Wild Ride
Page 42
“I have to go,” Mab said, standing up. “I have many adventures ahead.”
“You sure you're okay?” Fun said. “I mean, you know, the baby?”
“Delphie Vanth will be fine. Although God knows what she'll turn out like.”
“She will be unpredictable, hardworking, fun-loving, and intelligent,” Fun said. “The world may not be ready for her yet.” He sounded proud.
“Well, the world has eight and a half months to brace itself”
“But I'm the kid's father, right?” Fun said. “I mean, you'll tell her it's me.”
“Yeah,” Mab said. “I'll tell her.” Then I'll tell her to count on Ethan and Oliver, not on you. You'll love her all you can, but.
“I'll be here for her,” he said as if he'd read her mind. “I like Dreamland.” He leaned back a little to smile up at her. “You sure you don't want to give us another shot? I can't leave this body without it dying, so -”
“I'm positive,” Mab said. “You're a liar, and you're always going to be a liar. It's your nature. And lies kill love, eat it away like acid. If I stay with you, you'll take away everything you gave me, all this happiness, all this confidence, all this joy. So we're done.”
His smile had faded. “I can change.”
“No, you can't,” Mab said. “And you don't want to. I don't want you resenting me any more than I want me resenting you. Let it go, Fun. The world is full of beautiful women who would love to be with you for a weekend.”
“They're not you,” Fun said.
“I'm not the me you knew anymore,” Mab said. “Now I'm somebody who demands love and honesty and respect and connection. I deserve it all. And with a little luck, I'm going to get it.”
“Oliver, right?”
“Maybe,” Mab said, smiling as she remembered Cindy saying, “So is Oliver a demon in the sack?” and the look on her face when Mab had said, “No, he's a dragon.” She looked down at Fun and shook her head. “It's not about Oliver. I love you, I do, but you can't give me what I need.” She took a deep breath. “And now I'm free.”
Fun smiled up at her, sitting in her shadow, not quite as sure as he had been. “Anything! can do for you before you go?”
“Tell Ethan we left,” Mab said. “We decided to go on the spur of the moment last night. Glenda's idea. I haven't told him, because you know Ethan. Overprotective.”
“Oh, thanks,” Fun said. “Hey, Ethan, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is your sister just took your mother on a road trip. The good news is, she took the crow, too.”
“Raven.” Mab patted his arm. “Just tell him to put up the bat signal if he needs help. And you have a good time seducing Ashley.”
Fun grinned. “Caught on to that, did you? Of course, you did.” He stood up, too. “It won't be the same.”
“I should hope to hell not,” Mab said, and tried to move by him.
He bent and kissed her swiftly, and she stayed in the kiss for a minute because it was good, and because she did love him, even if he was a lying, cheating, evil, Trickster demon clown, but she kept her eyes shut because he still looked too much like Young Fred for the whole thing to be anything but weird.
Then she patted him on the arm again and climbed down the ladder to the RV, really glad to be leaving him behind.
What's happening in Department 51?“ Erhan asked, looking out over Dreamland from the top of the Keep, where he'd been keeping an eye on his sister and her demon ex-lover. ”Why isn't Oliver here?"
“He's swamped,” Weaver said. “He got Ursula's job since she disappeared, and nobody else knows what the hell goes on in the department. He'll cover for us. He still wants to research demons, but he thinks it's done best without sending anything up the chain of command - or someone like Ursula will get stupid ideas.”
“That's good.” He looked at the destruction in his park and thought, Hell, but overall, the park was in decent shape, and Mab had big plans for its future and probably hers, if Oliver would get his head out of Department 51 and come back. “How about you?”
“How about me what?” Weaver said.
“You work for the government.”
“Not anymore,” Weaver said, turning to him. “I don't exist anymore. Oliver saw to that for me.”
“But your career -”
“I'm Guardia.” Weaver put her arms around him. “That's more than enough.” She frowned and rapped on his chest. “Where's the vest?”
Ethan pulled her close. “I'm in Ohio and the demons are all gone. What do I need a bulletproof vest for?”
He leaned in to kiss her, and Beemer flapped down to land on Weaver's shoulder, shoving him aside, much lighter on his wings after a week of practice but still one big-ass velvet demon.
“Well, not all the demons are gone,” Weaver said, reaching up to pat Beemer on his gold lamé chest.
Ethan stared at Beemer, and Beemer stared back. Then the dragon curled his tail around Weaver's neck and ducked his head to the side, giving Ethan room to lean in and kiss her.
Dreamland, Ethan thought. Where anything is possible.
And then he kissed Weaver.
The purple velvet dragon claw in his ear didn't bother him at all.
I do not approve of you kissing demons,“ Glenda called back to Mab as she loaded her suitcase into the RV. ”Did you tell Ethan we were going?"
“No, I told the demon to do it.” Mab slammed the back door shut and then moved up to look through Glenda's window into the backseat. “Everybody strapped in?”
Delpha's ashes sat on the seat behind the driver's seat, secure in their brass dragon urn, taped down with duct tape. Frankie rode shotgun on the same seat, looking vaguely interested in the new routine. On the other side, behind Glenda, Vanth's booth was crammed in.
“Ready, Mom?” Mab said.
There was a whirr, and a card plopped out.
Glenda picked it up. “She thinks we should bring your lather.”
“I'm still not over him trying to kill me,” Mab said to Vanth. “I hold grudges. But you're going to love the Statue of Liberty.”
“We're all going to love the Statue of Liberty,” Glenda said, and then she nodded past Mab. “Somebody wants to talk to you.”
Mab turned around and saw Oliver standing in front of the Dream Cream, his hands in his pockets, regarding the RV with puzzlement, so she walked over.
“Well, hello, stranger,” she said. “You never call, you never write -”
“I have called you every night,” he said, and bent down and kissed her lightly, and she smiled against his mouth.
“It's not enough,” she said softly.
“I'm here now and I have the whole weekend,” he said, and then nodded to the RV. “Why do I have a bad feeling about that?”
“Because I'm leaving on a road trip,” she told him. “My newly acquired mothers haven't been out of Dreamland for forty years, so I'm taking them all to see the Statue of Liberty.”
He nodded solemnly. “Good idea. How long are you going to be gone?”
“A couple of weeks,” she said, and he closed his eyes. “We'll definitely be back by Thanksgiving. Glenda and Cindy want to do a big Thanksgiving dinner deal. You'll be here for that, right?”
He nodded. “I'll be here for that. By then I should have gotten everything straightened out at work, and I can really be here. No more phone calls.”
“Work. I bet they all love you there,” Mab said, and looked up into his handsome, sane, serious face and thought, Delpha made a mistake. This guy was her destiny, he had to be -
“I think love may be pushing it,” Oliver was saying. “They seem grateful for the sanity.”
“I'm grateful for the sanity,” Mab said.
“Hurry back, Mab,” he said, looking down at her.
Fun would have been smiling. Oliver looked like he was going to miss her.
“I will,” Mab said. “I want to get to know you a lot better.” She laughed. “I don't even know your last name.”
; “It's Oliver.”
She blinked at him. “Your name is Oliver Oliver?”
o, my name is Joe Oliver."
“Your name is Joe,” Mab said, and heard Delpha say, His name is Joe, and the park swung around her and settled into place.
“I don't like the name Joe much,” Oliver said, “but you can call me anything you want,” and she laughed in the sunlight in front of the Dream Cream, and said, 'Joe."
“I'm missing something, aren't I?” he said.
She took a step closer to him. “It's very good to meet you, Joe,” she said, suffused with happiness, and then he leaned in and kissed her, and she put her hands on his strong arms to steady herself because the kiss was a mind-bender: strong and sure and dark and hot, the dragon of her dreams, her one true and future love.
Delpha was never wrong.
“Hurry back,” he said again against her mouth, and she laughed, and then went around the RV and climbed into the driver's seat.
“I approve of you kissing that nice boy,” Glenda said.
“I do, too,” Mab said, and punched up “What Love Can Do” on Ray's cassette player, waved good-bye to Oliver, put the RV in gear, and drove across the causeway, heading east out of Dreamland with no worries at all.
She'd seen where they were going, and it was good.
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About The Authors
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Jennifer Crusie is the New York Times, USA Today and Publisher's Weekly bestselling author of sixteen novels, one book of literary criticism, miscellaneous articles, essays, and short stories, and the editor of two essay anthologies.
Jenny was born in a small town in Ohio, earned a BS in Art Education from Bowling Green State University, married her college sweetheart, and spent three years as a military wife and pre-school teacher before settling down in Beavercreek, Ohio, to raise her daughter and teach elementary and junior high art. An MA in Professional Writing and Feminist Criticism from Wright State University led to teaching high school English at Beavercreek and undergraduate English at WSU and Antioch College, and acting as advisor for the Beavercreek theater tech department. It also led to the beginning of her PhD in literature at Ohio State, where she taught as a graduate assistant and lecturer and published her lone book of literary criticism, Anne Rice: a Critical Companion.
Her PhD was derailed in 1991 when, in the middle of researching her dissertation on the differences in the way men and women write stories, she read 100 romance novels and fell in love with the genre. She changed her dissertation topic so she could study romance and shortly thereafter began to write it, selling her first manuscript in 1992, a novella called Sizzle. Her first book, Manhunting , was published in 1993, followed by Sizzle and seven other category novels for Harlequin and Bantam, which further derailed her PhD when the OSU creative writing department lured her into their program, where she earned her MFA in fiction. She's still ABD on that PhD.
Jenny left category fiction for single title romance when she signed with St. Martin's Press, publishing her first hard cover, Tell Me Lies, in 1998. Six books later, she is still happily writing novels and novellas for St. Martin's, along with short stories and essays on writing and pop culture. Her latest novel, Don't Look Down (SMP April 2006) is a collaboration with bestselling thriller writer Bob Mayer, an experience that reinforced everything she learned in that first long ago dissertation. She still lives in Ohio because she likes it there. For more information, visit ?HYPERLINK “http://www.jennycrusie.com/”??www.jennycrusie.com?.
Selected titles by Jennifer Crusie: Bet Me, Faking It, Fast Women, Welcome to Temptation, Crazy for You, Tell Me Lies, Trust Me on This, The Cinderella Deal, Anyone But You, Charlie All Night, What the Lady Wants, Strange Bedpersons, Getting Rid of Bradley, Manhunting, Sizzle and Anne Rice: A Critical Companion (writing as Jennifer Smith)
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USA Today bestselling author Bob Mayer has written 32 books ranging from military techno-thriller to political thriller to non-fiction to science fiction to romantic suspense. He has over two million books in print.
Born in the Bronx, Bob attended West Point and earned a BA in psychology with honors and then served as an Infantry platoon leader, a battalion scout platoon leader, and a brigade reconnaissance platoon leader in the 1st Cavalry Division. He then joined Special Forces and commanded a Green Beret A Team. He also served as the operations officer for the 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and with Western Command Special Operations in Hawaii. Later he taught at the Special Forces Qualification Course at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, the course designed to train new Green Berets. He also lived in Korea where he earned a Black Belt in Martial Arts and in Tennessee where he earned a Masters Degree in Education from Austin Peay State University.
Bob draws on all of these experiences to write his novels and his nonfiction books, including WHO DARES WINS: Special Operations Tactics for Success and The Novel Writer's Toolkit: A Guide To Writing Great Fiction And Getting It Published. He speaks on both of these areas at writing conferences, workshops, and colleges. But his main focus remains his novels, which include the bestselling Area 51 books and the Dave Riley adventures. Out now are Bodyguard of Lies, the first novel in a series about the world of covert operations for Tor (March 2005), and Section Eight, the first novel in a new series for Harper Collins (Oct. 2005). Coming soon are Lost Girls for Tor and Don't Look Down , a romantic adventure written in collaboration with Jennifer Crusie for St. Martin's Press (April 2006).
Bob lives on a barrier island off the coast of South Carolina. For more information visit ?HYPERLINK “http://www.bobmayer.org/”??www.bobmayer.org?.
Selected titles by Bob Mayer: The Novel Writer's Toolkit: A Guide To Writing Great Fiction And Getting It Published, Who Dares Wins: Special Operations Tactics for Success, The Lost Girls and Section Eight.
Writing as Robert Doherty: The Rock, Area 51, Area 51: The Reply, Area 51: The Mission, Area 51: The Sphinx, Area 51: The Grail, Area 51: Excalibur, Area 51: The Truth, Area 51: Nosferatu, Area 51: Legend, Psychic Warrior and Psychic Warrior: Aura
Writing as Greg Donegan: Atlantis, Atlantis: Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis: Devil's Sea, Atlantis: Gate, Assault on Atlantis and Battle for Atlantis
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Also By Jennifer Crusie & Bob Mayer
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Agnes and the Hitman
Don't Look Down
Also by JENNIFER CRUSIE
Bet Me
Faking It
Fast Women
Welcome to Temptation
Crazy for You
Tell Me Lies
Also by BOB MAYER
The Novel Writer's Toolkit
Writing as Robert Doherty
Bodyguard of Lies
Lost Girls
Area 51
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Reviews
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for Wild Ride:
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“A fun, quick-paced read with engaging characters, a clever story line that never seems ridiculous, and laugh-out-loud moments. ”
Library Journal
The dynamite team of Crusie and Mayer make a most welcome return, this time putting their own touches on the urban fantasy genre with a hilarious demonic adventure... Sarcastic wit and offbeat humor are Crusie–Mayer s
taples, and they get even nuttier when supernatural shenanigans are added. This is one ride you won't want to end!
Romantic Times
““Wild Ride” is as wacky and wonderful as a Frank Capra movie, if Capra had dropped acid and dreamed up a demon-infested Potterville crawling with evil minion teddy bears. The story is both warmly, weirdly familiar and totally original, infused with Crusie's and Mayer’s strong, uniquely recognizable voices yet unlike any of their other books.”
Romance B(u)y The Book