“Shelby? Why would you go looking for her by yourself? Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t—”
“Because,” I interrupt before he can work up a whole new head of steam. “I didn’t actually go out looking for her. That’s not how it works.”
“Oh.” He settles back in his chair, watches me carefully. “Right. So how did you get that black eye if you weren’t physically searching for her?”
I explain as much as I’m able, leaving out the magic but keeping everything else in. By the time I’m done, Nate looks completely sick. “Xandra, I’m sorry. If I’d known what it was like for you, I never would have asked.”
“Then I’m glad you didn’t know. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how it was going to work out, either. I’ve never connected to someone who’s alive before. But we need to get to her quickly. I’m not sure how much more time she’s got. She’s hurt pretty badly.”
The words galvanize him to action. As he eats, he calls the detective I assume is in charge of the case and relays the information I gave him. But he doesn’t stop there. Within fifteen minutes he’s got an entire search party organized. I learned a couple of weeks ago what a damn fine cop Nate is, but standing here, watching him mobilize to find a little girl who isn’t even technically his responsibility, drums it home all over again.
He gets up to depart, and I slip out from behind the counter so I can catch him before he leaves. I can’t tell him that the people who have Shelby are magic, can’t tell him that they are actually evil. But I can’t just let him walk in there blind, either.
“Hey, Nate. Do you have a second?” I call as I come up behind him.
“For you? Always.” He looks at me quizzically, his green eyes calm but his body filled with nervous energy. He’s more than ready to go out on the hunt.
“These people who have Shelby. I don’t know who they are, but I’ve seen enough to know they’re bad news.”
“I figured that when you told me she was in bad shape.”
“No, I mean, it’s more than that. More than hurting a defenseless little girl. They’re dangerous, Nate. You need to be careful. You need to be really careful.”
His eyes narrow and the smile slips from his face. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Too much, but he wouldn’t believe me if I tried to explain. “I just get really bad vibes from them. They’ve killed before, and it’s not just kids. Just please, don’t go storming in once you find the place. They’ll hurt you and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
At my words, everything about him softens just a little. “Thanks, Xandra. I’ll be careful.” He gestures to my face. “I’m really sorry about what it cost you.”
I touch my cheek. “This is nothing. Not if it means Shelby gets to go home.”
“I’ll keep you posted on what we find. And if you manage to connect,” he says, using the word awkwardly, like he’s still uncomfortable with it, “to her any more, please let me know.”
“Of course I will.”
He pulls me in for a quick hug, drops a kiss on my uninjured cheek. I return the friendly gesture, then step back. As he turns to go, I look past him for the first time—and right into Declan’s dark and shadowed eyes.
Sixteen
Nate says something else to me on his way out the door, but I don’t hear it. I wouldn’t even be aware of him exiting except he passes right by Declan, on whom I’m hyperfocused. I try not to respond to the deliberately bland gaze he shoots Nate as the detective sweeps by him, but it’s hard—especially when hot color creeps slowly up my neck.
I don’t know why I’m so nervous. It’s not like I did anything wrong. I helped a friend who asked me, and in doing so maybe helped a terrified little girl as well. I should be proud of what I did, not worried about how Declan is going to react.
Except it’s not the part where I helped Shelby that I’m worried about. Then again, there doesn’t seem to be any reason for me to be worried at all. Declan doesn’t seem upset by what he witnessed, so why should I be? Except—except his eyes are a little too calm, his face a little too composed.
Of course, I could just be projecting my own issues onto him. I’m not sure how well I’d take seeing him hugging one of his old romantic interests only a few hours after his perceived rejection of me.
When he makes no move to come toward me, I raise a hand in a tentative greeting. He waves back, a two-fingered kind of thing that is totally Declan. And totally annoying. Maybe he’s more upset with me than he’s letting on.
Deciding to give the lion a few minutes to chill out before I beard him in his den, I return to the counter and take drink orders from the small line that formed there while I was talking to Nate. Once the line is down to a trickle and Declan still hasn’t moved from the spot against the wall where he’s carelessly lounging, I start to get annoyed. Since he went to all the effort of showing up here, the least he could do is make it to the front counter to talk to me. Especially since I can feel his eyes on me even when my back is turned to him.
More customers come in and I wait on them, too, getting more and more irritated the longer this absurd standoff between us goes on. I’ve just about resolved to ignore him completely—that’s the least that he deserves—when it occurs to me that this whole situation might very well be my fault. He came to see me, and yes, he hasn’t actually made it to the counter, but I’ve been busy filling orders pretty much the whole time he’s been standing there. If it was anyone else, any of my other friends, I would have done for them what I did for Nate—made up their favorite sandwich, grabbed their favorite drink. . . . How ridiculous am I that I’m too proud to do the same for the man I care about more than any other? The man I want to call my own.
Screw it. I head back to the kitchen where Marta and Lisa are just finishing cleaning up from the lunch rush. Both batches of my muffins are cooling on the counter and—after sending them out to work the register—I snag a strawberry one, put it on a plate. I add some of the pasta salad Declan likes so much and dish up a big bowl of chicken noodle soup to go with it.
After carrying the dishes back to my office, I go in search of Declan. He hasn’t moved from where I left him, but his head is bowed, his eyes closed, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose like he’s trying to relieve a headache.
Sorrow pours from him and it’s such a change from the usual vitality and rage that it hits me right in the gut. Makes me feel a million times worse about letting him leave last night than I already do. I needed time to come to grips with everything that has happened, but when I accused him of murder, I obviously hurt him and that’s the last thing I ever wanted to do.
Heart bruised with love for him, I start across the room. I’m still several feet from him when Declan senses me, looks up. Our eyes meet, hold, clash, and somehow I know that it’s taking every ounce of self-control he has not to bound across the restaurant to me. Not to sweep me up in his arms and take over the way he’s so damn good at. But he doesn’t do it. Instead, he waits for me to approach him. He gives me that control even though it’s totally out of character for him.
Looks like that game of wills I thought we were playing really was all in my head.
I step closer and want nothing more than to pull him into my arms, to hold him and comfort him the way he’s done for me so many times before. But not here, not in front of all these people with their prying eyes and inability to understand everything that Declan and I have gone through.
So I reach for his hand instead. He clasps it like a lifeline, and for the first time it hits me that he needs me as much as I need him. I don’t know why it’s such a revelation—we are soulbound, after all—but this is so much more than that. This is Declan needing me, Xandra, not just the Anathema at work.