stifled a smile. As annoying as she was, there were times when I sympathized with her. How did she stand living with an egghead like Will Cadotte?
He pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket, settled them on his nose, then bent over the end table to read what was left of his precious paper. I got a good glimpse of his ass. Maybe this assignment wouldn't be so bad after all.
I'd never been much of an ass woman, even before I'd caught sight of Fitzgerald's chest and become bewitched by all that pale Irish skin and manly muscle. However, that didn't mean I couldn't admire beauty when it was displayed right in front of me.
I pulled my gaze from Will's jeans. My eyes collided with Jessie's. While most women would be mad to find another ogling their boyfriend's behind, she merely looked amused and shrugged as if to say, What can you do? For just an instant I liked her.
Then she opened her mouth.
"I'll be at your place at seven a.m."
"Like hell."
"Leigh is not a morning person," Edward explained.
"Well, I have to work at night, so morning is when we'll train."
"We'll train when I say we'll train. At noon."
I narrowed my eyes. She narrowed hers. We stared each other down. I was reminded of films I'd studied of real wolves. Dominance struggles. Alpha and beta animals. Well, I was the alpha around here, and she'd damn straight better get used to it.
We might have stared at each other all night, but Cadotte grabbed Jessie and kissed her again. Edward showed me to the door. The first round hadn't gone at all the way I'd planned.
He stepped into the hallway behind me. "I must leave."
"Already?"
My voice sounded wan and needy. Pathetic. What was the matter with me? Thankfully Edward didn't seem to notice my sudden regression to the wimpy girlie-girl I'd once been.
"Elise requested I come to the compound as soon as I could. There is an... issue which requires my attention. You do not need me here with both you and Jessie, as well as Will, on the job."
"When can you get back?"
"I am not sure. You'll be fine. Just show Jessie everything I showed you and anything new you have learned along the way."
He put his hand on my shoulder. His fingers felt like dry twigs. Would they snap under too much pressure? For the first time I could remember, I was worried about Edward. He was very, very old, and today he seemed even older.
"Keep me informed," he said. "On the lovely Internet. What an invention."
I smiled. Edward was fascinated with the Internet. His was both a charming and a convenient obsession.
We walked out together, climbed into separate cars. I watched his until the taillights disappeared over a far hill, then drove down the main street of Crow Valley, which had been quaintly labeled Main Street, until I found a road called Good.
"They are hysterical in this town," I muttered as the carriage of my rental car scraped along the rutted, gravel-strewn surface of Good Road.
I clattered along in the night for quite a while, even began to wonder if Jessie's idea of a joke was sending me off on a path that led nowhere.
The trees made a canopy over my car, shutting out any light, making the air seem to throb against the windshield in a cool, velvet haze. I could smell the forest - the evergreen scent of pine, the musty aroma of dying leaves, and the tang of summer gone away too soon.
I had almost decided to turn back when I heard it. The faint, exotic drift of music.
I kept driving. The sky glowed dimly, as if city lights pulsed in the distance. But I knew from the map I'd studied before leaving Minneapolis that there wasn't a town of any identifiable size within a hundred miles.
So what were those lights, and who was playing music?
I nearly ran into the answer. My car rolled up one side of an impressive bump, then slid down the other. I shot into a clearing and nearly slammed through the front wall of a tavern.
"What the - ?"
Cars were parked all around the building at odd angles, as if the patrons had arrived drunk. Music spilled out the open windows - jazz - as out of place in this forest as I was.
There was no sign on the building, no neon lights announcing McGinty's or Cheers, just a bright yellow spotlight perched at every corner of the