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I shrugged again. “I’m not saying I’m holding out anything about today, but I tell you what I can, Dolph, when I can.”

“How about the new boyfriend with the cat eyes?”

I blinked at him. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Micah Callahan. I saw him touch you.”

“He brushed my hand, Dolph.”

He shook his head. “It was the way he touched you, the way your face softened when he did it.”

It was my turn to look down. I didn’t look up until I was sure I could keep an empty face. “I’m not sure I’d call Micah my boyfriend.”

“What would you call him?”

“I appreciate you sharing your personal life with me, Dolph, I really do, but I don’t have to return the favor.”

His eyes hardened. “What is it with you and the monsters, Anita? Us poor humans not good enough for you?”

“It’s none of your business who I date, Dolph.”

“I don’t mind the dating, but I still don’t know how you can stand for them to touch you.”

“If it’s none of your business who I date, it sure as hell isn’t any of your business who I have sex with.”

“You fucking Micah Callahan?” he asked.

I met his angry eyes with my own, and said, “Yeah, yeah I am.”

He stood trembling in front of me, big hands in fists at his side, and for just a second, I thought he might do something, something violent, something we’d both regret. Then he turned his back on me. “Get out, Anita, just get out.”

I started to reach out, to touch him, then let my hand drop. I wanted to apologize, but that would have made it worse. I was uncomfortable with the fact that I had sex with Micah, and that made me touchy. Dolph deserved better. I did the best I could to make up for it. “The heart wants what the heart wants, Dolph. You don’t plan on making your life complicated, it just happens, and you don’t do it on purpose, and you don’t do it to hurt the people who love you. It just turns out that way sometimes.”

He nodded, still turned away from me. “Lucille wants to call you and talk about vampires sometime—wants to understand them better.”

“I’d be happy to answer any questions she has.”

He nodded again, but wouldn’t look at me. “I’ll tell her to call.”

“I’ll look for the call.”

We both stood there, him still not looking at me. The silence stretched between us, and it wasn’t companionable, it was strained. “I don’t have any more questions, Anita. Go on out.”

I stopped at the door, looked back at him. He was still carefully turned away, and I wondered if he was crying. I might have been able to sniff the air and use my newfound leopard senses to answer the question, but I didn’t. He’d turned away so I wouldn’t see, wouldn’t know. I respected that. I opened the door and closed it quietly behind me, leaving him alone with his grief and his anger. Whether Dolph cried or not was his business, not mine.

42

WHEN THE LAST policeman had wandered away, the last emergency vehicle driven off, the summer silence settled over the house. The kitchen was a mess—broken glass ground into the floor, blood drying to black-red puddles on the polished wood. I’d never get all the blood out from the crevices in the wood. It would be there forever, a reminder that superior fire power had prevailed, but not without cost.

I was going to have to call Rafael and tell him I’d gotten his man killed and his woman wounded. I had to admit that it had been a damn good thing I’d had them. The two extra guns had made the difference. If I’d been the only one armed, things might have gone differently. Okay, I might be dead.

A noise behind me whirled me around. Nathaniel stood in the doorway with a broom, a dustpan, and a small bucket. “I thought I’d clean up the glass.”

I nodded, my heart in my throat too much to talk. I hadn’t heard him come up behind me. He was only in the doorway, not so close, but close enough if he’d been a bad guy with a gun.

I had been utterly calm through everything. I hadn’t fallen apart when the police were here, but suddenly I was shaking, a faint trembling. A nice delayed reaction, damn.

Nathaniel set the dustpan and the bucket on the