"Not cute enough?"
I hesitated. "I guess physically he wasn't that bad, but looks aren't everything. Personality, good manners, sanity--all nice things to have."
Micah had pulled around the little glass building.
The attendant was coming toward us. We were moments away from needing to get out of the car. "If we're going to make the flight, I gotta go."
"Why'd you turn down Detective Ramirez?" he asked.
I wasn't sure it was any of his business, but I answered. "I was dating someone back home. I didn't think it was fair to any of us to complicate things."
"Someone said you were all over him at the last crime scene."
I knew what he was referring to. "We hugged each other, Agent Fox, because after seeing what was in that house I think we both needed to touch something warm and alive. I let one man hold my hand and all the other men think I'm f**king him. God, there are times when I really hate being the only woman around this kind of shit."
I was out of the car. Micah was getting our bags from the back.
"Now that's not fair, Marshal. If I'd hugged Ramirez or let him hold my hand, there'd be rumors, too."
It stopped me for a second, and then I laughed. "Well, damn, I guess you're right."
Micah had traded the key for a little ticket stub. He popped the handles on the carry-on bags so they'd roll. I took one of them but let him take my briefcase, since I was still on the phone. The little bus was waiting for us and a few more passengers.
"I look forward to meeting you, Marshal Blake. Time I stopped listening to secondhand stories."
"Thanks, I guess."
"See you on the ground." And he was gone.
I folded the phone shut and was already going up the bus steps before the attendant tried to take my bag. It was the skirt outfit and the heels. I always had more offers to help with luggage when I was dressed like a girl.
Micah came up behind me, mostly ignored, though he was dressed up, too. We'd chosen his most conservative suit, but there's only so much you can do with a black Italian-cut designer suit. It looked like what it was: expensive.
No one would mistake him for a Fed of any kind. We'd pulled his thick, curly hair back in a tight French braid, which almost gave the illusion of short hair. He'd put on a white shirt with the suit and a conservative tie.
We settled into the back row of seats. He'd kept his sunglasses on even in the darkened parking garage, because behind those dark glasses was a pair of leopard eyes. A very bad man had forced him into animal form long enough, and often enough, that he couldn't return completely to human form. His eyes were yellow-green, chartreuse, and not human. They were beautiful in the tan of his skin, but they tended to freak people out, hence the glasses.
I wondered how the FBI would take the eyes. Did I care? No. Things had worked out with Special Agent Fox, or seemed to be working out. But someone who had been in New Mexico was trashing me. Who? Why? Did I care? Yeah, actually, I did.
Chapter 3
I hate to fly. I'm phobic of it, and we'll leave it at that. I didn't bleed Micah, but I left little half-moon nail impressions in his hand, though I didn't realize it until after we'd landed and were getting our bags from overhead. Then I asked him, "Why didn't you tell me I was hurting you?"
"I didn't mind."
I frowned at him, wishing I could see his eyes, though truthfully they probably wouldn't have told me anything.
Micah had never been a cop, but he had been at the mercy of a crazy person for a few years. He'd learned to keep his thoughts off his face, so that his old leader didn't beat those thoughts off for him. It meant that he had one of the most peaceful, empty faces I'd ever met. A patient, waiting sort of face like saints and angels should have but never seem to.
Micah didn't like pain, not the way Nathaniel did. So he should have said something about the nails digging into his skin. It bugged me that he hadn't.
We got trapped in the aisle of the plane, because everyone else had stood up and grabbed their bags, too. We had time for me to lean in against his back and ask, "Why didn't you say something?"
He leaned back, smiling down at me. "Truthfully?"
I nodded.
"It was sort of nice to be the brave one for a change."