by Zoe Chant
“Thank you, Theo. I remember how to date.”
A little bit of embarrassment colored Theo’s face. “Yes, sir.”
“Not that I don’t appreciate it.”
“Colby and I just let Theo get you things,” Gretchen said. “He does the best presents anyway.”
There was a pause while everyone remembered the Secret Santa debacle of Theo’s first year. Martin had forgotten to tell him about the twenty-five dollar limit.
“Besides,” Colby said, “I come bearing news of our actual jobs.”
Gretchen stood and stretched. “While he does that, I’ll take the dog around for you, chief.”
She always knew exactly what his next move would be. “Thank you.”
“No problem. You know Colby freaks them out anyway.”
That was true. The German shepherds that acted as their courthouse security bomb-sniffers tended to go belly-up around Colby. It was hard to explain to any civilian bystanders that the dogs just wanted to acknowledge Colby as their alpha. Theo made them nervous, too, just wary enough that it was possible that they would miss something. Gretchen and Martin were the only two in the office who could reliably handle them.
“Dogs love me,” Colby said.
Martin snorted. “A little too much. Tell me about whatever it is you found out yesterday.”
“Right.”
Whenever the time came to stop goofing around, Colby fell back into his old military bearing and usually wound up in parade rest: now was a perfect example.
“They traced our bomb threat call back to a disposable cell phone. So that’s got me reevaluating the ‘punk kids’ angle. I don’t know that kids would have thought of being that careful. Then again, it’s the kind of thing they could have easily picked up from TV, so it’s too soon to say.”
Martin nodded. “I know we complain about crime shows getting things wrong, but sometimes we get screwed over when they get it right, too.”
“I’m a soap opera guy, myself,” Colby said. “Then you know the level of reality you’re dealing with.”
He supposed that was true.
“Anyway, according to the store owners that I talked to yesterday, everybody does a lot of business selling these burner phones to teenagers. They want to be able to make calls and send texts their parents won’t know about. Then you have the kids who are convinced they’re going to be mob kingpins. They want the phones so they can look more mysterious.”
“I’m so glad not to be seventeen.”
“Tell me about it. So I’d say eighty percent of them get the phones because they just want their secrets and only twenty percent get them because they’re convinced they’re hardened criminal badasses.”
“And what do you think we’re looking for, the eighty or the twenty?”
“I’m hoping the eighty. Then when I find this kid, all I’ll have to do is shake some sense into them. If they’re in the twenty percent, I’ll have to shake some sense into them and hook them up with some kind of counselor. I guess Jillian will know somebody, she’s still working at the Youth Center.”
Martin smiled. Only Colby would spend this much time tracking down someone he didn’t even plan to arrest, just so some kid would straighten up and fly right.
“But that’s just a hassle,” Colby said, dismissing his own dedication. “One way or another, that’ll all work out okay. What worries me is who might have made the call if it wasn’t a kid.”
“I know you don’t like the bomb squad’s theory that it could be a professional—”
“I don’t. The odds are against it, boss. Terrorists, the mob—they don’t usually play around first. I think if it was anything like that, we wouldn’t have gotten the bomb threat. We’d have just gotten the bomb.”
“True.”
“Plus, none of the store owners I talked to remember selling a burner lately to anyone who seemed particularly hard-edged or even particularly intense. Their customers who aren’t kids are mostly people who just don’t have the money for another monthly bill.”
Good. He was glad Colby was covering all his bases, even the ones he didn’t like. “You’re doing a good job.”
Colby’s ears went red. “Thanks, boss.”
“So what’s your worry?”
“That it’s something serious. That someone’s deliberately crying wolf—no offense to my own people—in order to make us not take the real threat seriously when it comes.”
It had an awful plausibility to it. People loved attaching themselves to events that were already getting way too much media attention. This trial of the century circus definitely qualified.
And Martin was just cynical enough to believe that something like this might happen just because it was completely the wrong time for it. The last thing he needed right now was another complication. The last thing he needed was enough worry and stress to distract him from giving Tiffani the courtship she deserved.
No, actually, scratch that. The real last thing he needed was the thought of her in any kind of danger. She would be sitting in that courtroom day in and day out. If Colby’s worries were right and there really was something bigger going on...
He couldn’t let anything happen to her.
“There’s no real proof of that, though,” Colby said, probably picking up on Martin’s mood. “It’s just... something in the air. This trial has blown up too big, and that just makes it feel like something’s gotta give. But we’ll all have an eye on it—I’d like to see anything get past us.”
“Right,” Martin said. He still couldn’t stop thinking about Tiffani at her desk in the courtroom. Entirely vulnerable.
“Go look after your girl,” Colby said gently. “I’ve got this. We’ve got this. And as long as you’re in that room with her, nothing bad is going to happen.”
Martin just had to hope that he was right.
*
He had to give Judge McMillan one thing: the man ran his courtroom like clockwork. All that predictability would make it easy to see if something wasn’t happening when and how it was supposed to.
It would make it easier for someone to know where to stick a spanner in the works, too. Anyone looking to hit would know exactly where and when to strike.
Martin stationed himself in one corner of the room. From there, he could keep his eyes on all the doors, shield the judge and any witnesses, and—though this wasn’t part of the official Marshal training—dive in front of the court reporter.
Tiffani didn’t look at all like someone who had been up half the night making love and asking him shy, tentative questions about what it was like to be a shifter.
She had once again bound back her hair. He knew she probably thought it made her look tame and unremarkable, but as much as he loved her with her hair down, he loved her just as much with it up. And she was just as ravishing that way. It called attention to her long, graceful throat. It all but invited him to touch the fine, silky strands at the nape of her neck where they curled in wisps over her collar.
Her skirt was a little shorter this time, her blouse a little brighter in color. When she moved her hands against the keys of her steno machine, he saw that golden bracelet of hers glitter on her wrist.
He wondered if he would go the whole rest of his life seeing her in these flashes of brilliant color, like she was the brightest thing in the room.
But this morning he had to remind himself to take his eyes off her from time to time. He scanned the room.
Was this all typical for a trial of the century? He thought it probably was. They had the necessities—judge, jury, bailiff, defendant, defense team, prosecutors, reporters. They had the usual crowd of courtroom lurkers, a blend of the curious and the morbid. So far, this was normal. The reporters and the lurkers were just more numerous and more intense this time. They were drawn to anything gruesome and grim.
More people made everything more complicated.
Which meant he had to keep his eyes open.
But for the most part, the day seem
ed to be passing smoothly. The lawyers gave their opening remarks. Testimony began.
By the end of the third hour, Martin thought he had learned more about corporate takeovers and public vs. private companies than he had ever wanted to.
A headache was throbbing behind his temples. It made him feel like someone had piled a bunch of dry kindling inside his skull and was about to strike a match.
McMillan, with unusual mercy, called an early recess for lunch. Maybe even he could only take so many statistics in a single morning.
Martin was about to go to Tiffani, but she came to him first, one hand rooting around in her purse.
“Here,” she said, coming up with a small white bottle. Aspirin. “You looked like you could use this. I mean, everyone looked like they could use it, but I didn’t get the economy-sized.”
“You’re a godsend.”
He dry-swallowed a couple of the pills, which made her make a face.
“Ugh. I was going to say we could go out to the water fountain. I don’t understand how you can do that.”
“Years of stakeouts. We needed caffeine pills to keep us awake, and we couldn’t drink too much for... obvious reasons.”
Tiffani giggled, a sound like the fizz of something sweet and intoxicating. “Say no more.”
“How are you doing? I know I had to get out too early, but I left a note—”
“I saw that. I might even still be carrying it around.” Her smile grew a little more serious. “Thank you for that, by the way. A lot of people wouldn’t think of it.”
A lot of people would. Tiffani had just known too many bad people.
If Martin ever saw Gordon Marcus in the flesh, it would take everything he had in him to keep from punching him in the face for taking this smart, funny, vibrant woman and convincing her that her looks were all she had to offer the world. That crime alone should have landed him in jail, never mind all the corporate swindling.
Actually, on second thought, he wouldn’t even try to resist punching Gordon in the face.
“I’m fine,” Tiffani said. “Really. I had to spend a couple of minutes looking at the,” she lowered her voice, “hoofprints on my bedroom rug to convince myself that part hadn’t been a dream, that’s all. But they were there.”
“They vacuum out,” Martin reassured her.
She snorted. “That actually wasn’t at the top of my to-do list. Oh, and by the way, I got a giant bouquet from Theo with a very thoughtful card apologizing for not having told me about himself sooner. Handwritten, obviously. Hallmark hasn’t really cornered that particular market.”
Martin was cynical on the subject of Hallmark. “Yet.”
“Yet,” she agreed. “But to be honest, all of this does still seem like a dream. No matter what kind of marks were on my rug.”
“You seem like a dream to me too,” Martin said quietly.
“See?” She held up her arm. The blouse was short-sleeved this time. “You can see my hair standing on end when you say things like that. It’s spooky.”
He saw her eyes go down to his hands. He had taken his wedding ring off this morning. He’d had to work it off with soap and water, he had worn it so long.
Doing it had been hard and sad, but necessary, too. He had to acknowledge that he was moving from a lost old love to a new found one. He would keep his ring from Lisa forever, but he didn’t think it would be fair to Tiffani for him to keep wearing it.
He traced one finger down the length of her arm, elbow to wrist. He had to be careful around her or he would wind up getting taken away in cuffs for public indecency. He cleared his throat.
“Do you want to have lunch with me?”
“Actually,” Tiffani said, with a slight wince of apology, “I do, and I will, but... Jillian was very excited when I told her what was going on. So I think we’re going to have some company, if that’s okay. Jillian and Theo both.” She yawned and then shook her head. “I’m going to spend all of lunch doing that. It won’t shock you to know that I didn’t exactly get a lot of sleep last night.”
“Tonight will be better,” he promised. He offered her his arm. “Group lunch it is.”
She fitted herself against him.
Perfect match.
Chapter Twelve: Martin
It would have been hard to imagine anything more different from their quiet, intimate, flirtatious lunch the day before.
“I really am sorry about this,” Jillian said sometime after the second crayon had gone flying through the air.
Tiffani maneuvered the crayon out of her glass of iced tea using a spoon and one of the coffee-stirrers. “Honestly, sweetheart, don’t worry about it. This obviously wasn’t your plan. This obviously wouldn’t be anyone’s plan.”
She handed the crayon back to the little boy who had thrown it, who immediately chucked it at someone else’s head.
Punk kids, Martin thought, remembering Colby. Of course, these ones were probably a little young to qualify.
The one good thing about being surrounded by a herd of kindergartners was that it still gave you reasonable privacy. The kids were all so loud and their attention spans were all so short that you could talk about anything you wanted and they wouldn’t hear you. And if they heard and remembered the adults around them talking about dragons and flying horses—well, kids had such great imaginations, didn’t they?
“I don’t even normally handle kids this young,” Jillian said to Martin. “I usually just work with the teens. But someone got sick and then someone else had a family emergency and—well, here we are. They were all promised a lunch out. The two of you can go if you have to, I totally understand. This is not... a relaxing break in the middle of your day, and I know you both have a lot going on.”
Martin couldn’t have agreed more, but he thought Tiffani wanted to stay despite everything. She had told him on their way here that seeing Jillian was always one of the highlights of her week. He wanted the two of them to have their usual time together, even if the circumstances were far from ideal.
Besides, sometimes love meant putting up with the child next to you trying to rub macaroni and cheese into her skin like it was hand lotion.
Theo swooped down on her. “Jessamine,” he said sternly. “We talked about this. Food goes in your mouth.”
Jessamine dropped her overflowing spoon at once. “Sorry, Mr. Theo. I just wanted to have soft hands like Miss Jillian.”
“Well, if you can keep a secret, I’ll tell you after lunch how Miss Jillian keeps her hands so soft.”
He picked up her napkin, dunked it matter-of-factly in one of the glasses of water, and scrubbed her hands clean.
Examining the napkin, he added, “There’s no macaroni involved, though, I promise.”
Jessamine giggled. “Okay.”
“You’re good at that,” Martin said. He hadn’t seen Theo with kids before.
“I have,” Theo said, “a truly excessive number of cousins. And I like kids.”
Jillian turned to look at him, her eyes warm.
“I think I can see where that’s going,” Tiffani murmured to Martin. “And it makes me feel very old to think about Jilly becoming a mom.”
“You’re not old,” he said automatically. “But I have to tell you, I don’t think I’d have the energy for this.”
“I don’t think they usually get popped out in batches of twelve.”
“That’s something, at least. If Theo and Jillian only have one, at least they’ll outnumber it.”
Their party was big enough that the overwhelmed servers had been bringing out their food as soon as it was ready, just to keep something in front of the kids at all times, but now lunch arrived for the four of them. Martin thought he’d never been hungrier in his entire life. Even for a family friendly crayons-on-the-table restaurant’s chicken quesadilla.
It wasn’t everything he had hoped to offer Tiffani, but given the way she tucked in at once to her own club sandwich, he thought she was also just grateful to have sustenance at this po
int.
If they could just gulp everything down before it got contaminated by any more flying crayons...
Tiffani and Jillian made quiet, fervent conversation. Their concession to the surrounding kindergarten quickly became obvious.
“What did he look like when he was a p-e-g-a-s-u-s?”
Tiffani, to Martin’s delight, had a good memory for the specifics for his shifted form and went into enthusiastic detail about the white star on his head, the length of his mane, and the way his wings had bent the light that hit them into little rainbows. Martin’s inner pegasus preened at all this attention, pawing at the ground and tossing its head from side to side.
Ridiculous animal. But it was a thought with no heat behind it.
Our mate is pleased with us, his pegasus said loftily. You’re ridiculous if you don’t think that’s worth celebrating.
He had trouble arguing with that.
“It’s probably not safe to take a picture,” Jillian said. “I know it’s not the kind of thing that we’d ever want to get leaked, but—Martin, will you s-h-i-f-t sometime for me so I can see for myself?”
“Of course.”
He’d never been one of those shifters who viewed their other nature as something that to be doled out only to a precious few—if Martin could trust someone, he had no problem revealing himself. And he knew he could trust anyone who was both Theo’s mate and Tiffani’s stepdaughter. The days of the pegasi hunters were long over now.
“Anyway, Treasure,” Theo said to Jillian, “he wouldn’t show up on camera when he was transformed. Myth—ah, m-y-t-h-i-c s-h-i-f-t-e-r-s don’t.” He frowned. “Did I add an extra s anywhere in there?”
“I don’t think so, sweetie,” Tiffani said. “So, you’re like vam—v-a-m-p—you get the gist.”
“Not in literally any other way,” Martin said quickly. “We have reflections, we don’t drink their, ah, preferred cocktail, we don’t live forever, we don’t have psychic powers over rats and spiders...”
