Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [26]
I nodded, still not looking at him. “Can I ask you a favor, Jason?”
“Sure.”
“I’m not up to you analyzing me on this trip, okay?”
“I wasn’t—”
I held up a hand. “Just don’t poke at my wounds too hard. I’m supposed to be here to support you; if you make me face my demons too head-on, I won’t be as good for you here. Do you understand?” I looked at him at the last.
He was solemn again, but he nodded. “I have trouble when I realize something about someone, some secret thing I didn’t know before. I want to know why, or what the other person was thinking, feeling.” His face went from solemn to pained. “I’ve always been that way.”
Something about the way he said it made me wonder what truth he’d pushed for as a child that he hadn’t wanted to know. If our roles had been reversed he would have asked me, but it was me, and I was already out of my depth.
Alone with Jason for a few days, I’d thought the sex and his problems with his family would be the awkward bits. What I was realizing now, far too late, was that Jason himself was the danger. It was too intimate, this visit. I had trouble keeping my emotional boundaries up once sex was involved. What the hell had I been thinking?
11
THE NARROW, TWISTING road was edged by evergreens, and other trees, but mostly evergreens. There were still a few nice older houses, and some newer expensive houses dotted along the road, but mostly trees. We were climbing, though. Climbing out of the valley that most of Asheville sat in. The rich always seem to live up.
The first hint we had that the hotel was ahead was the cluster of news vans blocking the road.
The curving drive that led between the trees and the vans was being kept clear by men in uniform. Not police uniforms, but really nice valet uniforms. They kept the photographers, reporters, and cameramen at bay long enough for the limo to slip by.
The gently curving driveway spilled out among yet more trees, and suddenly we could see the Grove Park Inn.
The setting in the hills was lovely, but the building helped make it lovely. It was all stone and sort of pseudo-Bavarian, as if men in eighteenth-century clothing should come striding into view with dogs and servants. It should have looked overdone, or silly, but it didn’t.
The inn looked like it had sprung up from the rocks and trees around it, perfect in its setting, organic and right.
“I’ve loved this place since my parents brought us here for Mother’s Day when I was seven.”
“I see why you want to stay here,” I said, and I did.
The window between the driver and Chuck and us whirred down. Chuck turned and said, “You saw the media out front. There is no way they will let you explain, or believe, who you really are. If you go in there, it will be all over the news that Keith Summerland is cheating on his fiancée days before the wedding.”
“What did the publicist want us to do about that?” I said, and my voice wasn’t friendly when I said it.
Chuck’s eyes flicked to me, then back to Jason. “If you would change hotels, we’d pay for your stay as long as you are in town.”
“I can pay for my own hotel,” Jason said.
“I can see that, but you see the problem from our end, right?”
Jason sighed, and settled back in the seat.
“Look,” I said, “we need to check into the hotel and get to the hospital today.”
“How about if we drive you to the hospital? We’ll wait outside. You visit with your dad, and we’ll drive you back to the airport. That way there’s no confusion with the media.”
The limo had stopped a little short of the front of the building, where more well-dressed valets waited. We idled at the side of the parking lot.
I stared at him. “Are you telling us to get out of town?”
“No,” Chuck said, but his eyes were all on Jason.
“I’m not sure one hospital visit will do the job, Chuck,” I said, getting angry and not caring that it showed.
“Mr. Schuyler,” Chuck said, voice soft, almost deferential.
Jason shook his head. “No, I’m sorry; tell the governor that I don’t want to be a problem. But I haven’t seen my dad in three years. We’re estranged, that’s why