerry Springer at top volume, and started in on a litany of complaints. Seeing that we were completely united, he said, “I’ll have the nurse bring the form indicating you’re signing out against my recommendation.” He gave up with ill grace, turning on his heel and starting to walk away without another word, his back as straight as if someone had shoved a poker up his butt.
“By the way, doctor … can I ask a question?”
He turned his head, but left his body ready to leave on a moment’s notice. “Yes?”
I raised my arm with the heavy plaster cast. “Why do I have plaster on my arm? What sort of surgery did you have to do?”
Tom must also have been wondering because he nodded and raised his brows. It actually pulled a small smile from the doctor. “Nothing more than stitches. But your brother suggested the cast. He mentioned your past history of being… hard on healing wounds. We use acrylic now, but it’s not as sturdy. Had to order out special for plaster. The black was the wolf lady’s suggestion. Said it matched your wardrobe.”
“My brother suggested?” I couldn’t imagine Bryan setting it up. “When did Joe come by?”
The doctor took one step closer to the door and turned the handle. “He didn’t. I called him. Met him at a conference in California last year and got to talking about you. He had to leave suddenly, but we’ve kept in touch. And after all, we want to be certain you don’t have reason to come back here. I’ll go get those releases ready.” He left without another word, the smile wiped from his face.
Ah yes, he’d need to cover his ass in case something went wrong. Fair enough. I didn’t think anything was going to go wrong. I trusted that instinct. Ever since I healed Rob up in the mountains, and even more so since I healed Bryan and the Simms girl, I’ve had kind of a feel for the extent of injuries. I knew my arm would be fine eventually. Oh, I’d end up with some more choice scars, and probably another bout of physical therapy, but in the end it would be fine.
“He’s probably right, Kate. You probably should stay overnight. If he didn’t smell of vampires—” Tom said it softly, so that our neighbor wouldn’t hear. God knows she was trying. She was straining so hard I was afraid she’d fall off the bed. I didn’t know if she recognized me and wanted juicy tidbits to give her acquaintances, or if she was just the nosy type. I didn’t care, either. I just wanted out.
I gestured to the stand between the two beds. The phone was there, along with the thick Vegas telephone book.
“Can you go downstairs and get me something to wear? They took my clothes for evidence. I’ll call us a cab.”
“All right.” Tom leaned down to give me a quick kiss. “But I don’t like leaving you alone.”
“What do you mean alone!” The old girl snapped from the next bed. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’m tougher than I look too. You just do what you’re told!”
Tom fought not to laugh. “Yes ma’am.” He kissed me again. “I’ll be right back.”
As he passed through the door she shook her head and passed judgment. “Handsome, but not terribly bright. You could do better, dearie. Still, can’t say as I blame you. He is quite the looker.”
I might have defended his intellect, but the cab company picked up the line. I asked them to be at the front entrance in forty-five minutes and gave them the name Bishop. They said they’d wait if need be, but I’d be charged for it. As it turned out, I’d given us more than enough time to get me checked out and downstairs. I’d expected to have forms to fill out, and to spend at least a few minutes talking with Mary and with Tom’s grandparents. Turned out, Mary had already gone off to meet with the locals. Tom’s grandparents stayed only briefly, just long enough to make sure I was going to be okay and to extract a promise from Tom that we’d call them in the morning. The sun was setting as the two of us settled onto one of the small concrete benches that lined the hospital entrance. I had my bag with prescriptions and paperwork resting on the seat next to me. Even with the drugs, the arm hurt abominably.
There hadn’t been anything to wear in the hospital gift shop, so Tom had walked down to the corner drugstore. He’d come back with lime green drawstring shorts and a cheap souvenir tee-shirt with hot pink flamingos wearing sunglasses in front of a neon sign that said “VEGAS ROCKS.”
I slid across the seat, giving him room to sit beside me. When he was settled beside me I asked the question that had been hovering between us.
“So, what’s the situation in Denver?”
“Do you want the bad news, the worse news, or the really horrible news first?” He was quoting me from an incident some time ago, trying to keep the tone light by reminding me of a night from our past. It might have worked, but his eyes gave him away. They were serious, even worried. Still, I played along, giving him the response he expected.
“Gee, honey, you make them all sound so wonderful. You choose.”
I was rewarded with a sincere, if tired, smile.
“The good news is, Harry Zorn transferred out of the department.”
“Okay.” I didn’t know why that was good news, but I’d take his word for it.
Tom’s smile grew broader. “He’s the one who was keeping everybody worked up about what I did. He just kept agitating. I think he was trying to get me fired. When he saw I got accepted to smokejumping school he had a fit and quit.”
“You got accepted!” I forced myself to smile brightly and act excited. He’d always wanted this, after all. I can do the supportive girlfriend thing. But oh, shit, he got accepted.
“Yeah!” His eyes were sparkling now, and he was practically bouncing up and down on the seat with excitement.
“It’s so great!”
That was debatable. But I so wasn’t going to say it. Oh no. Nunh unh. Nope, nope, nope. Time to change the subject before I gave away my real feelings.
“But you said bad news,” I prompted him and was immediately sorry. All that bubbling joy just drained away.
“Mary’s not Acca any more. She’s been replaced by Janine.”
“I know.” I raised my left arm. “And you’re right, it’s the worst. Janine’s nuts.”
“Did you know that she’s my ex-girlfriend? That she came out to Denver from Vegas looking for me?” He was angry, even bitter about it. But at the same time I could see he was worried how I’d react. He needn’t have worried. After all, who was I to throw stones? I’ve got my own share of not-so-glorious ex-relationships.
“It came up.” He flinched. I hadn’t meant my tone to be that harsh, but thinking of Janine made me angry all over again. I was surprised Mary hadn’t told him about the argument that had started the violence at the airport. Then again, she might have figured it was something best left between the two of us. “Janine’s gotten her mother to call an emergency Conclave and put our relationship, or the end of it, on the agenda. Care to ‘splain to me about Conclaves?
Mary said to tell you that since she’s not Acca anymore, any orders she gave you are out of force.”
I was glad the cab was late. It was giving us time to talk. But someone had taken a seat on the next bench over. I could only hope he wasn’t eavesdropping.
Tom stared at me for a long moment. I could feel the tension build as he tried to come up with the right words. His face moved from anger to fear and then to something I didn’t recognize but had wolf written all over it.
“I’ve been wanting to tell you—” He paused and looked at me with worried eyes. I shrugged, not so much angry as tired. It was yet another thing he didn’t feel confident enough to tell me. Yeah, I know the wolves are a matriarchal society, but sometimes I find it frustrating just how obedient the males are to the Acca, who is always a female. He even took a beating from Mary that would have killed a lesser man, just because he refused to break up with me. Of course, that got me to thinking about Carlton again, because it was he who had rescued Tom from the side of an icy mountain road to bring him home after Mary worked him over. Again with the why? Thralls are evil. Thralls don’t do nice things without reason—and certainly not for a werewolf. Yet, Carlton seemed to be able to flout the rules of the collective as easily as the ones on the court.
Tom’s voice interrupted my musing. “The Conclave is like the United Nations. Each of the dyad family units and pack hunting units answers to the Acca. The Accas, in turn, answer to the Conclave. Representatives are chosen from the Accas to sit on the Conclave council. The Conclave decides everything. They are the ultimate law.” He turned to me and took my hand. It was then I noticed his palms were sweating. “Kate, I didn’t know we were on the agenda. God!
This changes everything. It’s one thing to leave the Denver pack if they object to us. But the Conclave could have us driven out of not only the Denver pack, but blacklisted so that no pack would take us. I don’t know that I’m strong enough to become a rogue.”
That sounded like a title that had real meaning, and if it scared him that much, I needed to know what we were facing. I squeezed his hand and turned his face with my damaged arm so I could see his eyes flickering yellow as he neared changing. We needed to keep him calm. I don’t know what would happen if he changed in the back of a taxi in Las Vegas. “What’s a rogue, Tom? This is important. Hold it together here.”
He locked his jaw so suddenly that I heard the muscle pop and I steeled myself for the worst, my body pushing back into the leather car seat. “If I’m declared rogue, every pack in the world will be under orders to drive us from their territory on sight. There’s not much land that isn’t considered part of some pack’s territory. From what I’ve heard, rogue wolves seem accident prone—to the point where they have a really short life expectancy. To my knowledge, there aren’t any rogue wolves alive at this precise moment.”
“What?”
He closed his eyes in evident pain. Reaching across the seat, I took his hand in mine and gave it a squeeze. It seemed to strengthen him, because he continued. “I love you, Kate. I do. But I can’t subject you to that sort of life. We need to figure out some way to get off the agenda, or get a champion, or something. This is big. I don’t know if you realize just how big. I need some time to think about this. Sadly, though, that wasn’t the bad news I was going to give you and now that the moment’s ruined, I might as well. Your insurance company is denying the building claim. They say it was sabotage, and think the claim is fraud.”
Time froze. It was hard to even think straight. Yes, Edie had mentioned the possibility of sabotage, but I hadn’t really believed it. Silly me. Now everything I owned had been destroyed or damaged, Tom might be heading for slaughter, and there was a good chance that I might not have a home for years. To say nothing of the inevitable lawsuits, running for our lives, and bad press. Assuming word leaked out—which, eventually, it would. I’ve had runins with the police before, and the courts, and the wolves. I’d been cleared, but now my name was on the official radar at a national level. I was becoming infamous. And, like it or not, there are always going to be those folks who think
“where there’s smoke there’s fire,” that because I’ve been suspected of wrongdoing, I must be guilty. It was rapidly reaching the point where I might have to change careers, change my name, or get a new face. First off, legal problems would put my bond and concealed carry permits at risk again. But worse, notoriety is the last thing clients want in an air courier. They want their valuables to pass in safe and pleasant anonymity from place to place with thieves not knowing who to target. I have a very distinctive appearance. It wouldn’t take a particularly bright thief to put two and two together if they saw me at an airport with a briefcase cuffed to my wrist. While Gerry Friedman and some of the other clients who had become friends over the years we’d worked together would hate having to hire someone else, they’d still do it. I couldn’t even blame them. After all, business is business. And if I was running for my life from rabid wolf packs, I couldn’t do much to keep money coming in if Tom couldn’t find steady work in his trade.
Which is why it was no real surprise to me when Tom broke the last bit of bad news. After everything so far, it nearly made me laugh. Gerry had called my cell phone while I was unconscious. The Tel Aviv run was being
“postponed” indefinitely.
“I’m sorry, baby.” Tom spoke softly so that passersby wouldn’t hear.
I felt like crap, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Everyone has a breaking point and I was getting damned close to mine. So much of my life was completely out of control right now. I didn’t dare meet Tom’s eyes, or I’d lose it. So I stared out at the glow of the lights of the strip in the distance, my throat too tight to answer him. It was at that point the cab finally arrived. As he pulled to the curb Tom and I rose to our feet and crossed the sidewalk.