Mercy Thompson 06 - River Marked

probably carry us all down if he could figure out a good way to make a manageable bundle of us. Adam was out to the public, but neither Robert nor his mother looked like people who could deal with werewolves at this point in their trip. The army part was true—they didn’t need to know that his army life was back in the Vietnam era.
    “Get his ankle X-rayed anyway,” advised Adam, who’d had no trouble hearing us. “I’m not a doctor, and sprains can be tricky.”
    By the time we made it down to the parking lot, Robert had recovered except for an exaggerated limp. His mother had lost the desperate edge to her voice. She thanked us again, and Robert gave Adam a wet kiss on his cheek.
    “My hero,” I told Adam, as they drove away. “You done here? Or would you mind going back up again?”
    To my intense pleasure, Adam and I hiked for another couple of hours, then ate in Hood River. I’d never spent so much time with him without interruption. Here, there was no other demand on either of us.
    I loved it. Loved watching the alertness fade and the strain of taking care of the pack, of me, of his daughter, of his business just wash away from his face and his body.
    Usually, Adam looked like a man well into his thirties—though werewolves don’t age at all. By the time we returned to the campground, he’d lost ten years of care and looked not much older than his daughter. Laughter lit his face in a way that I’d never seen before.
    I had done this. Me. Okay, me and God’s waterfalls and mountainside forest. Even though it had seemed I couldn’t get through a day without throwing him in the middle of my hot water. Even though he’d had to fight vampires, demons, and waterlogged fae because of me. Even though he’d had to fight his own pack, I was good for Adam.
    I’d seen him ticked off, in pain, in sorrow. It was indescribably better to see him happy.
    “What?” he asked, finishing the second of his nine-ounce steaks, medium rare. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
    The trendy little restaurant that occupied the old Victorian intimidated me a little, not that I’d let anyone, including Adam, see it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything, except possibly my mother, intimidate Adam. But it was more than that.
    He fit here. He’d fit out running around in the trails—and packing the little boy down the mountainside. For someone like me, who’d had to fight to make my own place because I didn’t fit anywhere, he was ... Well, the truth of the matter was that he fit me, too.
    Though, from their sideways looks, a lot of the rather affluent diners eating there obviously didn’t think so. Adam might be going casual in jeans and a T-shirt, but he still looked like he just stepped off a modeling job. I looked like I’d been hiking all day even though I’d pulled the leaves out of my hair in the restaurant bathroom.
    I sighed theatrically, resting my chin on my cupped hands and bracing my elbows on the table. “You are too gorgeous, you know?” I said it just loud enough that the people who’d been watching us surreptitiously could hear me.
    Unholy laughter lit his eyes—telling me he’d been noticing the looks we’d been getting. But his face was completely serious, as he purred, “So. Am I worth what you paid for me, baby?”
    I loved it when he played along with me.
    I sighed again, a sound that I drew up from my toes, a contented, happy sound. I’d get him back for that “baby.” Just see if I didn’t.
    “Oh, yes,” I told our audience. “I’ll tell Jesse that she was right. Go for the sexy beast, she told me. If you’re going to shell out the money, don’t settle.”
    He threw back his head and laughed until he had to wipe tears of hilarity off his face. “Jeez, Mercy,” he said. “The things you say.” Then he leaned across the table and kissed me.
    A while later he pulled back, grinned at me, and sat back in his chair.
    I had to catch my breath before I spoke. “Best five bucks I ever spent,” I told him fervently.

    HE WAS STILL LAUGHING WHEN HE BUCKLED HIS SEAT belt. “It’s a good thing that we don’t live in Hood River,” he said. “I’d never be able to show my face in that restaurant again. Five bucks. Jeez.” Adam was a gentleman raised in the fifties. He tried really hard not to swear in front of women.
    “I thought it was pretty cool when that little old lady tried to give you a twenty,” I said, and set him off again.
    “The thing that spooked