.

were too messed up to clean so he threw them away. That’s how you got to come home in a dress.”

      He expected the elbow he got and laughed.

      “Chuzah’s okay,” Aaron said. “He said we could go back there if we wanted to return the kaftan.”

      “I don’t think I’ll want to.”

      Aaron took a bit to say, “I’m going to. I like Locum. When I was a little kid we had a dog and he went everywhere with me. He was only a mutt, but he was the best.”

      “What happened to him?” Sonny said.

      Aaron frowned and sighed. “I don’t know. Ran off, I guess. One day he was there, the next he was gone. It was tough. Wouldn’t you like to have a sidekick like Locum?”

      “He’s okay for a dog. There was blood on my clothes, too. I got it on me when Chuzah carried you back to his place. It was comin’ through his fingers.”

      “Forget it, will ya? It must have been something from the swamp. It just looked like blood is all.”

      “You were shot,” Sonny said bluntly.

      Aaron didn’t answer him and Sonny sat up. He put on the bedside lamp and glared at the TV. Some black-and-white movie had come on. Loads of men in fedoras and ties hanging undone arguing with some guy behind one of those old-fashioned windows, the ones they used to have inside banks. Looked like a major heist gone wrong.

      He touched Aaron’s side and saw how he recoiled. “So show it to me,” Sonny said.

      Aaron got off the bed and shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. He paced back and forth.

      “Look,” Sonny said. “We’re in this together. All of it. Whatever happens, I’ll be there for you.”

      “And I’ll be there for you.”

      “So show me.”

      Aaron hauled up the left side of his T-shirt and walked close to Sonny. “Satisfied?”

      Sonny sat on the edge of the bed and touched a round, brownish bruise on the skin just beneath Aaron’s ribs. Aaron turned slowly around to show a matching mark on the other side.

      “Entry and exit wounds,” Sonny said. “Or that’s where they should be. That’s too freakin’ creepy.”

      9

      Angel lived on an oxbow lake not too far from The Willows, the building project he was currently managing for Finn Duhon.

      When Eileen had asked him why he’d chosen to buy an old house by the lake when oxbows disappeared eventually, he had said, “Because almost no one else lives there. Anyway, whoever built that place of mine had imagination. They knew it would stand, lake or no lake, and maybe there would always be someone to love it. I’m going to do a lot of the renovating myself.”

      He had big hands. Eileen watched them on the wheel while they drove the winding road west and out of town. His hands gave her a funny feeling; she wanted to take and examine them, to find out how the bones and the veins and the muscles felt. “You do think it was okay to leave the boys like that?” she asked.

      “They’ll be fine. Aaron’s a smart kid and Sonny knows a lot about how to look after himself. I pity anyone who tries to get in there after them. Anyway, Sonny would call me if he needed to.” He smiled at her. “We can’t keep them locked away. Learning to react effectively in bad situations takes practice.”

      She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “That’s good then, I guess. It’s quite a way from your house to your office.”

      Angel worked with Finn in a suite at the old Oakdale Mansion but spent a lot of hands-on time at whichever building site needed his attention.

      “I never liked living in towns.” He chuckled. “Not even little burghs like Pointe Judah.”

      “How early do you start out when you come into town?”

      “Early.” He smiled. “A lot earlier if I run. I don’t do that too often.”

      The road narrowed and Angel took a half-right where tire tracks intersected shaggy grass and the old oaks made a tunnel. Ahead the area was black and rain continued to fall. Eileen didn’t relish the drive home once she’d dropped Angel off.

      At last the headlights picked out the house, three stories of faded faux antebellum. The place might have been pretty if it were the real thing, but Angel said the land was a find and he intended his new house to sprout out of this old one and look similar—only better.

      “Light by the door went out again,” Angel said. “I’ve got to take a look at the wiring.”

      “Must be nice to be so handy with those things.”

      He put on the emergency brake. “Anything you need done, just call and I’ll do it. You like gardening and plants?”

      “Yes,” she said, smiling and looking toward sets of double doors to the left of the entrance where Angel was having a conservatory refurbished. “That’s going to be so lovely. Your conservatory. If I were you, I’d probably just about live out there.”

      “Hey.” He turned sideways. “Christmas is coming. I was trying to think what to give you. How about a greenhouse? Unless I build it from a kit, it won’t be finished in time, but it wouldn’t take so long. I’d rather build one from scratch. That way I could help you design exactly what you want.”

      She felt awkward, flustered. “I wasn’t angling for any favors. And a greenhouse is a ridiculously expensive gift, but thank you.”

      “You’ve never angled for anything from me, Eileen. I often wish you would.”

      She looked at her hands and blinked rapidly. He couldn’t know that she hadn’t had any practice asking for things from a man in her life.

      “What is it?” Angel said. “Why do you look…scared, if I say I’d like to do something for you? There would never be any strings attached.”

      “No! No, I would never think of that,” Eileen said. “I’m so unpolished. I never got all the finer points of interacting with people the way other girls did. I think I must have been the most unpopular girl in school. I’m so sorry if I insulted you.” She closed her mouth. Why did she babble like that? Well, she didn’t, except with Angel. And why was that?

      “Eileen,” he said, leaning closer. “If you weren’t the most popular girl in school, then every guy in the place was dumb. I never saw a woman more beautiful than you.”

      She grinned and immediately covered her face.

      Angel chuckled softly and ruffled her hair. “I’d like to tell you all the ways you’re beautiful but you’d kick me out of the van and never speak to me again.”

      “Why?” She frowned and slid her hands down enough to look at him.

      He gave her an evil look. “Don’t ask. Ahh, you can ask. I’d describe all your positive points, and they are many, and then you’d slap my face.”

      She punched his arm. “Get outa here, you soft soap. I’ve got to drive home.”

      “Nope,” he said.

      “Okay, enough joking around. It’s getting late.”

      “I can get my motorcycle in the back of the van. Then I’ll drive you home and ride back.”

      “You will not. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

      “Don’t fib.”

      “You’re incorrigible.”

      He was very near to her. “I know,” he said. “Don’t you love it?”

      Eileen didn’t answer. What she felt wasn’t new, just a little rusty. It shortened