Chapter 21
After a couple of weeks of the Amber and Ashlee switcheroo revue, with nothing to show for it but a bunch of pictures of us doing the doublemint twins, no movement on the case and no new threats, we stopped worrying about who was wearing what and where and we just tried to live our lives the best we could.
The hole in the family where Spanky used to be remained constantly in our minds – less in mine and Will’s I have to admit, as he wasn’t our dog. Amber seemed to take my word for it that the heart hadn’t been his, and she hadn’t had any bloody visions of his death – or any visions for that matter – so she managed to get by.
Elle was hit the hardest. Cops, or former cops anyway, don’t like to be stymied and helpless. They want to do something, solve something, bring the bad guy to justice.
Suffice to say, it was an uneasy two weeks.
My bullet wound was nearly healed, although Will found some sadistic pleasure in tickling the sensitive skin around the area in the few times when we were able to forget about the threat to my life. I snapped at him, he growled good-naturedly at me, and I kept wondering when I would screw things up again.
I thought about going all the way with him, I really did. I know, some of you girls are just screaming at me right now, “Get it done already,” but that’s an irrevocable step I just didn’t want to take right then. Not that my body didn’t agree with you. Besides, Mother had warned me that lycanthropy could make hormonal birth control fail, and other methods were too iffy. A girl’s gotta think about these things, you know, and I wasn’t ready for a baby or a litter of puppies or whatever might come forth.
As long as I held a furry secret, I didn’t know how I was going to make it work.
But as I said, we did the best we could, and Will didn’t seem like he was going anywhere. What did I do to deserve him? He kept telling me that love wasn’t about deserving things. That all of us deserve love, but none of us can earn it, which made no sense to me at the time, but I know it’s true now.
My editor had finally called with a new contract for Spa Review magazine and a promise never to let the “boys” try to do a guest column again when their patently sexist version of my work was met with extreme disapproval by my female fans. Guys just have no idea what a woman wants in a spa, but us girls know that it’s not about how hot the steam bath is or how long the lap pool is. It’s about the service and the pampering.
Never send a man to do a woman’s job, I smirked internally. Serves them right. And it gave me leverage to take a much-needed vacation until the holidays were over, though I made a mental note to keep some kind of general column in reserve for situations like this. Well, not exactly like this, but you know what I mean – anything unexpected. I tried to draft something but my heart just wasn’t in it.
A dark shadow hovered over Knightsbridge and the Canyon that Halloween. We all spent it out at the movies, sick of staying home. Our parents had made this a Scott family tradition, as Mother hadn’t approved of all the death and darkness underlying the campy celebrations, and Dad just didn’t like all the kids ringing the doorbell. Talk about your total irony, huh? If I can get Mom to stay still for long enough, I think I’ll bring that up to her sometime and see what she has to say.
MoonRise Page 22
