River Marked (Mercy Thompson #6)(48)
Author: Patricia Briggs

Adam stood up then and came over to me. He put both arms around me. He didn’t say anything, just held me.

"My life used to be normal," I told his shoulder. "I got up. Went to work. Fixed a few cars, paid a few bills, and no one tried to kill me. My father was dead; my mother was six hours away by car–I could even manage to make that trip last eight or nine hours if I worked at it."

"Argued with your back-fence neighbor," Adam said, his voice very gentle.

"And watched him when he wasn’t looking," I agreed. "Because every once in a while, especially after a full moon hunt, he’d forget that I could see in the dark, and he’d run around naked in the backyard."

He laughed silently. "I never forgot you could see in the dark," he admitted.

"Oh." I thought about it for a while. "That’s pretty good. Not quite up to my slowly eroding Rabbit, but you get points for that."

Adam was a neat and tidy person, the kind of man who walks into a room and straightens the paintings. For years I used the junker car in my backyard to exact revenge for high-handed orders I had to follow. Had to follow because they weren’t just high-handed–they were smart. When I was particularly annoyed, I’d remove tires– never all four–and leave the trunk open or one of the doors, just to bother him.

He, evidently, had run around naked to bother me. I thought about that a moment more.

"Thank you for the years of entertainment," I said.

"No trouble," he responded in a serious voice. "Now that we’re married, are you finally going to do something with that car? Like tow it away or store it somewhere out of sight?"

I took a deep breath–and my lungs seemed to be working just fine with the awful my-father-who- wasn’t-my father lump in my stomach gone.

"I’ll think about it," I told him. "Maybe you should put it on your What I Want for Christmas List?"

"You okay now?" he asked.

"Okay."

He tightened his arms and lifted me off my feet. "Mercy?" he growled into my ear.

I wrapped my legs around his waist. "Yeah," I said. "Me, too."

Adam could have died last night. I could have died twenty minutes ago. I wasn’t willing to waste a moment more.

At some point in the night he kissed my pawprint tattoo and laughed. "Did you really tell Coyote this was a wolf print?"

"To you, it is a coyote print," I said firmly. "For him, it is a wolf print. Only I and my tattoo artist know for sure."

I WOKE IN THE MORNING TO THE SOUND OF ADAM’S stomach growling under my ear.

"Sorry," he said. "Too many changes and not enough food."

I patted his hard belly and kissed it. "Poor thing," I told it. "Doesn’t Adam treat you right? No worries. I’ll go feed you."

My head bounced when Adam laughed.

"Let’s go find someplace to eat breakfast and get some groceries." And then he proved that even when he was distracted, he still listened to me. "And some clothes for you."

WHILE I WAS DRESSING, I NOTICED THE NUMBER WRITTEN on the palm of my hand and remembered I was supposed to make a phone call.

"Yes?" Jim’s voice was wary.

"Coyote told me to call you," I told him. "He said that you wouldn’t believe that he was real unless I did."

The man on the other side of the phone didn’t even breathe.

Adam grinned at me as he buttoned up his shirt.

"How is your husband?" Jim asked politely.

"He’s fine." Even the red mark was gone. How fast a wound healed varied from wolf to wolf and wound to wound. As Alpha, Adam tended to heal even faster than most. I’d expected that to change since we were so far from the pack, but evidently it hadn’t.

"How are Hank’s head and Benny’s foot?" I asked.

"Hank is okay. Once we got him away from you, he seemed to recover a bit. Though he has a concussion, it’s not a bad one." He cleared his throat. "Fred told the doctor Hank took a fall. The doctor seemed to think it might involve a pipe or tire iron, but Hank told him it was a fall, too. Fred is keeping an eye on him. Benny has been tranquilized ever since he tried to get up and leave the second time. He seems perfectly happy."

"So we’re meeting you at Stonehenge? Coyote seemed pretty sure something could be done for Hank."

"You are very casual about meeting Coyote," he said. "Maybe we both just had a dream."

"You’re the medicine man," I told him. "You should know better than that–and be casual, too." Maybe that wasn’t fair. "Eventually, anyway. I’m married to a werewolf, and I’ve met Baba Yaga. At least Coyote doesn’t fly around in a giant mortar."

"Baba Yaga? No. I don’t want to know." Jim sighed. "Maybe I should go back to teaching school about crazy people instead of being one. Yes. I’ll see you and your husband at Stonehenge at midnight. The memorial is supposed to be closed after dark, but I have a few contacts. Indian sacred ceremonies usually works, but I have a few more tricks up my sleeve if I need them."

ADAM DIDN’T APPROVE OF WAL-MART.

"There is a department store back in The Dalles," he said with a touch of grimness as we walked through the doors into the warehouselike building.

"Do they still call them department stores?" I wondered aloud, then shrugged it off. "Doesn’t matter. Wal-Mart is the Happy Shopping Grounds for the financially challenged. And those who ruin clothing on a daily basis. I don’t care about ripping up five-dollar T-shirts. And destroying twenty-dollar jeans hurts less than eighty-dollar jeans."

He growled, and I really looked at him.

The bright lights over our heads flickered and gave his skin a slightly green cast. That was the fault of the cheap bulbs, but the tension in his neck and the hunted expression were different. Too many strangers, too many smells, way too many sounds. A paranoid person–or an Alpha wolf–might feel like he couldn’t make sure no one blindsided him in a place like Wal-Mart.

"Hey," I said, coming to a stop. "How about I shop here, and you head over to the grocery store and grab some food. I’ll shop in peace, and you can pick me up in forty-five minutes?"

He shook his head. "I’m not leaving you here alone."

"The only thing that wants to kill me is in the river," I told him, trying to keep my voice down, but the woman pushing a cart past us gave me an odd look. "I’ve been shopping at Wal-Marts for most of my life, and I’ve never been assaulted in one." I narrowed my gaze at him though I kept it focused on his chin. "As long as it’s not demons, fae, or sea monsters, I can also take care of myself pretty well. I’m not helpless." And suddenly it mattered very much that he not treat me like some ninny who needed to be protected at all times, someone who would stand around waiting to be rescued.