“There are different types, I suppose.” Then: “Really? A year?”
“Don’t get smug.”
“Too late!” She began to stretch, then groaned. “I think I might give the painkillers one more night.”
“Good call.”
“But imagine how the sex will be when we can bring our A game.”
He groaned. “You’ll kill me.”
“Too late to chicken out now,” she said, and kissed his knuckles.
Chapter 38
“I said I was sorry!”
“You didn’t, actually.” Mama Mac swiped at her with the dish towel again. “Worse, I had to hear about it from that nice bird you work with.”
“I can’t decide if you’re calling Nadia a bird because she’s British or because she’s a raptor. The first one’s okay, but the second could be considered—ack! That hurts almost as much as the bullets did.”
“Well, the towel’s damp.” But Mama Mac backed off, which validated Annette’s decision to pretend the annoying, half-hearted towel whaps hurt more than they did. “And here. This is what you came for.”
Annette took Lund’s original files back. “It’s one of the things I came for. Do I want to know where you stashed these?”
“You don’t, Nettie. And well done, you. For all of it. Except the part where you forgot to tell me you were attacked and hospitalized with multiple gunshot wounds.”
“Let’s not dwell on the past,” she replied as Mama Mac brandished the towel again. “That was days ago. We’re living in the present, which means I’ve got to follow a judge’s order to turn these in to IPA, and then I’m meeting David for lunch.”
Caro yawned as she slouched into the kitchen, scribbled on her pad, then handed Annette a note and tucked the pad back into her pajama pocket:
Lunch? It’s 8:30 in the morning, Net.
“I know, I’m running late. And oh, goody, you’re starting with the Net stuff, too.” What was up with that silly nickname? Laziness? Was it that hard to pronounce both syllables of her name? How much time could it possibly take?
But it was gratifying to see Caro again. She was still painfully thin (which Mama Mac was combatting with several small meals a day, plus protein shakes with pureed beef, and brownies, lots of brownies), but was clean and well rested in flannel pajamas and bare feet.
Mama Mac pushed a bowl of savory oatmeal toward her
“Ooooh!”
and past her to Caro, who fell to like she was starving. Which made sense.
“Oh.”
Mama Mac rolled her eyes and slid over another bowl. Annette had been doubtful about the savory oatmeal trend—she preferred hers with loads of cream and brown sugar—but there was something to be said for steel-cut oats with a fried egg, a slice of pork belly, sautéed mushrooms, and chives. “Yay!”
Caro snorted.
“What can I say?” Annette replied with her mouth full. “I take joy in the simple things.”
“And you always have, m’dear. As for you, Caroline Daniels, what have I told you about sleeping in the basement?”
Caro fixed Mama with one of her eloquent expressions. Not to?
“Not to.” Mama softened her tone. “There are plenty of beds, m’dear. Even with Dev coming to stay for a bit.”
Caro shrugged and scribbled. She was lightning fast, like a court stenographer.
Room’s too warm & bright. It’s like trying to sleep on a giant marshmallow under operating room lights.
“That does sound off-putting,” Annette admitted. “Mama, am I seeing things, or did they rent out the Curs house again?”
“Second time this month. The last tenants didn’t even stay ’til the 15th.”
“Unbelievable. They should just raze it and build…I don’t know, a playground or something.”
“I’m finished,” Caro said aloud. “Thank you.”
“Good God,” Annette said, awed. “Did you chew? At all?”
That earned her a look every teenager had mastered by their fourteenth birthday: Are you stupid?
“All right, I get it. Technically, you don’t have to chew oatmeal. You can just slurp it straight down, like a duck. I guess we should be glad it wasn’t granola.”
“I won’t have granola in this house,” Mama Mac declared, slinging the dreaded dish towel over her shoulder.
“Yes, I remember. And speaking of remembering, you’ll all recall that this”—Annette gestured to the kitchen, the table, the fridge, Mama Mac—“isn’t permanent. I’ll push to get you and Dev fostered here long-term, but it’s a process. Bureaucracy is everywhere and swallows everything. Even the paranormal.”
“Nothing’s permanent. Disaster can strike any time,” Caro said. After two years of self-enforced silence, she still preferred to write notes, even when she felt perfectly safe. No one was pressuring her to speak, because recovery took time; actual real-world psychological issues were hardly ever wrapped up in a neat bow. Still, Annette was warmed every time Caro said something aloud to her. “Got it, you glass-is-half-empty bureaucrat.”
Well. Warmed most of the time. “That wasn’t quite what I was trying to put across.”
MM, more milk?
“Of course, m’girl.” Mama Mac handed Caro what looked like a vase full of whole milk. “And you—you’re seeing that David? Officially? Going together or whatever the current phrase is?”
“We have begun to mate and will do so again,” Annette said solemnly, then snickered when Caro wrote-screamed GROSS!!! and Mama rolled her eyes. “He had to be talked into it, but yes.”
“If he had to be talked into it, he’s a fool.”
“Well, at first he wasn’t going to go out with me for my own good, if that makes a difference.”
Mama’s voice rose. “I said, he’s a fool.”
“I don’t expect you to be objective. His dead mom was entirely against it, but then he figured out that she was against it out of thwarted concern, not any real dislike. Then we boned.”
GROSS!!!
“Wow, you took up the whole piece of paper that time.” Annette pushed back from the table. “Thank you for the oatmeal.”
“You’re welcome, you’re always welcome. Come for supper. We’re having pork roast—”
“Wonderful. What time?”
“—and Oz is coming, too.”
“So sorry, something just came up,” she teased.
“Oh, stop it.”
“I have! He’s transferring from Accounting. Wants to be in the field more, God help me. So now I’ll be worrying about my lambs, his lambs, and him.”
Caro passed her a note.
Or you could acknowledge he’s a grown man who can take care of himself and calm down already.
“Zip it, Caro. Anyway, David and I—”
“When are you seeing him?” Mama asked.
“In about ninety seconds. He lost the coin toss, so he had to give Dev a ride over here. The alternative was to let that duplicitous kit steal a car and wait for the inevitable police report.”
“You were always in over your head with him,” Caro pointed out with a sorry-not-sorry grin.
“I’d love to hotly refute that, but since it’s the complete truth, I’m going to ignore it instead and pretend that I’m in control of absolutely everything. Cue door knock.”
At David’s knock, Mama Mac opened the door, only to be gently moved aside as Caro went to Dev and hugged him hard enough to lift him off his feet.
Dev let out a pained squeak. “Missed you, too.”
“You’ll like it here,” Caro said, setting him down. “She’s nice and there are lots of beds and if you sneak food at midnight she notices but she doesn’t say anything until the next morning which is when she’ll lecture you. There are a lot of those. But that’s the worst of it. Well, that and the ‘n
o screens allowed after 10:00 p.m.’ rule.” Caro let out a long breath, as if talking was physically taxing. Which it probably was, after so little practice. It was, as far as she knew, Caro’s longest verbal speech to date.
“Little tip?” Annette suggested. “If you only take one or two small things to eat in the wee hours, she won’t get up later and check again. So the second time, you can really empty that thing out and she won’t find out for hours.”
“That would have been helpful if she hadn’t been standing there hearing every word.”
“Enjoy my childhood, kids.” To David: “Hello, you.”
“Hi.” He pulled her in for a kiss and handed her a CVS bag. “I’m taking you up on your invitation for tonight.”
She opened the bag and burst out laughing. “You’re the third person to give me an alarm clock in two days.”
“Excellent, it’s good you’ll have a supply on hand. Wait. Who else thinks they get to sleep with you?”
“Gross,” Dev said as Caro handed him a note. “They’re mating? Who uses that word in the twenty-first century? Double, triple, quadruple gross.”
“Quite right. Hello, Dev Devoss. I’m Mama Mac, and I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Thanks for letting me stay anyway,” he replied, grinning his irresistible grin. “Since you raised Annette, does this mean Net and I are sisters?”
“Good God.”
“Of course,” Mama replied seriously. “Those are the very best families, the ones you reach out for and make for yourself.”
“Corny,” he replied. “Really, really corny.”
“Ooooh. Am I the only one who wants corn on the cob now?”
Author’s Note
I express my love of the graphic novel/movie The Losers through my characters and make no apologies for it.
Annette is right to fear sea snakes. Some of them have venom so potent just a few milligrams can kill you. I’m sharing this with you so I don’t have to be terrified by myself.
Pazzaluna has excellent gnocchi and lamb chops and Annette is right to want to eat there all the time.
Polar–grizzly hybrids are real. They’ve been seen in the wild as well as in captivity. They’re also referred to as grolar bears, or pizzly bears. Which is pretty wonderful.
About the Author
MaryJanice Davidson is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of several novels and is published across multiple genres, including the UNDEAD series and the Tropes Trilogy. Her books have been published in over a dozen languages and have been on bestseller lists all over the world. She has published books, novellas, articles, short stories, recipes, reviews, and rants, and writes a biweekly column for USA Today. A former model and medical test subject (two jobs that aren’t as far apart as you’d think), she has been sentenced to live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with her husband, children, and dogs. You can track her down (wait, that came out wrong…) at twitter.com/MaryJaniceD, facebook.com/maryjanicedavidson, instagram.com/maryjanicedavidson, and maryjanicedavidson.org.
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Bears Behaving Badly Page 29
