"Mercy," he said, taking my good arm and turning me around so we were walking back into the office. "We need to talk."
"Can't talk," I said. "I've got a date."
"Nice try. But you haven't had a date since I met you." He opened the door and escorted me inside.
Gabriel looked up from my... his paperwork and the pleasant smile on his face went away.
"What are you doing here?" he said, standing up and coming around the corner. "Let her go. Now."
Great, I thought. Just what I need, another macho male in my life trying to take care of me.
Tony dropped my arm and collapsed onto one of the uncomfortable chairs I use to encourage my customers to find something else to do rather than wait around while I fix their cars. He buried his face in his hands and either started laughing or crying. I figured he was laughing.
When he raised his head, he'd done one of those amazing changes-partially helped, I have to admit, by losing the sunglasses. But it was body language and facial expression, as much as anything. He just suddenly looked ten years older and, except for the earrings, much more respectable.
"Tony?" said Gabriel, obviously stunned.
"I've been working undercover at Kennewick High right under his nose," Tony told me. "He never even noticed. I told you most people can't recognize me."
"I've never argued with that," I said. "I think you're a good undercover cop."
Tony shook his head. "Hey, Gabriel, would you give us a minute alone? I have some questions for Mercy."
"Sure." Gabriel shook his head and started off. He turned around once on his way out to the shop, as if to make sure that Tony was still sitting there.
"I've been giving him a really hard time at school," Tony said, once we were alone. "But he can take care of himself."
"I really do need to get home," I told him. "What did you need?"
He lifted up one hip and pulled a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket. "That kid you had helping you," he said. "I've got some more information on him."
I took the paper and unfolded it. It was a grainy black-and-white picture of Mac with 'MISSING' written across the top in capital letters. It gave his vital statistics-he had been sixteen-but gave no more information.
"Alan MacKenzie Frazier," I read.
"They traced him here from a phone call he made to his family last week."
I nodded, handing the paper back and continued to lie to Tony with the truth. "He asked if he could make a long-distance call the last day he was here-a week ago today. He worked all that day, but I haven't seen him since."
I'd talked to Bran about Mac. He said he'd see to it that a hiker would find Mac's remains in the spring so that his parents wouldn't have to wait by the phone forever. It wasn't much, but it was the best I could do.
It took some scrambling and a fair bit of help, but I managed to be dressed, clean, and beautiful for dinner with Adam and Jesse. Which turned out to be dinner with just Adam because Jesse told him she wasn't feeling well. He left her home watching a movie with Darryl and Auriele because Warren was out on a date with Kyle.
Under the mellowing influence of good food and good music, Adam relaxed, and I discovered that underneath that overbearing, hot-tempered Alpha disguise he usually wore was a charming, overbearing, hot-tempered man. He seemed to enjoy finding out that I was as stubborn and disrespectful of authority as he'd always suspected.
He ordered dessert without consulting me. I'd have been angrier, but it was something I could never have ordered for myself: chocolate, caramel, nuts, ice cream, real whipped cream, and cake so rich it might as well have been a brownie.
"So," he said, as I finished the last bit, "I'm forgiven?"
"You are arrogant and overstep your bounds," I told him, pointing my cleaned fork at him.
"I try," he said with false modesty. Then his eyes darkened and he reached across the little table and ran his thumb over my bottom lip. He watched me as he licked the caramel from his skin.
I thumped my hands down on the table and leaned forward. "That is not fair. I'll eat your dessert and like it-but you can't use sex to keep me from getting mad."
He laughed, one of those soft laughs that start in the belly and rise up through the chest: a relaxed, happy sort of laugh.
To change the subject, because matters were heating up faster than I was comfortable with, I said, "So, Bran tells me that he ordered you to keep an eye out for me."
He stopped laughing and raised both his eyebrows. "Yes. Now ask me if I was watching you for Bran."
It was a trick question. I could see the amusement in his eyes. I hesitated, but decided I wanted to know anyway. "Okay, I'll bite. Were you watching me for Bran?"
"Honey," he drawled, pulling on his Southern roots. "When a wolf watches a lamb, he's not thinking about the lamb's mommy."
I grinned. I couldn't help it. The idea of Bran as a lamb's mommy was too funny. "I'm not much of a lamb," I said.
He just smiled.
Time to change the subject again, I thought, taking a quick sip of ice water. "Warren tells me you've accepted our favorite serial ra**st as a permanent member of the pack."
"He wasn't responsible for the rapes in London."
He sounded certain, which meant that he'd asked Ben for the truth and gotten it. Still, I could hear the irritation in his voice and I couldn't help but push a little bit more. "They stopped when he left."
"He came to the rescue twice, and the second time it was only chance that he intercepted a tranquilizer rather than a bullet. Gerry's men carried silver ammunition," he snapped impatiently.