The Vow (Black Arrowhead #1) - Dannika Dark Page 0,76

this place. Shikoba will never find out. It’s not like he’s going to pop in for a visit, and if he asks how you’re doing, I can answer honestly since we’ll still keep in touch. Do it for Hope. This would mean so much to her. She doesn’t have to know how we closed the deal. This can be our secret.” I took off my crown of flowers and set it on the table. “No one ever has to know, and like I said, it won’t be legal. What do we have to lose? We’re just playing dress-up.”

He rubbed his face with his hands, mumbling something unintelligible.

I brushed my finger against a tiny petal on the crown. “This would be a good way to prove your loyalty to Shikoba. We’ll go our separate ways in the morning.”

“I can’t leave, Mel. Not until this case has ended. Besides, how’s it going to look if you take off without me?”

I sat back in the chair. “I took care of that. I told him I have to go home and open the store. He also thinks I need time to break this to friends and family, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Since this isn’t exactly an ordinary negotiation, he doesn’t have any say in when we move in together. The ceremony itself is the only thing that’s part of our agreement. If he asks, just tell him you have to wrap up some business here or sell your place.”

Lakota tilted his head to the side. “I’m staying in a cheap apartment, and as far as they’re concerned, I don’t work.”

I nudged his foot with mine. “Then how are you paying for your apartment? They’re not dumb. They know you’ve got money coming in somehow. Make up a story that you’re doing something on the side. That’s not exactly a lie. Our agreement had nothing to do with us moving in together.”

Lakota snorted. “Just mating for life.”

Twirling my hair around my finger, I said, “He thinks it’ll be good fortune for his people if he has a mating ceremony just after a burial. The circle of life or something like that.”

“Why didn’t he ask me himself?”

“You weren’t here.” I batted my eyelashes. “Maybe he knows you’ll do the right thing. Save him from shame and all that.”

Lakota groaned as he sat back. “This is worse than the time you made me pretend I was blind.”

“It was the only way that cop was going to let a thirteen-year-old off the hook for driving a car.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you behind the wheel, Speedy Gonzales.”

Cops in the country sometimes went easy on kids doing dumb things, and that summer Lakota was visiting his family in his new car. Somehow I’d talked him into letting me take it for a spin. My pack had no problem with me driving on the property, but I was a daredevil and wanted to sail down the open road. So when Lakota stopped by to take me over to spend the night with Hope, I convinced him I was an excellent driver. And I was.

Until I reached sixty miles per hour.

I told the cop that Lakota was blind and his grandma had just had a heart attack and we were on our way home from the hospital.

Lakota sighed. “I’ll talk to Shikoba. Maybe there’s another way you can make a deal with him that doesn’t involve a mating ritual.”

I’d already tried everything, but I didn’t bother mentioning it. If Lakota could swing a better offer, I would happily take it. “Just don’t do anything to jeopardize the deal I have with him. Okay? My clothes are only half the business. If we could secure Shikoba as our supplier, our customers would be lined up out the door.”

“Fine.”

“What does ‘fine’ mean?”

He sat forward and rested his arms on the table again. “It means I won’t jeopardize your deal.”

I felt the excitement bubbling. “So if you can’t come up with another deal, does that mean you’ll go through with the whole mating thing?”

“Yeah, Mel. I’ll be your wife, because clearly you’re the one wearing the pants in this relationship.”

I sprang out of my chair and hugged him from across the table. “Thank you! Thank you!”

A few giggles erupted from the doorway, and we both glanced at two women who had empty glasses in their hands. They set them on the edge of the counter instead of putting them up and ushered each other out, peering at us with