A Wolf After My Own Heart by MaryJanice Davidson (free romance novels TXT) 📗

“—stressful. So why not step away?”

“Because someone wants your goddaughter badly enough to set a fire that could have killed people. So they can’t have her.” Lila crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m also abiding by her dad’s wishes—he wanted Sally here, not at IPA or with an IPA…” How to label Macropi’s purpose in the system? “…ally? So she’s here for the duration, God help me. But yeah—mostly because half the neighborhood could have roasted, so fuck them, and they can’t have her.”

“Protective spite?” Oz sounded delighted.

Berne seemed satisfied as well. “So what happens next? Lila? Ms. Garsea?”

Oz coughed. “It’s technically my case.”

“O’course,” Berne assured them. “But I’m asking all of you, since you apparently do things by committee.”

“We’ve got some more questions,” Oz replied. “And we wanted to talk to you about the plane crash.”

“Ach.” Berne’s shoulders slumped. “I’ll answer anything you want, but I hate the thought—it was my plane, y’see. Sue got her pilot’s license years ago, so I let her borrow it. The little Cessna I flew here isna mine.” At their stares, he elaborated. “I’m a ferry pilot.”

He probably thought that cleared things up.

“How unfortunate,” Annette said.

Oh, this just gets better and better. “Macropi’s not the only one dealing with insurance guys this week, huh, Berne?”

Oz was already on his feet. “I know you’ve had a long morning so far, but could we get you to come to IPA? We’ve got some paperwork for you to look over, as Sally’s closest known guardian, and we could answer your questions, too. The more we find out, the better chance we have of helping Sally.”

“O’course.”

“I’ll get you the address… Meet you there in two hours?”

“Aye, that’ll give me a chance to clean up a bit. Two hours and then—” Berne cut himself off and grimaced. “Paperwork.”

Lila had a pretty good idea what “paperwork” meant, and it wasn’t forms. Berne was going to have to look at something much less pleasant (though forms were horrible, too). She almost felt bad for him.

Well, no. She didn’t. Not really.

* * *

Just when she thought she’d gotten rid of a few of them for the morning, there was a rap at her bedroom door. She let out a groan that was a bit exaggerated; she wanted a quick break from unpacking. A brief (brief!) distraction was welcome, especially since her Berne = Bear research had only taken sixty seconds. Armed with Berne’s business card, she found that Berne didn’t mean bear, but Bern did. In German, at least. She assumed the man’s family had dropped the ‘e’, though they needn’t have bothered. Even with the ‘e’, it was pretty on the nose.

The knob turned, and Oz poked his head inside. “I’m interpreting that groan as ‘come in.’ Okay?”

“Interpret it any way you like. Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“In two hours, yeah.”

“IPA must be pretty flexible. I mean, it’s a weekday, and you’re starting a new job…”

“You get time off when someone tries to burn out your foster mother.”

“Excellent. You guys must have a great union. Are you coming all the way in or are you going to keep hovering in my doorway?”

He came in and held out a small bundle of…green dusty garbage? “Did you—is this yours? D’you want it back?”

She looked at it and realized it was a bundle of artificial mistletoe, the cheap kind they sold in drugstores in September, October, November, and the first half of December, at which point they began selling valentines. The previous tenants must have put it up for the holidays, then forgotten to take it down before they were transferred. Or were run out of the neighborhood by a concerted possum attack. Or voles. Or a plumbing explosion. Or a short in the kitchen wiring. Or a double homicide.

She shook her head. “I don’t want it back. Where’d you even find it?”

He was looking at her like she was the weirdo walking around with fake mistletoe after crashing (uninvited) on the Curs(ed) couch. “It was under my pillow. I found it while I was folding up the blankets.”

“How tidy of you.” WTF? “Well, thanks, I guess.”

“So you didn’t plant the mistletoe?”

“Is that a pun?”

“Not on purpose,” he admitted.

“The only way to pun is accidentally,” she agreed. “But now that we’ve got that out of the—uh, you’re standing really close.”

He was peering down at her like a sexy scientist scrutinizing a slide of something weird and great. (Not her best metaphor. It was hard to think when he was standing so close and looking at her so intently and smelling so terrific. What was that cologne? Eau de Jump Me?) “So you didn’t leave it for me?”

She blinked up at him. “You think I wander the house stuffing fake plants under your pillow in the desperate hope that you’ll find them and come see me?”

“…no?”

She snorted at the obvious lie, and the inelegant sound made him smile. In another couple of seconds, she was leaning on him and they were both giggling like sleep-deprived morons. It wasn’t funny, and yet it was hilarious. Punch-drunk, she figured, only without the punch. She reached up and grabbed him by the ears, pulled him down, and gave him a sound kiss, smack on the mouth. It was the least romantic kiss she’d ever given—and maybe that he’d ever gotten—but what the hell. He’d earned it, even if he had lied about expecting it.

She gave him a gentle shove. “Go away, I’ve got more unpacking to half-heartedly get back to. And give me that.” She snatched the plastic mistletoe from his grasp.

He went to the door, then turned back, looking not a little hopeful. “Should I look under my pillow again tonight?”

“You can if you want, but it’ll be a waste of time. I’m burning this unholy talisman, no doubt the product of some sorcerer’s lair…” She squinted at the label. “…made in China.”

Well, no. She couldn’t burn it—she and fire didn’t always get along. Maybe she’d bury it in the backyard like a dog.