by Anna Windsor
“I’d say her bark’s worse than her bite, but that would be a total lie. Really, though, she’s not that bad. Not to us.”
Jack kept his eyes on traffic even though he wanted to be staring at Andy, because the rest of the world really did look slow and dull compared to her. “Your fighting group, you’re all pretty close.”
“We have a lot in common.” Her words carried a little sadness, but also pride, and Jack liked that. All good fighting units, military, law enforcement, Sibyl, or otherwise, needed cohesion. Andy’s group was lucky to have her because she probably understood that from lots of different angles. He hoped they knew that. He hoped Bela and Camille and Dio appreciated her and let her know her importance on a regular basis.
“I like the jeans and your overshirt,” she said. “Dark green looks good on you. Where are we headed?”
His grip on the wheel tightened. “The Village.”
“A surprise? Imagine that.” She laughed, and he enjoyed the sound. Energy filled the Jeep, vibrant and humming and active. If this was Andy after a good night’s rest, he wanted to see her after a week of resting and playing and …
Yeah.
Let’s leave that one alone for a few.
Andy put her fingers on the Jeep’s window and let out a breath, sunlight shining off her giant sunglasses. “I love summer. Don’t you?”
It had been a long time since Jack had thought about stuff as simple as which season of the year he liked best. “I’m not sure. I’ve moved around a lot, and some of the places have been more extreme than others.”
I don’t have a home. Never have, never will.
That part he kept to himself.
“New York City’s great,” Andy said. “All four seasons are so different from each other—but summer’s the best. The warm air, the people everywhere, the flowers and trees in Central Park. Wouldn’t trade it for anything.” She settled deeper into her seat. “I’m from the South originally. Trust me, it gets way too hot to live during June and July. August and September can be a bitch, too.”
Jack wove into the far lane to give the buses some room. “I’ve spent time in Atlanta, Birmingham, and New Orleans, so I’d have to agree.”
“Bet you have been a globetrotter, with what you’ve done for a living. Is there anyplace you’re curious about that you haven’t seen?”
“The South Pacific.” Jack surprised himself by giving up that private fantasy so fast. What the hell. Andy inspired openness. Who could resist a woman in turquoise and beads—and yellow sunglasses? “Fiji, the Solomon Islands. I like to dive, so I’ve always figured that would be a little piece of heaven to me.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw her grin.
“Hundreds and hundreds of uninhabited tropical islands. I like the way you think.”
“Hope so.” He turned left and hunted for a spot. There. Right in front of their destination. How lucky was that? Unless, of course, she hated the place.
He parked, got out, and came around to open her door, but Andy had already bailed out of the Jeep. She stood on the sidewalk staring up at the neon marquee above the storefront window. In glowing blue letters illuminated day or night, according to Nick and Creed Lowell—the sign read JOE’S BAGEL BAR.
Andy’s expression remained unreadable for a second as Jack grimaced at the grimy windows and the ancient-looking booths he could see inside. Maybe Creed and Nick had yanked his chain. Maybe this was a mistake.
“I can’t believe you brought me here,” Andy muttered. “I haven’t been here in a month of Sundays. Since—well, since I started flooding living rooms and shit.” She pulled off her shades, her green and brown eyes sparkling in the bright sunlight. “I love this place.”
Jack felt relieved—for a few minutes. Once he got inside and started trying to build his own bagel brunch sandwich with Andy directing him, things got a little hairy.
“Artichokes and roast beef? You sure?” He eyed the fixings on the other side of the glass as the servers worked.
She shoved her tray down the cafeteria-style bars in front of the display, having the servers load just about everything onto her poppy-seed mega-bagel. Onions, tomatoes, six different kinds of cheese—even anchovies.
She eats like she dresses, free and vibrant. Doesn’t give a shit what anybody thinks—including me. His military side screamed for him to slow this down, to restore some order, but he ignored that. Maybe he could get used to a little less order.
She directed the servers to put two different kinds of mustard on his bagel, and he had to smile. When she told them to add three different kinds of peppers, he didn’t say a word. He was beginning to think every minute he spent with Andy could turn out to be an adventure.
They took seats in a booth near the door, light from the dirty windows filtering over the mounds of sandwich Andy had created for both of them. Andy dug into hers without hesitation, making happy noises as she chewed.
Jack reminded himself that he’d been a soldier before he’d ever joined the Army, that he’d faced psychotic family members, death, demons, and shit that would kill most people, no questions asked. How dangerous could one sandwich be? Even if it looked a little funny.
He mashed the two halves of whole wheat together, picked it up, definitely did not let himself smell the thing, and took a bite. Chewed. His eyes watered. If he opened his mouth, he’d spit flames like a fire Sibyl.
Andy watched him, grinning around her mouthful of bean sprouts and mushrooms and a bunch of other stuff he hadn’t even been able to keep up with. After she swallowed, she said, “Food shouldn’t be boring.”
“Nothing’s boring around you. I’m getting that.” Jack ate another few bites and washed it down with the sparkling water she’d picked out for him. The lemon she’d added took the sting down a few notches, and the flavor—not bad. “Do you know how to cook?”
“I wish. I make a mean sandwich.” She hoisted another bite and scarfed it down. A hefty note of garlic wafted across the table.
Jack didn’t say anything about the fact he actually knew his way around a kitchen. Maybe he’d surprise her with that little fact someday.
“Why did you ask me out?” she asked suddenly.
Direct question. Deserved a direct answer. “I think you’re …” He hesitated. What word? Beautiful? Amazing? Interesting? All of them would fit. He settled for “Exciting.” It didn’t come near all the layers of her he could see, but it was a start.
Mischief glinted in her eyes. “Was it the underwear? Tell the truth.”
No, sweetheart. Not that much truth. Not yet. Jack’s whole body reacted to the memory of her standing on the beach with nothing but wet lace hiding what he wanted to see. “The underwear got my attention, but you already had my appreciation.”
“From what, all the broken bones I gave you?”
He shrugged. Just a leg, an arm, and a wrist. Bones healed. “Nah. It’s the way you walk. Hot.” He waited for her to laugh, and she did. “Really, it was the notes you wrote in OCU files. You’re a strategist at heart. You see patterns and details most people miss. I respect that kind of brilliance.”
This seemed to catch her off guard, and she looked down at her bagel creation.
Jack tensed. Was he treading ground Sal Freeman had walked? He didn’t want to be a reminder, not because he thought he couldn’t find his own way with Andy, but because he didn’t want her sad.
“Complimenting my body and my brains.” She glanced at him and smiled. “You’re working hard.”
“I have to keep up.”
“Letting this be anything like a date, it’s a big step for me.”
“I know.”
Her eyes seemed to shift more to brown, darker with a seriousness he wasn’t used to seeing from her. “Especially with you. When you headed off to spend time at the Motherhouses, you were the most arrogant fuckhead I’d ever met. What changed?”
He gave her hot, brilliant, exciting—and he got fuckhead. Figured. “They reminded me I wasn�
�t the only person on earth who had been fighting evil my whole life. That I wasn’t the only arrogant fuckhead who’d lost people who mattered, or the only guy who cared how the battle ended.”
Andy chewed on this along with another bite, then her smile started to creep back into place. “I was pretty sure one of the Mothers would kill you.”
“I wondered myself, especially in Ireland—but I think I got more lumps and bruises in Greece.”
Andy pointed a bit of carrot at him and nodded. “Dio aside, most people think air Sibyls are sooo sweet until they piss one off, you know?”
“The same could be said for water Sibyls, at least the modern variety.” He watched as she popped the carrot into her pretty mouth. “I read a lot at the Motherhouses, but I didn’t find out until just recently—you were the one who killed the Leviathan demon and ended the war with the Legion cult.”
The seriousness came back to her eyes. “Everybody had a hand in that. The fucker was already down and restrained by the Keres—you know, the Fates from Greek mythology. They’re all about fate and doom and death and vengeance. They’re the ones who contained August. I just pumped a few darts into his big demon brain to finish him off. It was—” She broke off, and he could tell she didn’t want to explain why she’d been the one to take out the Leviathan.
Jack took another bite of his sandwich, managing the pepper juice and mustard on his tongue. Why wouldn’t she tell him something like that? Unless—well, hell. Yeah, it probably did have something to do with Sal Freeman. He had to let her know that it was okay to go there, that she didn’t have to try to shield him or please him or pretend Sal had never existed. Soldiers died in battle. Good soldiers. Better soldiers than him. Jack didn’t feel any need to compete with the memory of a dead man.
“You don’t have to censor with me. Not ever, not about anything.” Pepper juice dripped from his sandwich to his fingers, burning along his skin.
“That’s a pretty big invitation.” All serious now, no play.
“It’s a real one, and it’s always open. For example, that dream Dio had that upset you so badly. Start with that.”
For a time Andy gazed out the grimy window, watching New York City pedestrians troop by, heading God only knew where, for a thousand different purposes. When she did speak, her voice went soft. “She dreamed about Tarek coming back from the dead. Some people brought him back by sacrificing Neala and me, and he had more power than ever. As much power as the Leviathan I killed. In Dio’s dream, Tarek killed her. Well, tore her apart. Those were the words she used.”
The thought of Andy and Neala being murdered made Jack tense so fast, so deep inside, he barely managed to keep his expression neutral. “Was her dream a vision?”
“The Mothers don’t think so.” Andy brought her gaze back to Jack’s face. When he saw the tears glittering in the corners of her eyes, he wanted to hold her until all the pain and danger faded to nothing. “We reported it, but Mother Anemone already got back to us and said it’s probably metaphorical. That it means we’re tangling with forces as powerful as the Leviathan.”
“I don’t like that.” Jack meant all of it, especially the part about Andy and Neala being sacrificed, but he knew she would focus on the Leviathan part. He expected her to say something sarcastic, something full of bravado to chase away her own tears.
Instead, she seemed to steel herself. Then, staring straight into his eyes, she said, “The Keres gave me the honor of slaying the Leviathan because in their eyes, it killed my mate and I had the right to vengeance.”
Jack took that in without flinching. His own instincts told him that this got to the center of Andy. This was what he needed to know, what he most needed to understand about her if he wanted any chance to know her better. And he definitely wanted that chance.
“Did you consider Sal Freeman your mate?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. No game playing. He saw sadness sink across her face, but also acceptance, and maybe something like distance. Like she’d been working on this thing and she’d managed to get a little perspective.
“I’ve never had a lover murdered, but I lost some people in my family—and so many friends in Afghanistan I thought my soul might bleed out on the sand.” Jesus. Had he said that out loud? He’d never told anybody anything like that. The truth of it punched him in the gut, and his throat got tight as he made himself finish. “I wish I’d gotten to kill the Rakshasa who took out my men in the Valley of the Gods, but I’m damned glad Camille and your fighting group made that happen.”
He hadn’t meant to get so forceful, but he wasn’t sorry he was talking to her. Talking seemed easy with her. He had a sense of her water energy, something relaxing, something soothing, totally at odds with her eye-grabbing appearance. Another layer, deeper than all the rest.
“What happened in the war—do you think it’s your fault, Jack?”
Shit. Who was getting to the heart of things now? His damned heart. Direct hit. “It was my unit.”
He expected her to argue, to try to use some modern mental health shit to talk him out of that, but she said, “You were right, back on the beach when you came to talk to me on Kérkira. If I hadn’t suddenly discovered my Sibyl water talents, I would have accepted command of the OCU.” She pushed some of her curls behind her ear. “Commanders are always responsible for everything, fair or not. When people march out and die on your orders, you don’t get the luxury of whining that it’s not your fault.”
Jack didn’t know what to say back, couldn’t quite find the words, but thank you came to mind. He hadn’t expected her understanding, but getting it felt damned good.
“The past can hold on for a long, long time,” she said. The pain in her voice made him want to hold her, make it go away—or at least ease it as much as pain like that ever got eased. “War scars people. Duncan and John, they have their issues from battle. Hell, I was active duty four years in the Marines and saw my share of crap—but nothing like what you faced. You went through a lot in Afghanistan.”
Jack got down a little more of his sandwich before he said, “We all did. I’m nothing special.”
“The Rakshasa. The Valley of the Gods. That was special. Outside the ordinary, I mean.” She was half through with her own sandwich, and the other section looked completely different from the one she’d finished. “I’ve never commanded as many men as you, but I’ve lost officers on the streets when I was in charge—so I get it. And I’m sorry, Jack.”
“Thanks.”
Her smile made him feel everything from sadness to elation in a few quick seconds. How did she do that? Had to be magic. Had to be.
“So, you want to do this date thing again sometime?” Andy’s smile flashed, more tentative, a little self-conscious, and Jack felt like she had her hand on his heart, squeezing.
“Oh, yeah. What about tonight?”
She shook her head. “Patrol. And if we shirked off a second night, somebody might graffiti our front door.”
“Tomorrow night?”
This time he got a nod. “Tomorrow night will work.”
“Want to meet somewhere so you don’t have to deal with your quad?”
“Gotta face them sooner or later. I get to pick the restaurant.”
“And the time after that, it’ll be my call.”
“You’re that confident we’ll have a third date?” More smiling. Jack hoped she never stopped.
“Yes.” He finished off the last bite of his sandwich, relieved, but also a little disappointed. He’d gotten used to the jarring taste, and if they finished, they’d have to leave. “But before that—I had an idea about the sketch that was giving you trouble.”
“I’m listening.” Andy dug into the rest of her sandwich, not too fast, taking her time, and Jack wondered if she didn’t want to leave, either.
“We know all of this is mob-connected, and we’re suspecting some sort of demon conversion, right? So it makes sense that the demon might be somebody we’ve run into before.”
&
nbsp; “A known criminal.” She considered this. Seemed to like the prospects. “Somebody on the books.”
“Maybe.” He thought he could look at her forever, even in a dive eating freaky bagel sandwiches. “I pulled a bunch of mug shots for you to search through when you have time. You might see something that helps you line up the face on the sketch.”
“Sure. How about when we leave here?”
She kept at her sandwich, a little faster now. Good. He didn’t have to think about taking her home yet. He’d have her for a few more minutes, maybe a couple of hours—and maybe they’d make some progress on the case, too.
When she’d polished off the last sprout and crumble of cheese, Jack paid the tab and the two of them walked into the sunlit morning. It had to be close to noon, or maybe a little after. Damn, time moved too fast.
They reached the Jeep, and as he reached to open the door for her, Andy put her hand on his arm. Her soft skin resting against his, the connection of her fingers gripping him, made Jack’s body come to full attention all over again.
“That was nice. A nice start.” She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek, her wet, full lips lingering along his cheekbone.
His mind filled with her sweet scent. The buildings around them, the Jeep, the crowd surging down the sidewalk—everything faded away from Jack except Andy and her fingers on his arm and the way she moved her lips on his face. He felt like a man under a spell, unwilling to move because he might shatter the magic.
Her mouth whispered down his face until she found his. Her kiss came gently, tentative and sensual, and she tasted like ocean and woman and a thousand spices he couldn’t name. She gripped his other arm, balancing herself but getting closer, her breasts brushing against his chest.
Animal instincts flooded Jack. He couldn’t hold back even if he wanted to, not with her this close, not with her lips on his. He pulled loose from her grip and caught her before she could tip backward and slip away from him. Then he kissed her like he wanted to, slow and deep and long, and only a tiny part of his brain logged the fact that he hadn’t been hit with a tidal wave.
