Blood Bound (Mercy Thompson #2)(34)
Author: Patricia Briggs

He took a deep, shaky breath. "Can she understand me?" he asked, nodding toward Honey.

"Yes, but she can’t talk."

"All right." He looked straight in her eyes, not realizing he was challenging her. I almost said something to him, but Honey didn’t seem to be bothered, so I let it go.

"If you had a daughter," he asked her, "would you bring her here? Would you trust her to Hauptman?"

She smiled at him, not so widely as to display her sharp white teeth, and wagged her tail.

He looked at me. "If I bring her here, will he take her away from us?"

I wasn’t sure how to answer him. Adam wouldn’t see it that way, to him the wolves were all his family, but conveying that to someone who hadn’t be around a pack was difficult-and I’m not sure that a father would find it any better. How do you give up your child, even for their own good? That was a question I had never asked my mother.

"He’ll take her under his wing," I said at last. "He’ll take responsibility for her welfare-and he will not lightly give up that responsibility. He’d never refuse to let you see her. If she is unhappy in Adam’s pack, there are other options, especially once she has control of herself."

"She can become a lone wolf," he said, relaxing.

I shook my head. I wouldn’t lie to him. "No. They’d never let a female out on her own. There are too few of them, for one thing, and the males… are too protective to allow a female to fend for themselves. But she could request to change packs."

The lines on his face deepened and he swore. Three times. Honey whined. She might have been sympathetic, or just protesting the foul language. I didn’t trust myself to predict Honey anymore.

"What are your alternatives?" I asked him. "If she kills someone, the wolves will have to hunt her down. How would she feel if she hurts you or her mother?"

He took out his cell phone and stared at it.

"Would you like me to call him for you?" I asked.

"No," he said and riffled around in his pocket for the paper with Adam’s phone number on it. He stared at it for a moment, then almost whispered, "I’ll call him tonight."

Chapter 7

"Hey, Mercy, what’cha workin on? Looks like a miniature Corvette."

I looked up to see Tony, cop and old friend-usually in that order-leaning up against one of my work benches. Today he was dressed casually in a thin shirt and khaki shorts appropriate to the hot summer day. Tony looked a bit frayed around the edges. It had been a little over two weeks since the sorcerer had moved into town and, according to the local news, the crime rate had been skyrocketing.

"Good eye," I told him. "It’s a ’71 Opel GT, designed by the same guy who designed the Corvette. Friend of mine bought it from some guy who replaced its wussy original engine with a Honda engine."

"He didn’t do it right?"

"He did it fine. Excellent job of refitting it, as a matter of fact. I couldn’t have done a better job myself." I grinned at him. "Only problem is that a Honda engine turns to the right and the Opel was designed for a lefty."

"Which means?"

I patted the sleek fender and grinned at him. "It only goes twenty miles per hour forward, but can break one hundred backward if you use all four gears."

He laughed. "Cute car." He stared at it for a minute and the smile fell away from his face. "Listen. Can I take you out to lunch? Business, so I’ll foot the bill."

"Kennewick PD needs a mechanic?" I asked.

"No. But I think you can help us."

I washed up, changed out of my work clothes and met him back in the office. Honey looked up when I came in. Last week, her second week of guard duty, she’d turned up in jeans (pressed) with a folding chair, small desk, laptop and cell phone. Working out of my office was almost as good, she claimed, as working out of her own. Ever since the incident with Black, we’d been treating each other with cautious friendliness.

"I’m going to lunch with Tony," I announced. "I’ll be back in an hour or so. Gabriel, would you call Charlie about his Opel, and tell him the price we got on that used Mazda RX7 engine? The cost won’t make him happy, but the RX will fit."

Honey looked up at me, but she didn’t protest me leaving, as I half expected her to.

"I hope you don’t mind if we walk," Tony said as we stepped out into the sweltering heat. "I think better when I’m moving."

"Fine with me."

We took the shortcut into downtown Kennewick, over the train tracks and through a couple of empty lots. Honey trailed behind us, but she was good enough that I don’t think Tony spotted her.

Downtown is one of the older sections of town, small businesses in old buildings surrounded by Craftsman and Victorian houses, mostly built in the twenties and thirties. Efforts had been made to make the shopping area look inviting, but there were a few too many empty shops for it to look prosperous.

I expected him to talk to me while we were walking, but he didn’t. I held my peace and let him think.

"It’s pretty hot for walking," he said finally.

"I like the heat," I told him. "And the cold. I like living somewhere that actually has all four seasons. Montana has two. Nine months of winter, three months where it almost warms up, then back to winter. Sometimes the leaves actually get to turn colors before the first snow hits. I remember it snowing on the Fourth of July once."

He didn’t say anything more, so I supposed he hadn’t been trying to make small talk-but I didn’t know what else he could have been trying for with his comment, either.

He took me to a small coffee shop where we ordered at the counter and then were escorted into a dark, cool room filled with small tables. The atmosphere the owners had been trying for was probably an English pub. Never having been to England, I couldn’t tell how close they’d gotten, but it appealed to me.

"So what am I here for?" I asked him finally, after soup and a largish sandwich appeared before me, and the waitress left us alone. It was late for lunch and early for dinner so we had the room to ourselves.

"Look," he said after a moment "That sour old guy who used to be your boss, the one who still comes in once in a while-he’s fae, right?"

Zee had publicly acknowledged his heritage for a long time, so I nodded my head and took a bite of sandwich.

He took a gulp of water. "I’ve seen Hauptman, the werewolf, at your garage at least twice."

"He’s my neighbor," I said. The sandwich was pretty good. I was betting they made their own bread. I’d had better soup, though, too much salt.