by Molly White
“That’s all well and good and I wish you the best of luck,” said Brendan. “Meanwhile, what can you do for Cordelia? I don’t want her too scared to look out her window or walk down the street.”
Jillian gave him a fond little smile. “First, we’re going to get a lock on your mother’s location, to put your mind at ease. We will put the full force of Sonja’s powers on the case. She’ll be able to tell you where your mother is down to what she put in her coffee that morning.”
Sonja was typing on her smartphone, her fingers an elegant blur over the glass. “I’ve already got it.”
“But it’s only been thirty seconds,” said Cordelia.
Sonja nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got it.”
“You don’t even know her aliases!” Cordelia exclaimed. “She has many, many aliases.”
“Your mom has been renting various apartments on the outskirts of Candella, Florida, for the last eight years,” Sonja said. “She hasn’t filed taxes since 2000. Her credit score…wow, I didn’t know it went into the double digits. Yikes. She has two felony warrants out for her arrest for forgery and one for fraud. And that might explain why she’s on the move. Her last credit card activity was at a gas station near Jacksonville two weeks ago, but after that, she sort of drops off the radar.”
“If she comes into a big cash score, she’ll lay off the credit cards for a while,” said Cordelia. “Then again, I doubt she’s limiting herself to credit cards in her name. She could have easily made it here from Jacksonville by now. So in reality, she might be nearby and I wouldn’t know it.”
“Give me a little more time and I’ll narrow down her location,” Sonja said.
“But just to be safe, I’d like you to go and talk to Bael,” said Jillian. “Historically, we’ve let too many problems escalate by not communicating our concerns openly. So you’re going to go and let him to know to watch out for suspicious characters. Sonja will email him a picture of your mom’s ID.”
“Already done,” Sonja said, waggling her phone. “What about the League security personnel?”
Jillian blew out a long breath, considering. “The guys Messina brought with him? We don’t know if we can trust them. But the guards at the rift site, the people who have been here for a while? Yes, we tell them, but we ask them to keep it to themselves. It’s probably limiting ourselves to the point of foolishness, but I think we need to be cautious for now.”
Sonja nodded. “Meanwhile, I’ll put alerts on your mom’s accounts and her known cell phone to let me know if she moves towards us. Maybe I can arrange for her to be arrested before she gets to the state line.”
“I think I’ve learned not to underestimate you,” Cordelia said.
“I happen to know Bael has a fairly open afternoon, if you wouldn’t mind going across the street now to talk to him,” Jillian said.
Cordelia stood from her chair, prompting Brendan to mirror her. “Right now.”
“And if you’re not doing anything this weekend, we’re putting together decorations and favors for Jillian’s baby shower,” Sonja suggested. “And Dani’s making something involving pork chops and apples.”
Cordelia’s expression softened. It wasn’t just that they were thinking to include her. It was that these women were still optimistic enough and grounded in their families to plan a shower while secretly plotting to take down a potentially corrupt League official. They could do both with equal enthusiasm.
“I know it’s kind of tacky for me to be involved, but the things Sonja has put together are so dang cute, I can’t stay away,” Jillian said.
“I’ll be there,” Cordelia promised. “Let me know if I can bring anything.”
They said their goodbyes and Brendan walked her across the square to the door of the parish hall. He curved his body around hers, as if he could shield her from Messina’s threats, her potential madness, and her mother. Cordelia was tense, scanning the street as if her mother was going to spring out from behind the community mailbox. “If it’s all right with you, I’m gonna go by the grocery store. I’ll make you some dinner tonight. I know you don’t need more people telling you what to do, but I don’t think you should be alone.”
“I don’t know if I’m up for that,” she said, smirking at him. “Considering what you’ve told me about Irish food.”
Brendan snickered. “I’ll make pasta and garlic bread, ya smartass.”
Cordelia threw back her head and laughed, then pulled him close for a kiss. She didn’t care who saw, or what they thought, only that she was grateful to have someone willing to stick with her through all this craziness. She was grateful for Brendan.
“Maybe take it easy on the garlic,” she told him.
“Have someone walk you back to the trailer court.” Before she could object, he added, “The two times you’ve seen your ma, it’s been near the trailer court. Have Zed walk you. He platonically worships the ground you walk on.”
“All right, all right,” she sighed, waving him off.
While it might have seemed pastoral and cute from the outside, the parish building was a hive of activity—so many people moving around with purpose. Brightly colored lines on the floor led to the finance department, public works, the everything else department. One woman appeared to have several extra sets of arms growing out of her back to help her answer the phone while typing and simultaneously running numbers through one of those giant old-fashioned calculators.
“Hey, bebelle.”
She turned to find Zed standing behind her. He held his arms open in invitation and she threw herself into a hug, gladly absorbing the warmth and affection from his clothes.
“You all right, Cordelia?” Zed asked.
She cleared her throat. “I was hoping to speak to Bael in an official capacity.”
Zed’s thick brows drew together in an expression that made Cordelia pity whatever schoolyard bully picked on his future cubs. “Did somebody hurt you?”
“Long story. I’d like to just tell it once, if I could,” she said.
“You want me to come with you?” Zed asked. “Bael wouldn’t mind.”
Cordelia nodded. “That would be great, thank you.”
Zed escorted her into Bael’s office, which was just as orderly and clean as one would expect from the one and only law enforcement officer in the parish. He looked up from his paperwork and smiled. “Hi, Cordelia, everything OK?”
“Actually, Jillian sent me over here to file an official report with you,” Cordelia said as Zed closed the door behind them. “We need to talk about my mother.”
Cordelia took a centering breath and started the whole story over, from a brief history of childhood with Bernadette to her sightings in town, and how that might be a scare tactic to interfere with her performance with the artifact. While Bael took a studious amount of notes, Zed was uncharacteristically quiet. Cordelia finished by sliding a piece of paper across the desk. “This is a list of her known aliases. Sonja should have sent you an email with her photo and her criminal history.”
Bael tapped on his computer and opened his email. “I see that she did. And her criminal history…whoa.”
“I’m lucky I turned out as normal as I did,” Cordelia said, placing her hands on the desk. “I’ve seen her twice now over the last two weeks, but I don’t know whether it’s real and she’s here, or whether I’m just…not all there. Either way, I’m really scared.”
“Well, I’ll keep an eye out for her, talk to a few of the more trustworthy people around town, ask them to do the same,” Bael said as Cordelia’s eyes went wide.
Without realizing it, Cordelia had completely dropped her shield. Between the stress of the day and basking in Zed’s presence, she was washed under a tide of memories springing from Bael’s desk.
“You and Jillian have had sex on this,” she said, making Zed bark out a booming laugh. “And while you were having sex on this desk, you were thinking back to another sexual escapade on a golf cart parked near your cousin’s house because he’s
an asshole and having sex on his territory amused you…and Jillian was thinking about rolling around with you on a giant pile of gold coins while your wings curved around her—”
Bael raised his hands in a warding off gesture. “OK, OK, that’s enough.”
Cordelia clapped her hand over her mouth. Zed damn near fell off his chair, cackling. Bael stood, glaring at Zed, his cheeks flushed bright red. “I’ve…got to go uh, file something.”
“I’m sorry, Bael!” she called after him as he strode out of his office.
Zed wiped at his cheeks and put his hand on her shoulder. “You just made Bael very uncomfortable.”
Cordelia winced. “Yeah, I didn’t mean to. It’s been a really long day. My shield is weak.”
Zed leveled her with a very serious look. “I hereby adopt you into my family.”
He licked his palm and pressed it to her forehead. She squealed in indignation, but when he touched her forehead, all she felt was love and acceptance…through his saliva. Ew. She saw Zed sitting with his mother in his childhood home, just the two of them, and his secret longing for a bigger family. When she opened her eyes again, he was looking at her with nothing but fondness.
“Zed, I adore you, but what the hell?” Cordelia asked.
“It’s a bear shifter thing.”
“OK, then here.” She licked her own palm and pressed it to his forehead. Using what Bonita had taught her, she focused on a single image and pushed it into his brain—the first time they’d met, when he’d hugged her and wrapped her up in the kindness of his mind. She let him feel how safe she felt and how grateful she was to feel that after such a long time.
He smiled at her, his red-rimmed eyes practically disappearing under the apples of his cheeks. “I love you something awful, bebelle.”
11
Brendan
Brendan was not a master chef. Back home, he mostly lived on takeaway and omelets, but he could put together a decent pasta sauce if the mood struck him.
He could only hope Cordelia was easily impressed. She’d mentioned once that her diet as a child had consisted of corndogs and cotton candy, so…maybe that would help. He’d found a candle among the stash of emergency supplies Jillian had provided in the bedroom closet. It was plain and unscented, but maybe it would add a certain air of refinement to the cheap laminate furniture.
He sighed, leaning his head against the kitchen cabinet. He wasn’t good at this. It wasn’t as if he had no experience at all with women, but anything beyond “a fun night in after Brendan determines the girl won’t die within twenty-four hours” was outside his repertoire.
He wanted more with Cordelia. At first, he thought that maybe it was just the draw of knowing he was one of the only people who could touch her without giving her those damn visions. Or that she was one of the few people that didn’t shy away from him after she found out he could predict people’s deaths. But while those were certainly conveniences, they weren’t what made him want Cordelia. He wanted her for her intelligence and the hundred different ways she laughed and the quiet steel that came out when she was challenged. He wanted her for the dozen ways she could express herself just by quirking her eyebrows and the way she’d thrown herself into friendships now that she’d had a chance. He just wanted her.
By the time her soft knock sounded at his door, the sauce was simmering on the stove, the pasta was boiling and he’d just popped the (lightly garlicked) bread in the oven. He wiped his hands on a dishtowel and opened the door to find Zed grinning broadly and Cordelia rolling her eyes.
It was a good thing he wasn’t a jealous man; between the attentions directed at Cordelia from Alex Lancaster and the mayor, it would be enough to drive him mad.
“I am hereby delivered from one male minder to another, like the chattel you two seem to think I am,” she deadpanned.
Zed snickered, hugging Cordelia tight as Brendan motioned them inside the trailer. But Zed stayed on the porch. “You should have known that was gonna blow back on you.”
Brendan nodded. “Yeah…worth it to know she’s safe.”
“I know it’s backwards and antiquated, but I would do the exact same thing for Dani if I thought there was someone out there who wanted to hurt her,” Zed assured him. “Trust me, we’ll keep an eye out for her mama. A woman like that, she’s never as cunning as she thinks she is. She’ll slip up.”
“And if it’s all in Cordy’s head?” Brendan whispered, glancing over his shoulder as she puttered in his kitchen.
“Then we’ll help her with that, too. We take care of our own here. That includes you two,” Zed said, raising his voice as he added. “I have officially adopted that one.”
“He rubbed spit on my forehead,” Cordelia said. “I don’t think the state will accept that.”
“You’d be surprised. Y’all have a good night.” He paused to raise an eyebrow at Brendan. “But not too good. That’s my sister, now.”
“Goodnight, Zed!” Cordelia called. “Stop threatening my man…friend…person!”
“Well, I’m glad we have that settled,” Brendan scoffed. “Goodnight, Zed.”
“Night!” Zed jogged down the stairs and back toward town.
Brendan leaned against the counter, watching her move around his kitchen. “Thanks for draining the pasta…and turning off the heat on the bread…and the sauce. I’m sure I would have noticed this before, but are you one of those raw diet, cold food only sorts?”
“I was thinking we could re-heat this later,” she said, tugging him towards the direction of the bedroom.
“What is happening here?” he asked.
“Am I going to have to spell this out for you?” she asked.
He nodded. “I think so, yeah.”
Cordelia’s grin was downright evil. “Well, when a man and woman like each other very much—”
“OK, I don’t think you have to go back that far,” Brendan said.
“I realized something, earlier,” she said, shrugging out of her shirt.
“And what is that?”
“When I collapsed on you earlier, I wasn’t grateful that I could collapse into just anyone’s arms without there being psychic consequences,” she told him. “I was grateful that they were your arms around me. I want your hands on me. I want your lips on my lips. And I want to be in your bed.”
“But what about Alex Lancaster?” Brendan asked. “I know there’s some sort of history there.”
She laughed and pressed her forehead to his chin. “OK, questions about Alex were not the response I expected when I started taking off my clothes. But I suppose I earned it with all those ‘I feel nothing’ comments when you touched me. I’m not going to go into the whole history with you right now because again, my clothes are off. But once upon a time, I was seeing Alex, when we were very young. I don’t want to be with him. It’s not that he’s not a good man; he is. He doesn’t even know who I am anymore. I’m not that same girl. I know more about the world and the people in it. I don’t want to be rescued. I want to be with someone who understands. You don’t push. You don’t try to change me. You get it.”
Brendan cleared his throat. “And when you say, ‘be with...’”
Cordelia unhooked the back of her bra and dropped it to the floor. “For the love of all things holy, Brendan, drop your pants.”
She helped him strip out of his clothes, with the lights on, and yanked back the covers so they could slide under them. It wasn’t an extraordinary way to begin, but they’d both had enough extraordinary in their lives. Ordinary felt pretty damn good.
She was a banquet, all soft skin and softer curves that were so warm under his hands. With delicious hesitation, he slid those hands under her hips and pulled her thighs around his hips. She shivered at his touch and he pulled away, remembering how cold his hands felt to her.
“No, I love it,” she whispered. “Everything else here is so freaking hot. It’s like dating a human-shaped ice pack.”
He drew back and raised a brow.
> “That sounded sexier in my head,” she admitted.
Her mouth rose to meet his and she breathed him in, closing her lips against his in a kiss that was all at once forceful and lovely. She pulled him close, like he could never be close enough. He stroked down her sides, tickling her ribs and pulling her pink panties down her thighs. He had never fancied the color pink before, but for the rest of his life, he would forever remember that delicate shade the color of peonies and how it looked against her warm skin.
Kissing down the length of her neck, he dipped his hand between her legs, sliding across her plump folds, finding them slick and ready. He grinned against the curve of her jaw and pushed those fingers inside of her. She hissed, grabbing at his shoulders, and digging her little nails into his flesh.
“You all right?” Brendan asked.
“So, I haven’t done this before,” she said.
He exclaimed, “I beg your pardon?”
“Well, I’ve only had the one serious relationship and we were living in a very crowded place with practically no privacy,” she said. “I mean, we fooled around a little bit. He tried to think of nothing but sweet, romantic things when we were together, but it was so difficult for me to relax and we just never managed it.”
“I don’t need to know details, darling.”
“And after that, I just didn’t have the heart to try anymore,” Cordelia said.