Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [265]
Alcide returned, and his face was grim. “I’m afraid your wrap had an accident,” he said, and I realized he was furious. “Debbie, I guess.”
My beautiful silk shawl had a big hole burned in it. I tried to keep my face impassive, but I didn’t manage very well. Tears actually welled up in my eyes, I suppose because the incident with the biker had shaken me already.
Edgington, of course, was soaking this all in.
“Better the shawl than me,” I said, attempting a shrug. I made the corners of my mouth turn up. At least my little purse appeared intact, though I hadn’t had any more in it than a compact and a lipstick, and enough cash to pay for supper. To my intense embarrassment, Alcide shrugged out of his suit coat and held it for me to slide into. I began to protest, but the look on his face said he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
“Good night, Miss Stackhouse,” the vampire said. “Herveaux, see you tomorrow night? Does your business keep you in Jackson?”
“Yes, it does,” Alcide said pleasantly. “It was good to talk to you, Russell.”
THE TRUCK WAS outside the club when we emerged. The sidewalk seemed no less full of menace than it had when we arrived. I wondered how all these effects were achieved, but I was too depressed to question my escort.
“You shouldn’t have given me your coat, you must be freezing,” I said, after we’d driven a couple of blocks.
“I have on more clothes than you,” Alcide said.
He wasn’t shivering like I was, even without his coat. I huddled in it, enjoying the silk lining, and the warmth, and his smell.
“I should never have left you by yourself with those jerks in the club.”
“Everyone has to go to the bathroom,” I said mildly.
“I should have asked someone else to sit with you.”
“I’m a big girl. I don’t need a perpetual guard. I handle little incidents like that all the time at the bar.” If I sounded weary of it, I was. You just don’t get to see the best side of men when you’re a barmaid; even at a place like Merlotte’s, where the owner watches out for his servers and almost all the clientele is local.
“Then you shouldn’t be working there.” Alcide sounded very definite.
“Okay, marry me and take me away from all this,” I said, deadpan, and got a frightened look in return. I grinned at him. “I have to make my living, Alcide. And mostly, I like my job.”
He looked unconvinced and thoughtful. It was time to change the subject.
“They’ve got Bill,” I said.
“You know for sure.”
“Yeah.”
“Why? What does he know that Edgington would want to know so badly, badly enough to risk a war?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“But you do know?”
To tell him would be to say I trusted him. I was in the same kind of danger as Bill if it was known that I knew what he knew. And I’d break a lot faster.
“Yes,” I said. “I know.”
Chapter Six
WE WERE SILENT in the elevator. As Alcide unlocked his apartment, I leaned against the wall. I was a mess: tired, conflicted, and agitated by the fracas with the biker and Debbie’s vandalism.
I felt like apologizing, but I didn’t know what for.
“Good night,” I said, at the door to my room. “Oh, here. Thanks.” I shrugged out of his coat and held it out to him. He hung it over the back of one of the bar stools at the eat-in counter.
“Need help with your zipper?” he asked.
“It would be great if you could get it started.” I turned my back to him. He’d zipped it up the last couple of inches when I was getting dressed, and I appreciated his thinking of this before he vanished into his room.
I felt his big fingers against my back, and the little hiss of the zipper. Then something unexpected happened; I felt him touch me again.
I shivered all over as his fingers trailed down my skin.
I didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do.
I made myself turn to face him. His face was as uncertain as