Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,13

the hug to sit back in his seat, resting his head against it.

I took his hand again and stayed turned toward him. ‘It’s okay, you’re upset.’

‘I’ll be upset this whole visit probably. How do I see them again, Anita? How do I deal with my dad hurt … maybe dying?’

He turned his head, still resting against the seat, and spoke directly on a topic that we’d hardly ever talked about. ‘I can’t imagine losing a parent as early as you did. This feels awful already.’

I nodded. ‘It is awful, but I was only eight when my mother died. You grew up with both your parents until you were ready to go off to college. I had just my dad until I was ten, and then a stepmom that I totally didn’t get along with and a stepsister my own age, and then they had Josh together. I can’t even imagine what my life might have been like if my mom had lived.’

‘I’ve got a stepfather and half-brothers.’

‘You never said.’

He shrugged. ‘I wasn’t close with my mom’s second family. I was on Dad’s side after the divorce. I loved my mother, but she left him. He never really found anyone else to love, just her, as if he could only love one person.’

‘You were what, twelve, when they divorced?’

‘Yes.’

I studied his face, tried to read behind the sunglasses. It wasn’t that bright in the plane, but he was used to wearing them in public to hide his leopard eyes. He’d lost his ability to regain full human form because Chimera, the sadistic leader who took over his leopard pard, had punished him by forcing him into animal form so long that his eyes hadn’t come back and never would. I loved his green-gold eyes, especially with his summer tan that he got so easily. I had my father’s Germanic skin, always pale, never tan.

‘You said you had brown eyes originally – whose eyes do you have, colorwise?’

He smiled and this time it was a real smile. ‘My father’s.’

The smile was full of love, happiness, memories, of a son’s pride in having his father’s eyes. I knew that Micah had been his father’s hunting buddy, as I’d been for mine. We’d both grown up hunting and camping.

‘So you look like your dad?’

‘He’s a little taller, but we’re built alike. He knew to put me into gymnastics and martial arts as a kid, not peewee football. He loves watching the games, but he was always too small to play, and he knew I would be, too, so he didn’t put me through the frustration of it the way his own dad did.’

‘Your grandfather?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, he’s five-eight, built bigger. Dad and I are built like my grandma’s side of the family. I don’t know why it never occurs to big, burly guys that when they marry the tiny cheerleader some of the kids may look more like her, even the boys. They never think it through.’

‘I take it your grandfather isn’t your favorite person.’

‘My dad and he had issues with my dad not being big enough for regular sports, though Dad went to college on a baseball scholarship. He was good enough for college, but he didn’t have the size for the power hitting you need in the majors, and he knew it.’

‘Baseball is a manly sport,’ I said.

Micah grinned. ‘Granddad Callahan played football and wrestled. He also muscled up better than we did. More like Nathaniel.’

As if just saying his name had conjured him, our other sweetie walked up the little steps and into the jet. His shoulders were broader than Micah’s, and at five foot seven he carried the extra muscle well. He’d actually had to stop lifting as much in the gym because he was bulking up too much to keep the flexibility he needed as a dancer. Micah fought for every bit of muscle in the gym. Nathaniel’s dark auburn hair must have been pulled back into a tight braid because it gave the illusion that his hair was short. He was still wearing his sunglasses, not to hide his eyes, but because it was bright outside. With his eyes hidden and his hair back and a charcoal-gray suit hiding all his body, there was just the line of his face, with nothing to distract the gaze from the near-perfect line that ran from his temple to the cheekbones, the chin that managed to be both masculine and soft. It was the lips that did it, I think, wide,