" 'Damn it, Mercy, can't you remember to give me the bills the day you get them? " I quoted in my best crabby-Tad voice.
"You'd think someone raised around werewolves would know the difference between growling and swearing," Zee observed. He put down his wrench and sighed. "I'm worried about that boy. You know he got that scholarship so they could have their token fae to tow around and point out."
"Probably," I agreed. "They'll never know what hit them."
"You think he's all right?"
"I can't imagine a place where Tad wouldn't be all right. Nothing scares him, nothing bothers him, and he's frighteningly competent at whatever he chooses to do." I patted Zee on the back. I enjoyed watching him play nervous father. This was a conversation we'd been having since Tad left for Harvard. I kept track of them and e-mailed Tad with a count once a week.
I heard the office door open and waved Zee to silence so we could listen to how my new office lackey dealt with customers.
"Can I help you?" he said in a smooth, dark voice that surprised me. I hadn't expected him to flirt.
But then I heard Jesse say, "I'm here looking for Mercy-she didn't tell me she had someone new working for her."
There was a short pause, then Gabriel said in a sharp voice, "Who hit you?"
Jesse laughed and said lightly, "Don't worry. My dad saw the bruise, and the person who hit me is dead now."
"Good." Gabriel sounded as though he wouldn't have minded if it had been the truth. Which it was.
"I have someone waiting for me in the car," she said. "I'd better go talk to Mercy."
She came into the shop with a thoughtful look on her face. "I like him," she said.
I nodded. "Me, too. Nice haircut."
We'd stopped by Warren's house after cleanup at the tree farm to find Jesse minus the duct tape that had still been stuck to her hair-and also minus most of her hair. Warren had looked... well, he ought to have looked ashamed, but there had been amusement in his eyes.
Jesse rolled her eyes at me. "Who'd have thought a g*y man couldn't cut hair." She ran her fingers through the inch-long strands that had been tipped with a glittery gold color. She looked like a flapper from the 1920s wearing one of those beaded caps.
"He told you he didn't know how to give haircuts," I said, as she walked over and kissed Zee on the cheek.
"I got it fixed the next day." She grinned at me, then she lost her smile. "Dad called Mom yesterday and told her what happened. Everything that happened."
I knew her mother. She and Adam had only been divorced four years, and Adam had lived behind me for almost seven. "What did she say?"
"That he was to fly me back to Eugene on the first flight home and never darken her doorstep again." She touched her lips. "She does it on purpose, you know. Tries to make him feel bad, like he's an animal. If that doesn't work, she brings up her four miscarriages as if they didn't hurt him as much as they hurt her. As if everything is his fault. And he buys it every time. I knew what she was going to do, so I made them let me listen in on the extension. I think he was just going to agree with her and send me back, so I said some things that maybe I shouldn't have."
I didn't ask, just waited. She could tell me if she wanted to. Apparently she did.
"I told Dad about her boyfriend who tried to climb into bed with me when I was twelve. And the time two years ago, when she left for a weekend in Vegas without telling me she was going anywhere. It got pretty ugly."
"I'm sorry."
She lifted her chin. "I'm not. Mom agreed to let me stay here for the rest of the school year, then they'll talk. Anyway, Warren's out waiting for me in the car-Dad said it would be a long time before he could contemplate leaving me alone-at least a week. I have a request for you."
"What did'ja need?" I asked.
"Dad asked me to stop in and see if you'd come to dinner. Somewhere expensive, 'cause we owe you."
"I'll close up here so you can go clean up," Zee said a little eagerly. I hadn't been that whiny. Really.
"All right," I said. "You can pick me up at-" I started to twist my right wrist, winced and remembered I'd put my watch on my left wrist that morning. It was almost four. "Six-thirty."
"He'll be there," she said, and waltzed back into the office to flirt with the help.
"Go," said Zee.
It wasn't that easy, of course. I introduced Gabriel and Zee, then puttered around getting things finished until nearly five. I grabbed my purse out of the safe and started out the door when my undercover friend pulled up in the parking lot driving a black and shiny eighties convertible Mustang.
"Tony," I said.
He was still in his ubermacho guise, I noticed, as he sprang out of the car, over the door. The opaque black sunglasses disguising his eyes made him look menacing and sexy.
"Your engine is missing," I told him.
"Funny"-he gave his car an implacable look-"it was here just a minute ago."
"Ha-ha," I said. My arm hurt, and I wasn't in the mood for stupid jokes. "Get someone to check your engine."
"What did you do to your arm?" he asked.
I remembered Jesse's method of telling the whole truth, and said, "I got knocked into a bunch of wooden crates by a werewolf while I was trying to rescue a young girl from the clutches of an evil witch and a drug lord."
"Ha-ha," he said in the exact same tone I'd given his joke. "Must have been something stupid if you won't tell the truth."
"Well," I said, considering it, "maybe 'drug lord' was too strong a word. And maybe I should have mentioned the girl's handsome and sexy father. What do you think?"