Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,62

figured some kind of martial arts.’

‘Why?’ he asked, blue eyes narrowing.

‘The way you sized up the men.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean,’ I said.

He looked at me, and he saw me not as a woman, or a grown-up, but as a person. He was almost my height exactly. ‘What martial art do you do?’

‘I started out in judo, but now I do mixed martial arts.’

‘You do MMA?’ he asked, and couldn’t keep the suspicion out of his voice.

I nodded. ‘I do.’

He looked behind us at the other men again. ‘What do they do?’

‘Same thing,’ I said.

‘She trains with us,’ Ares said.

Hawthorne looked suspicious again. ‘Really?’

‘Really,’ Nicky, Dev, and I said at the same time.

Hawthorne looked at Micah next. ‘You’re Mike, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Micah said.

Hawthorne studied his face, then nodded. ‘You look like Beth.’

‘I know.’

‘Do you work out with them?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because in my job my life doesn’t depend on my fighting skills.’

Hawthorne looked back at me. ‘What’s your job?’

I moved my jacket so he could see the badge at my waist.

‘U.S. Marshal. Are you here to help catch who hurt Rush?’

‘I’m here with Micah, Mike. I’m his fiancée, but yeah, since I’m already here I thought I’d help out.’

He looked at Nathaniel. ‘Who are you?’

‘Hawthorne,’ his mother said, as if he’d been rude.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘I’m Nathaniel,’ he said, and offered his hand to the boy.

Hawthorne was obviously surprised, but he took his hand and they shook. ‘Do you work out with them?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Same reason Micah gave.’

The boy looked him up and down as if trying to figure out what, or who, he was to everyone else. ‘They don’t all look like marshals,’ he said.

‘Hawthorne, why don’t you take Frost and Fen back to clean up your backpack?’ Ty said.

He gave a sullen look to his father. ‘Fen is four. How is he going to help with anything?’

Fen rose up from Beth’s shoulder and said, ‘I can help.’

Hawthorne gave an exaggerated sigh, rolled his eyes again, and said, ‘Fine, I’ll take the little kids with me, but I know you just want me to stop asking questions and talk grown-up stuff.’ He looked worried then, and it was real. ‘Did something else happen to Rush?’ He suddenly looked younger, the kid peeking through the almost-teenager.

‘No, Hawthorne, nothing else has happened,’ Ty said.

‘Promise,’ he said.

‘I promise,’ his father said.

Hawthorne nodded, flashed us another worried and speculating look, then held his hands out for the kids. ‘Come on, brats, I’ll supervise while you clean up the Kool-Aid.’

Bea set the little girl on the ground. Frost turned around to face us, hands on hips, elbows out defiantly, and gave us a clear view of her delicate triangular face. Her eyes were small, almost almond shaped, and a deep, solid brown. Except for the hair color she looked like Beth had cloned herself. I was looking at what Micah’s daughter might have looked like.

‘I am not a brat,’ Frost said, stamping her foot.

‘Are too,’ Hawthorne said.

‘Are not!’

‘Go with your brother and clean up the mess you made,’ Ty said.

I looked at his bright blue eyes, and then at Bea’s blue-gray ones. Micah had actually gone pale. How did two blue-eyed parents end up with brown-eyed children? Somehow Fen’s golden-brown eyes hadn’t seemed so obvious, but these were Micah’s and Beth’s eyes staring out of a face that didn’t look like their mother or her new husband. What the hell was going on?

Beth said, ‘I’ll go with them and make sure they don’t kill each other.’ She gave a look to Micah that I think was sympathetic. ‘I’m glad you’re home,’ she said, and carried Fen off after Hawthorne and Frost.

Fen called back over her shoulder, his arms wrapped around her neck, and asked his question a second time. ‘Are you my big brother, too?’

Micah turned to look at his mother as he answered the little boy, ‘Yes, I think I am.’

Bea Morgan reached for her husband’s hand and looked guilty.

19

‘Mom, Ty, what is going on?’

Ty stood there straight and tall with an almost defiant look on his face. Bea clung to his hand and looked beseechingly at her son. ‘It just sort of happened,’ she said.

‘Frost isn’t Ty’s, is she?’ he asked.

‘She is my daughter,’ Ty said, ‘but biologically probably not.’

‘What do you mean, biologically?’ he asked.

‘Mike, please, don’t be mad. I thought you’d be better than Jerry about it, because you have two people, too.’ Her voice sounded apologetic and not sure of itself at all.

The doorbell sounded. Bea went for