Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [14]
I was hiding something, I thought. If she only knew.
Donna continued, face very serious. “I’m trusting you with the third most important person in my life. Ted is right behind my kids for me. Don’t screw up the best thing I’ve had since my husband died.”
“See,” Edward said, “Donna knows how to be blunt, too.”
“That she does,” I said.
Donna gave me one last searching look, then turned to Edward. She drew him away towards a car three down from us. They talked quietly together while I waited in the still, dry, heat. Since Donna had tried for privacy, I gave it to them, turning away and gazing off at the distant mountains. They looked very close, but it’s always been my experience that mountains are seldom as close as they appear. They’re like dreams, distant things to set your sights on, but not truly to be trusted to be there when you need them.
I heard Edward’s boots crunch on the pavement before he spoke. I was facing him, arms crossed lightly over my stomach, which put my right hand nicely close to the gun under my arm. I believed Edward when he said we had a truce on, but . . . better cautious than sorry.
He stopped by the car one slot over, leaning his butt against it, arms crossing to mirror me. But he didn’t have a gun under his arm. I wasn’t sure that a bounty hunter’s license was enough to get him through an airport metal detector, so he shouldn’t have been able to have a gun or large blade on him. Unless of course he’d picked it up from one of the cars, where he’d hidden it. It would be something that Edward would do. Better to assume the worst and be wrong than assume the best and be wrong. Pessimism will keep you alive, optimism won’t, not in our line of business anyway.
Our line of business. Strange phrase. Edward was an assassin. I wasn’t. But somehow we were in the same business. I couldn’t quite explain it, but it was true.
Edward gave me a pure Edward smile, a smile meant to make me uneasy and suspicious. It also usually meant that he meant me no harm and was just yanking my chain. Of course, he knew I knew what the smile usually meant, so he might use it to lull me into a false sense of security. Or it could mean just what it seemed to. I was overthinking things and that was bad all on its own. Edward was right, I was at my best when I let my gut work and kept my higher functions in the background. Not a recipe for going through life, but a good one for a gunfight.
“We have a truce,” I said.
He nodded. “I said we did.”
“You make me nervous,” I said.
The smile widened. “Glad to hear you’re still scared of me. I was beginning to wonder.”
“The day you stop being afraid of the monsters is the day they kill you.”
“And I’m a monster?” He made it a question.
“You know exactly what you are, Edward.”
His eyes narrowed. “You called me Edward in front of Donna. She didn’t say anything, but you are going to have to be more careful.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry, I caught it, too. I will try but I’m not half as good a liar as you are. Besides, Ted is a nickname for Edward.”
“Not if the full name on my driver’s license is Theodore.”
“Now, if I can call you Teddy, maybe I’d remember.”
“Teddy is fine,” he said, voice totally unchanged.
“You are a very hard man to tease, Ed . . . Ted.”
“Names don’t mean anything, Anita. They’re too easy to change.”
“Is Edward really your first name?”
“It is now.”
I shook my head. “I’d really like to know.”
“Why?” He gazed at me from the black sunglasses, and the weight of his interest burned through the glass. The question wasn’t idle. Of course, Edward seldom asked any question he didn’t want an answer to.
“Because I’ve known you for five years, and I don’t even know if your first name is real.”
“It’s real enough,” he said.
“It bugs me not to know,” I said.
“Why?” he asked again.
I shrugged and eased my hand away from my