Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,42

you being a wereleopard made you too dangerous. She thought we’d kicked you out for years.’

‘I don’t know if I could have said all I needed to say if Beth had been there.’

‘I know you couldn’t have. No way could you have looked her in the face and been so … cruel. You were her favorite brother even though you hunted and killed things with Dad, and she hated that, but she still loved you more.’

‘She didn’t love me more, Jerry; she loved me different, that’s all.’

‘You lying bastard.’ His voice held the tears a moment before the first of them slid down his cheek. His voice was choking on his tears when he said, ‘I hate you, you lying bastard.’

‘I know,’ Micah said, and something I heard in his voice made me have to look at his face so I could see the tears falling down his face.

It was Jerry who made the first move forward, but Micah didn’t wait for more. They were suddenly hugging, clinging to each other and crying. Jerry was still calling him a lying bastard, but somewhere in all the name-calling I heard Micah say, ‘I love you, too.’

14

When both men had dried their tears enough so they could pretend they hadn’t been crying, Jerry took us to the family waiting room. It had a few couches, chairs, a coffee table full of magazines that almost no one ever read, and a few paintings on the walls, everything in colors that were supposed to be cheerful, or soothing, but never really were. It looked like a hundred other waiting rooms I’d seen, where I’d go to talk to families or police about the person in the other room, in surgery, and what had attacked them. To police it was, How do we hunt it down and kill it? To families of victims it was, What can you tell me that will help me hunt it down and kill it? It was a room like so many others, except this one had some of Micah’s family in it, and that made it unique and strangely more intimidating. We might never walk down an aisle together, but Micah was a permanent part of my life and I was as happy as I’d ever been. Wedding band or not, these strangers were my potential in-laws. Scary, even to us tough-as-nails vampire hunters.

Micah’s mom had the same big pale blue-gray eyes as Jerry, and she looked like him, or rather he looked like her. Her shoulder-length hair was the same tight curls, but the color was paler brown, on the borderline between ash brown and sandy blond. She had that clear, soft shade of skin that only nature and some very fun genetics give you. She looked a little more ethnic than her sister, but not by much. Her full lips were lipsticked and her makeup was perfect, but she wasn’t wearing that much and if I hadn’t known she was Micah’s mom I would not have put her over fifty, but she had to be, didn’t she? She was heavier than she’d probably been when she was younger, but it was mostly just more curves, so it looked good on her. A nicely tailored suit flattered the fuller figure rather than hid it, which I liked a lot. She was voluptuous, exotic, and beautiful, and Micah’s mom. She was also a hugger.

She enveloped Micah in a hug like he was the last solid thing in the world and she was holding on for dear life. We caught snatches of what she was saying through the tears: ‘So glad you’re home … your dad will be so happy … love you …’

Micah said the only things he could: ‘Love you, and I’m sorry.’ He said other things, but they were mostly lost to his mother’s crying. Nathaniel probably heard more of it, but he stood there holding my hand and waited for the emotional storm to abate enough for us to matter. Dev and Nicky had moved back to the entrance to the waiting area. There was only one way in, so they could guard just fine from there, and give us room for the family reunion at the same time. It was bodyguard multitasking at its best.

Micah extracted himself enough to say, ‘Mom, this is Anita, and Nathaniel.’

She hugged me to her, and I had to let go of Nathaniel’s hand to return the hug. She started crying again, saying, ‘Thank you, thank you for bringing Mike