CHAPTER SIX
Jane was tapping her foot on the curb, waiting for the sloth-like doorman to hail her a cab. She could hail her own cab, thanks very much, but when in Rome, do what the sheep do. Or something like that.
She'd packed like a madwoman and it showed—she could see the corner of her dress sticking out of the suitcase. Fifty-nine bucks at Target and she'd probably never wear the thing again. Her preferred outfits were various patterned flannel pajamas (the flying sushi one was her favorite), and she occasionally mixed it up a bit when she skipped the bottoms. Not for nothing did she choose a career that let her work with her flannel-covered butt planted firmly on the couch. Come to think of it, her latest hate-review was due to her editor by the end of the week, something she’d forgotten about in the excitement of meeting Sunglasses-At-Night.
And Dick! She felt really bad about scuttling out of town and she hadn’t even left yet. He'd think she stood him up. Ha! Like that would happen. He was ridiculously good-looking but, even more important, she could talk to him. Not be herself—not completely, not quite—but close.
Shit, she couldn’t even be herself with the pack; they'd written her off as an old maid a decade ago. Pack members mated young, dropped kids young, and died young. She was fine with the latter, but the plain truth was that she didn't want kids, which, among her people, made her seem dangerously unstable. And not textbook unstable. Nicolas Cage on speedballs unstable.
No kids for her, and likely no mate. Getting knocked up—assuming her mate could have done the deed without getting hurt—was one thing, but then you were a slumlord to a fetus for ten endless months. At least the humans only had to suffer for nine. Even worse, you puffed up like a blowfish and ate everything in sight, often threw up everything you’d just eaten, and at the end of it all you got to squeeze out a cub during hours of blood and pain...blurgh.
And afterwards! Just the thought of having to tote around a l'il nose-miner who cried and screamed and puked and shit—and that was just the first week—was enough to curl her hair. She hadn't liked kids when she was one. The feeling had been mutually—and heartily—returned. She'd felt that way at eighteen, twenty-three, thirty, thirty-four. Sure, kids were necessary—for other people. Jane preferred to sleep late, and wear clothes that hadn't been puked on, and not watch her language.
"Where to, ma'am?" the doorman asked, breaking her anti-infant reverie. He was ineffectually flapping a hand at the occasional cab. She could have hailed four on her own by now. She could have jogged to the airport by now.
"Logan," she practically snapped. It wasn't Door Boy's fault she'd been ordered to leave town, but the big boss wasn't here for her to take her anger out on. "Quick as you can."
She thought about leaving a note for Dick, and reluctantly decided against it...better find out what Boss Man Michael wanted, first. And if it wasn't life and death, she'd let him have it, and who gave a rat's ass if he was the pack leader? She had a life. Well, before yesterday she really hadn't, but he didn't know that. It was his privilege to snap his fingers and have any one of them come at a dead run, but it was hers not to like it.
As she sulked, she noticed the doorman was shivering, then realized the sun had nearly set and the temperature had dropped a good ten degrees. Still, it wasn't that cold. And why did the kid look like he was ready to drop a steaming load into his trousers? She was irritated, but not at him...surely he knew that. Besides, it wasn’t like she was going to lunge and bite him on the shoulder—chomp! Or maybe chew on the hand he didn’t know how to hail a cab with. No, she wouldn’t do that. Wyndham made her promise after the last time. (Though the man in question would think twice before trying to dart into a cab someone else had flagged down. In the hail. At 10:00 p.m. On an empty stomach.)
God, the reek the kid was giving off! Like mothballs dipped in gasoline. His fear— his terror—was suddenly everywhere, so cloying it burned her nose. It put her wind up and she cupped her elbows, shivering and looking around. If the poor guy’s not scared of me, then...?
The ball dropped and she understood a half second too late. She was spun around and had time to take in burning blue eyes before Dick turned off the lights. Her last thought as she slid into unconsciousness was, Damn, not bad, never even heard him coming...