Her expression was dubious, but after a moment, she shrugged. “Maybe. I mean, they’re demons. It’s not as if they think the same way we do.”
Well, that was true. By their very nature, demons were alien, completely hostile to humankind and all its endeavors. Possibly, they’d decided that Caleb was of no further use to them once he’d located Colin Turner’s hard drive, and so had decided to use him to get some kind of revenge on Rosemary.
Will wasn’t sure whether that particular theory held any water, though. For one thing, he didn’t believe they were even dealing with actual demons here, but rather the half-demon cambions and their offspring. Their human blood might have made them less likely to do anything that would hurt one of their own, and would allow them some sense of familial loyalty. Or at least, he could hope that was the case.
“I think we just have to accept that there are things going on right now we don’t completely understand,” he went on. “But we should be glad that we’re safe, and we’re together.”
Rosemary’s expression brightened at those words. “Those are definitely two things to be happy about. And you’re right — I know I’m innocent, but….” The words faded away, and she hugged her arms against herself, as though she’d taken a sudden chill. “What if Caleb was dead when I went back to close up the crawlspace? Or worse, what if the attack happened while I was messing around in the house and I just didn’t hear anything? Maybe I could have saved him.”
Will knew he needed to keep her from beating herself up any more than she already had. He laid a hand on her leg and said, “I’m sure you would have heard him fall in the pool, even with the windows shut. It’s admirable that you’d want to help him even after what he did to you — ”
“And to you,” she interjected, as though she wanted to make sure he hadn’t forgotten the concussion and other bumps and bruises he’d suffered the night before.
“Yes, and me,” he amended. “But none of that was your fault. I’m willing to bet that the medical examiner will find the time of death to be much later in the evening, long after you left the house. I’m sure it won’t come to that, but if necessary, I’ll swear before a judge that you were with me all evening.”
“Except you weren’t.”
“If Caleb Lockwood died after midnight, then yes, you were here. I distinctly remember you waking me up pretty much every hour on the hour.”
That remark made her smile a little, and Will was glad of that, because the lightening of her expression erased some of the weariness from her delicate features and made her look much less worried. “Doctor’s orders, remember?”
“Yes, I remember. But you were with me, and that’s our story. More than that, it’s the simple truth.”
“They might say you were lying to protect me.”
“I doubt it.” He squeezed her leg again, and then lifted his hand and reached for his tea. It was getting to be just lukewarm, but it still tasted good. “Remember, I’m a minister at a very prominent church. No one’s going to accuse a pillar of the community of lying to the police.”
One of her eyebrows quirked upward at an amused angle. “Oh, so you’re a pillar?”
“I am,” he said with a grin. “A paragon and all that.”
“Okay, now you’re just teasing me.”
“Maybe.”
He reached for her and kissed her again, marveling a little at how perfectly their lips seemed to fit together, how wonderful she felt in his arms, almost impossibly slim but with a core of inner strength for all that. A curl brushed against his cheek, and even that soft touch was enough to awaken a heat within him. It had been a very long time, and he wanted her.
Badly.
But he’d long ago learned how to push his physical needs aside when necessary, and he knew this wasn’t the time. Not yet. They cared for each other, had acknowledged their feelings even if they hadn’t formally said the words, but it was all so new for them nonetheless. And even if he thought Rosemary was ready to share his bed, he couldn’t quite ignore the injury Caleb Lockwood had inflicted on him just the day before. He was all right to walk around and do a few simple things, but that kind of exertion couldn’t be good for him.
Oh, those reasons sounded so logical, so noble. Maybe they were even true, on some level. But Will also had to acknowledge that he didn’t want to push things between him and Rosemary now because he feared he might suffer a relapse that would delay his recovery. The last thing he wanted was to hurt himself or impair himself in any way so he wouldn’t be up to a confrontation when it mattered the most.
“Anyway,” Will went on, “enough about that. The good detective knows where to find us if he has any other questions, and there’s no point in worrying about something that isn’t even going to happen.”
“Fine,” Rosemary said, sounding somewhat resigned. “So, what do you want to do now?”
“Why don’t you tell me a little more about yourself? I just told you all my deep, dark secrets, so it’s only fair that you should return the favor.”
Her eyes glinted with amusement. “I wouldn’t call getting dumped by an inconsiderate ex a ‘deep, dark secret.’ Anyway, you already know pretty much everything there is to know about me — you know about my sisters and the store, and you’ve seen my house and met my mother. What else is there?”
“What about your father?” Will asked, and realized right away that he’d misstepped. The twinkle left Rosemary’s eyes, and she looked away from him and fidgeted with the cuff of the embroidered sweater she wore.
To her credit, though, she didn’t sidestep the question. She took a breath, as if to give herself the courage to answer, and then said, “He walked out when I was ten years old. I don’t really know what the whole story was behind my parents’ split — I was only a kid, and my mother didn’t like to talk about what really happened.”
“I’m sorry,” Will said, and he genuinely was. In his work, he’d seen plenty of families torn apart by divorce, and it was almost always the children who suffered the most. Her sisters would have been just enough older that they might have had some mechanisms in place for dealing with the breakup of their family, while ten-year-old Rosemary would have possessed the fewest resources to manage such a disruption in her life.
A weary lift of her shoulders, as though she’d had other people offer the same expressions of sympathy in the past and had learned long ago that they really didn’t do any good. “It’s a thing that happened. And it wasn’t too long afterward that we went to live with my grandmother, and she had a way of making everything fun. Honestly, after the first six months or so, I hardly missed my father. He’d always worked such long hours and traveled for business so much that he was hardly ever around for us anyway.”
Something about the brittle, too-casual tone Rosemary used to make that claim told Will she wasn’t telling the truth about her feelings. Or rather, she was telling the truth she’d created for herself to cover up the reality of the pain she carried with herself to this day.
Rather than point any of that out to her, however, he only nodded and reached for his lukewarm tea. “What did your father do?”
“Something in finance. I don’t really know. The company he worked for was downtown, in one of the high-rises there. I remember thinking that was cool because it seemed as if you had an office in one of those buildings, you’d be able to see forever.” Her mouth turned down and seemed to tighten as she added, “Not that I would know from personal experience, since he never took me to see where he worked. I suppose he figured that because he traveled so much, there wasn’t much point.”
And if her father had had a high-powered job of some sort in the finance sector, then he most likely wouldn’t have wanted to use up any of his valuable office time by taking his daughter to his place of business. Rather than make a remark along those lines, since Will doubted Rosemary would appreciate such a comment, he asked, “Where is he now?”
“Dead,” she said briefly, and he could feel his brows li
ft in surprise.
“What happened?”
She pulled in a breath. “I don’t know all the details. A car accident of some kind. I was seventeen when it happened — I guess my father had kept my mother as his emergency contact, so she was the person the local authorities called.”
Saying “I’m sorry” again didn’t seem as though it would meet with a favorable response, so Will settled for sending her a sympathetic glance as he said, “That had to be tough.”
“I don’t know.” Rosemary picked up her mug of tea and tapped her fingers against the side, although she didn’t appear as though she actually planned to drink any of it. “By that point, he’d been gone for seven years, so he was already out of my life. It was more like closure than anything else.” She paused there and looked up at Will, her expression rueful. “That probably sounds terrible.”
“No,” he told her, hoping she would see that he didn’t condemn her for her reaction. “I think that’s a completely understandable response.”
“Maybe. Anyway, I remember thinking it was kind of ironic, just because a car accident is how my father lost his parents. My mother said he was orphaned when he was only a toddler and didn’t have any other family, and so he ended up in the foster care system. I suppose it says something about him that he ended up being so successful despite having the deck stacked against him like that.” Another lift of her shoulders. “But that’s why I don’t have any contact with anyone from his side of the family — there really isn’t anyone to be in contact with.”
It sounded like a lonely existence. Will wondered what could make a man walk out on what — on the surface, at least — must have looked like a picture-perfect family, especially when he had no support system of his own. From what he’d seen of Glynis McGuire, she certainly didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would be anything except a supportive partner. “Was he living in L.A. when the accident occurred?”
A brief shake of her head, her eyes fixed on an indefinite point somewhere past where Will sat. “No. I guess he’d gotten a transfer to Chicago. My mother actually went to Illinois so he wouldn’t be buried completely alone, but we kids stayed here in California with our grandmother.”
Rosemary’s expression was almost preternaturally calm as she relayed this information, as if she’d relived the tragedy so many times before this moment that it no longer had the power to hurt her. Will wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he had the impression that she didn’t want to be soothed, only wanted him to know what had happened so he’d have some context for the current makeup of her immediate family.
“That was good of your mother,” he said. Already, he’d formed a very favorable impression of Glynis McGuire, but knowing that she’d traveled halfway across the country to help lay her former husband to rest made him think he might have underestimated her.
“She said it was because she needed her own closure,” Rosemary replied. “Which I can understand. But anyway, he’s buried in Chicago, and that’s why it’s just my mother and my sisters and me. My grandmother was an only child, so I don’t have any cousins.”
Perhaps she had some distant relations out there in the world, but it seemed clear to him that Rosemary didn’t have any desire to seek them out, for whatever reason. Maybe she was so used to depending on her sisters and her mother for her family connections that she didn’t see any reason to reach out beyond them.
Knowing how limited her circle truly was made him feel protective of her — which Will guessed she wouldn’t much appreciate. He knew better than to say anything along those lines, although he vowed to himself that he would do whatever was necessary to make sure she was safe, and remained that way.
Then again, in that encounter with Caleb Lockwood, she was the one who’d saved him, rather than vice versa.
“What about you?” she asked, clearly ready to change the subject.
“What about me?” he returned, and she grinned.
“Divorced parents?”
“No,” he replied. “My parents are still together — my father was a civil engineer with the city of Boston. He retired just last year. My mother is a real estate agent and loves it and doesn’t want to retire, although my father keeps nagging her about it. He wants to buy an RV and travel the country with her.”
Rosemary looked almost wistful. Was she imagining what it would be like to be with someone who still enjoyed her company so much that even after almost forty years of marriage, he still wanted to spend all his time with her?
It was early days yet, but Will had a feeling he could see himself in that same position with her — if she really was willing to let things continue to develop between them.
“That sounds like fun,” she said. “Brothers and sisters?”
“One of each. I’m the oldest.”
That revelation made her crack a smile. “Then we’re a walking cliché, aren’t we?”
He tilted his head at her, not sure what she’d meant by that remark.
“Isn’t that the usual pairing?” she inquired. “Youngest child and oldest child? The oldest is the responsible one, and the youngest is the one who keeps their partner from being too serious and encourages them to take risks and have fun.”
Well, he had read articles along those lines, and he supposed he could see how such relationships would make sense. Opposites attracting, and all that. And he thought such a theory might help to explain why things with Lois hadn’t worked out. She was also an oldest child, and they’d butted heads on more than one occasion, both of them firmly convinced they were in the right and the other person didn’t know what they were talking about. Someone with the flexibility of a youngest child might have been more willing to reach a happy medium.
Right then, though, Will couldn’t even feel regretful about the way things had turned out with him and Lois. After all, if they’d stayed together, his life would have taken a very different path — a path he was sure would never have crossed Rosemary McGuire’s. Most of the time, the universe knew what it was doing, even if mere mortals didn’t always want to acknowledge the fact.
He felt his mouth lift in a lopsided smile. “Well, I’ve definitely taken some risks since meeting you. I’m not sure whether getting attacked by a man who’s part demon exactly classifies as ‘fun,’ though.”
Obviously, she didn’t take any offense at his remark, because her blue eyes glinted with amusement. “Oh, that’s nothing. Just wait until someone tries to accuse you of murder — that’s when the fun really starts.”
However, Will didn’t see anything funny about the situation. “Detective Phillips hasn’t accused you of murder.”
“Yet.”
So they were back to that. While he could see why that terrible possibility was preying on her mind, he knew Rosemary needed to set it aside for now. “It’s his job to consider possibilities, no matter how far-fetched they might be. There’s no evidence, though. You know that.”
She didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t protest, either. Instead, she snuggled up closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder. It was good to feel her weight against his body, to breathe in some of the shampoo sweetness of her hair, which had almost a vanilla scent. She pulled in a breath and released it, but didn’t speak.
Will sat quietly, somehow knowing she needed this moment of closeness and silence, needed to go within herself to regroup and find a way to keep her panic at bay. He could understand why she was frightened; unfortunately, innocence wasn’t a silver bullet, wasn’t always enough to keep a guiltless person from ending up on the wrong side of the law. However, they needed to get past this. Neither of them knew what Detective Phillips had planned, or whether he possessed some kind of damning evidence against Rosemary — or even any evidence at all.
No, the more pressing worry that haunted Will’s own thoughts was how Caleb Lockwood’s death benefited the demons at all. He supposed it was remotely possible that a regular human could have overpowered the part-demon man, even if such a
feat didn’t seem all that plausible, considering the supernatural powers he controlled. But it appeared far more likely that another demon — or part-demon — was responsible for pushing Caleb into that pool and making sure he drowned.
But why?
Rosemary stirred and sat up straight, then pushed her heavy curls so they fell down her back rather than into her face. “I’m hungry,” she announced abruptly. “What about you?”
To tell the truth, Will hadn’t really thought about eating something, even though noon had come and gone more than an hour earlier, and his breakfast had been pretty meager. He suspected that Rosemary was thinking about food because she wanted something to distract herself from Caleb’s unexpected death, but he couldn’t really blame her for that.
“I could eat something,” he said. “Whatever you like — I think most of the same places that would deliver to Michael’s house would deliver here as well.”
She seemed to perk up a little at the realization that she could order her favorite comfort food and not have to try something new. “Perfect,” she replied. “Do you like barbecue? There’s a great place up on Mountain that delivers.”
“Love it,” he said. “And mac and cheese and coleslaw on the side?”
“Absolutely.”
Maybe Dr. Littleton would have prescribed something a little healthier for someone recovering from a concussion, but Will wasn’t going to worry about it. After all, he needed to get his strength up, and some warm, hearty food on a cold day like this seemed like just what he needed.
As he watched Rosemary make the call, he found himself smiling a little, despite the worry that weighed on his mind. It felt good to have her sitting there on his couch, to have her doing something that showed she was already starting to feel a little more at home here. He didn’t know how this day was going to end, but he knew he would have her with him, and that was the important thing.
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