Anita Blake 22 - Affliction (36 page)

‘You don’t even like her that much,’ he said.

‘I don’t dislike her, but I don’t understand her in your life. I do understand that she makes you happier than I’ve ever seen you, and that’s good enough for me.’

‘Same about you and some of your men,’ he said.

‘I guess that’s my point – why would you risk your happiness and your family for extracurricular sex? It seems like a lot to risk.’

‘You’re that sure Donna wouldn’t forgive it?’

‘She was jealous of me when we met. She guarded her territory all over you. That is not a woman who would share well.’

‘She still doesn’t understand you and me,’ Edward said.

‘Most men and women can’t be friends without sex,’ Micah said.

‘And you can’t be friends once you have sex,’ I said. ‘You can be in love, or be lovers, but not just friends.’

‘Jason is one of your best friends and you have sex with him,’ Micah said.

I grinned, thinking of the blond werewolf manager and dancer at Guilty Pleasures. ‘Jason is different. He’s … Jason, and he was Nathaniel’s best friend before I ever had sex with either of them.’

‘That smile is not just a friend smile,’ Edward said.

‘Jason is the only man I’ve had sex with where it didn’t change the friendship.’

‘Why do you think that is?’

I shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I think it’s just Jason. His attitude toward it, I guess.’

‘Donna told me that it was okay that I was sleeping with you.’

‘What?’ I asked.

‘She assumed that we were having sex when we worked together.’

‘We both told her that we didn’t,’ I said.

‘She sees how close we are, and in her mind men and women can’t be this close without sex.’

‘So she’s assumed we were lovers the whole time and just lying to her?’

‘Apparently.’

‘I thought she liked me.’

‘She does.’

I frowned at him. ‘She assumed you and I were lovers and lying to her the whole time you’ve been together. She should hate me.’

‘She thinks you’ve respected our bond, respected her, and she sees that you care about the kids and us being a family.’

‘How do you know that much detail about what she thinks?’ Micah asked. I wouldn’t have thought to ask that, but that’s why he was the head of the Coalition and I was mostly muscle.

‘She told me that she forgives me for you. That she sees that it doesn’t change anything between her and me and that you belong to that other part of my life, the part where the violence stays. She told me that she will be Ted’s wife, and she understands that Edward can never marry.’

‘She’s still seeing that therapist?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, and yes, it probably is something she and her therapist worked out between them.’

‘So both you and Donna think of Ted and Edward as separate?’ Micah asked.

He nodded. ‘Seems so.’

‘How did that make you feel?’ I asked.

‘Like Donna gets me more than most.’

‘So you think Donna will overlook Edward sleeping with other women, because she’s okay with you sleeping with Anita?’

‘Something like that.’

‘But we aren’t sleeping together,’ I said.

‘When I tried to tell her that, she got mad at me and told me that if she could be brave enough to let us have our relationship, the least I could do was admit it.’

‘What did you say?’

Edward looked at Micah. ‘What do you think I said?’

I looked at Micah. He was looking at the other man as he said, ‘You said,
Yes, dear
.’

Edward smiled and nodded. ‘Exactly.’

‘You told Donna we were having sex?’

‘No, I didn’t argue with her when she said we were having sex.’

‘That’s the same thing.’

‘No,’ both men said together, ‘it’s not.’

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Oh, and now that she’s worked all that out, she accepted my proposal and we’re setting a date,’ Edward said.

It took me a second to process what he’d said. ‘You and Donna are finally getting married for real?’

‘Yes,’ he said, and he smiled. It was a real smile. He was pleased.

I smiled.

Micah said, ‘Congratulations.’ He was smiling, too.

‘When?’ I asked.

‘When can you clear your calendar?’ he asked.

‘Me? Why? I mean, I’ll be there with bells on, but we’ll all work around your schedule.’

‘Good, because I want you to be my best man.’

‘I would love to be, but won’t the whole Donna-thinking-I’m-your-lover be a problem?’

‘She says not.’

I tried to wrap my head around it. ‘You know, if you just hadn’t told me that Donna thought that, then I wouldn’t have felt weird about this, but now … wow, awkward.’

Edward laughed, and it was a good, wholehearted laugh, the one that Donna had helped him find. It made me smile. For that laugh I could handle the weirdness, couldn’t I? ‘I would be honored to stand as your best man,’ I said, because in the end, really, what else was I going to say?

‘Donna has made one request.’

‘What?’

‘That one of your men be on her side of the aisle.’

‘She’s never met any of the men in my life,’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘I think she believes that if you have a lover in town with you, that will cut down on our time together.’

‘So she trusts us, but not really.’

‘She never said she trusted us. She said she forgave us, and she understood what we were to each other; she never said she trusted us.’

‘That’s just weird. Sorry, I know you love her, and everything, but that makes no sense,’ I said.

‘It’s girl logic,’ he said.

‘I’m a girl,’ I said.

‘You’re too much guy to be this much girl,’ he said.

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ Micah said, ‘actually it does.’

I looked from one to the other of them, trying to decide if I’d been complimented or insulted.

‘Do you feel suitably distracted from
ardeur
s and blood lusts?’ Edward asked.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘I’ve noticed that giving you an emergency to handle or a problem to solve helps you ignore all the metaphysical stuff, so have I confused and puzzled you enough for you to get an X-ray without eating the doctor?’

I thought about it, and then I laughed. ‘Damn you, but yes, I’m going to be puzzling and puzzling till my puzzler is sore about the convoluted logic of it all.’

The door opened, and Dr Cross came through with the nurse at his side. He was smiling. ‘I thought I’d take you to X-ray myself.’

Edward gave me a look. ‘Should have taken that bet.’

‘It was a sucker bet and we both knew it,’ I said.

‘And you were never a sucker,’ he said.

‘Not if I can help it,’ I said.

We smiled at each other.

‘What bet?’ Dr Cross asked, still smiling, but obviously feeling he’d missed something.

‘Don’t ask,’ Micah said. ‘They’ve been best friends for years. Sometimes you just nod and let them have their guy moment.’

Dr Cross frowned harder. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’m the wife,’ Micah said, ‘she’s the husband, and he’s the husband’s best friend. Does that explain it?’

Dr Cross frowned and then said, ‘Oddly, yes.’

The fact that it made sense to him made me like him better, which was both good and bad. Good, because liking people is always better than disliking people. Bad, because I was more likely to feed on people I liked.

‘You go check on Nathaniel and your dad; I’ll play chaperone,’ Edward said.

‘Thank you,’ Micah said.

‘Not a problem.’

‘Does Donna really not have a preference on which of my guys stands on her side?’ I asked.

‘Who’s Donna?’ Dr Cross asked.

‘My fiancée,’ Edward said.

‘Congratulations.’

‘Thank you; we’re starting to decide who’s in the wedding party.’

‘That’s always fun,’ Dr Cross said, and seemed to mean it.

And just like that, this particular vampire was safe from me trying to eat him. I could never eat someone who thought planning a wedding was fun.

Dr Cross unhooked the IV and let me use the bathroom but wouldn’t let me get dressed. ‘Not until after the X-ray comes back clean. I get the feeling if I let you get dressed you’ll just make a break for it.’ He laughed.

Edward said, ‘He does know you.’

I scowled at him, but I took what I could get and went into the bathroom. The door shut and I got the first look at myself in the mirror. My curls had gone every which way. My skin was pasty pale. What makeup I’d been wearing had vanished long ago. My eyes had the beginnings of dark circles under them, which I almost never got. I looked rough. The fact that Micah and Dr Cross had reacted to me the way they had could only be chalked up to vampire mind games, or otherwise I was seeing something totally different in the mirror than they did. I guess we are our own harshest critics.

‘Dear God,’ I said.

‘Did you say something, Marshal Blake?’ Dr Cross asked, which meant he might seem ordinary, but he had more-than-human hearing.

‘I’m fine, just looking at my hair.’

‘You look fine,’ he said through the door.

I ignored him. I was able to finger-comb my hair into some semblance of order, but what I really needed was a shower and a fresh start. Food, of all kinds, would help with the rest. I brushed my teeth, among other things, and gave Micah extra credit points for kissing me passionately before I’d tidied up. If things had been reversed I’d have kissed him silly, too. Love means the niceties matter less, especially when you’re glad the love of your life is still alive. Yeah, that makes everything better.

I took the lap blanket that the doc offered because I knew the gown got chilly as they pushed you through the hospital. I’d been hurt often enough to know that for a fact. Once settled in the chair, I asked, ‘Where’s my stuff?’

‘You have a bag of clothes by the couch,’ Dr Cross said.

‘She doesn’t mean clothes,’ Edward said. He lifted a small backpack from beside the chair he’d been sitting in. ‘I got your stuff from the locals when I arrived.’

‘My body armor wouldn’t fit in there; please tell me they didn’t cut it off me in the ambulance.’

He smiled. ‘Your armor is safe. I gave some of your things to your guards.’

‘What’s in the bag?’ I asked.

‘Enough so you won’t feel unarmed.’

‘Great,’ I said.

‘I really don’t think you’ll need to be armed just to go a few floors to X-ray, Marshal Blake.’

Edward was already unzipping the backpack. ‘You can argue with us, but you’re going to lose.’

‘So I should just give up gracefully, is that it?’

Edward nodded. ‘That’s it.’ Edward handed me the Browning BDM.

I checked it automatically, popping out the clip to make sure it was loaded, though he was the person I trusted most on the planet to give me back my gun. I put it under the thin lap blanket. The weight of it was comforting, my hand on it under the blanket even more so.

‘You want any of the blades?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘No, I’ll just have to take them off again when we get to X-ray.’ I reached out for the whole bag.

‘I’m promise not to walk off with your stuff if you let me carry it.’

I thought about it, I really did, but in the end I smiled and nodded.

‘Thanks,’ he said, and I knew he was thanking me for trusting him with my stuff when it could all sit in the chair. It didn’t matter that he’d been in charge of it for hours while I recovered; some things aren’t about logic, they’re about comfort. I liked having my weapons at hand at any time, but the whole being-shot thing made me really not want to be unarmed right now.

When Edward opened the door and let Dr Cross push me outside, I was even gladder I had the lap blanket, because there was a damn crowd in the hallway.

There are always police in the hospital when another one is hurt, especially in the line of duty. I don’t always have that big a crowd because I’m not usually local and I tend to rub people the wrong way, but I would never complain about the brotherhood in Colorado, because the hallway was packed with Boulder PD, state troopers, and uniforms I didn’t recognize. There were plainclothes, too, with their badges at their waists or on lanyards like Edward’s.

In among all the handshaking and nods of ‘Blake … Marshal … ma’am,’ I caught a glimpse of Dev and Nicky against the far wall. They were just there, strangely unobtrusive for two such big guys. I wasted a smile on them and got some back. They didn’t try to push their way through the police to me, just let me know they were there. I was probably as safe as I’d ever be in the ring of police. Bodyguards seemed redundant, but I was still glad to see them. Not so much for the potential protection, but in case the
ardeur
fought its way through the puzzle that Edward had given me. Right now the local PD liked me, thought I was one of them, but one vampire-power-induced orgy involving them and me would so not be on their Christmas lists.

Dr Cross fielded the questions and kept us moving down the hallway. Edward, in full good-ol’-boy Ted Forrester mode, helped the doctor keep us moving. Nicky and Dev trailed behind us. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them like a warm anchor through all the busy, well-meaning human energy like a blowtorch in a field of matches. It all burns, but some people burn brighter. I could feel that brightness.

My stomach cramped so hard that I bent over. Dr Cross bent over me. ‘Are you all right, Marshal?’

I let out my breath in a slow, steady flow and said, ‘Rapid healing takes energy. I think I need food.’

‘Of course, I should have thought of it.’ We stopped long enough at the nurses’ station for him to order the food.

We had fewer people in our parade as they split off and went to check on Sheriff Callahan and just go do their jobs. Some of the uniforms were probably from small departments like Al’s, so they couldn’t afford to have all their manpower here.

The door at the end of the hallway opened and Officer Bush walked through. His short brown hair was still hat-flattened, as if he’d been in his patrol car for a while and was still fresh enough from the academy to wear it behind the wheel.

‘Marshal Blake, good to see you awake.’