Driftwood - MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,12

The smell of it makes me ill. I can't believe you're going to eat half the food in the house."

He cocked a dark brow at her. "Half?"

Chapter Eleven

"It's good that we got the sex out of the way," she said as they sped toward Eat Me Raw. "Now we can focus on—you know."

"The murder?"

"Right." She was a little taken aback at how coolly he said it, like it was a fact of life, something unpleasant but unavoidable, like taxes. "The sex thing would have just distracted you."

"That's probably true," he said cheerfully.

"But you know," she felt compelled to add, as she was compelled to ruin all good things in her life/death, "there's nothing in it for us. I mean, no future."

He was silent, concentrating on the road.

"It's not like I can give you a family. My ovaries quit working the same day everything quit working. Not that I ever wanted a family," she added in a mutter. "I hate kids."

"Me, too."

"Liar!"

He blinked at her. "Well. I don't hate them. I don't hate anything. But I must admit, they bug the shit out of me."

"Me, too! I mean, I know we all had to go through it, and kids have to learn, blah-blah, but do they have to learn right next to me? You can't go to a restaurant anywhere and have a nice glass of wine without some toddler throwing Saltines in your hair."

"And the parents…" he prompted.

"Oh, man, they are the worst! Always obsessing about when their kid takes a shit, or doesn't take a shit, or is a slow talker, or talks too much, and showing you meaningless crayon scribbles and going on and on about what geniuses their little Tommy or Jenny is. Ugh!"

"Try being in a pack, and knowing the baby barfing all over your shoes is destined to be your boss someday."

The sheer horror of the idea consumed her for a moment. "Okay," she said at last, "that's bad."

"Making nice to a toddler who takes a dump in the corner, because she's going to be the pack leader someday."

"Man!"

"And the parents, who are your bosses right now, think it's swell when the kid breaks a window by throwing her baby brother through it. So there's broken glass everywhere, the baby's laughing and shitting, the kid's laughing, and the parents are all 'isn't she a genius?' and 'isn't he a brave little man?'"

"I don't know how you stand it!"

"That's why I live alone. Lived alone," he corrected himself.

She let that pass. "Is it weird for a werewolf to not like kids?"

"Extremely. As in, perversion. We're supposed to be married by the time we can legally drink, and have two or three cubs by the time we're twenty-five."

She snickered at "cubs."

"But, I like my privacy. I like the beach. I like being able to sleep late on Saturdays and watch dirty movies on HBO whenever I want."

"Sing it."

She settled back in her seat and enjoyed the ride. He had an old pickup truck, beat-up blue with new tires and sprung upholstery. He had had it, he told her, for fifteen years.

Then she thought: I am riding in a blue truck with a near-stranger to go kill Pete, and I'm… happy?

Postcoital happiness, she decided. Strictly hormonal. She used to get the same high from eating chocolate.

"So, what's the plan?"

He blinked at her again. "You're asking me?"

"Okay. We go to the restaurant. We find Pete. We take him out back and kill him."

"With the handy stake you happen to have in your—pocket?"

She glared at him. She was dressed, once again, in his gym shorts and a T-shirt, one so old it was no longer black, but gray.

Barefoot. He was slightly more respectable looking in faded jeans, loafers, and an orange T-shirt the color of a traffic cone.

"It's a restaurant," she said, faking a confidence she didn't feel. "We'll find a big sharp knife and cut his lying head off with it."

Burke shrugged.

"You really don't have a problem with this?"

"He killed you and your friend and who knows how many other girls. I'll eat his heart and have room for a big breakfast."

She opened her mouth, and promptly closed it. Other girls? Horrifying thought! Of course Pete hadn't stopped with Maggie.

And it had been years. Decades. How many—

"And he doesn't have to kill them," she said out loud, bitterness like acid on her tongue. "You don't have to kill them. People give more blood to the Red Cross."

"Yes, Serena."

"He didn't have to! I would have—I would have forgiven him for