Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(168)

“I need diaper wipes!” Bruno bellowed.

Aaro and Petrie exchanged panicked glances. “Huh?”

“Wipes!” Bruno repeated. “Lena’s leaking! And the ceremony’s about to start, and I’ve got the rings in my pocket! And I can’t find Zia, or Liv, or Margot, or anybody with wipes!”

“Oh. Uh, well, shit,” Aaro said, helplessly.

“Yeah!” Bruno yelled. “Like, literally! A lot of it! Cascades of it!”

Sveti wafted out, looking stunning in a dress that swirled and fluttered. She waved a package. “I found wipes! Erin had some.”

“Thank God,” Bruno muttered.

In the distance, the string quartet started a wedding processional. Bruno jerked. “Oh, Christ,” he moaned. “Not now. yet.”

“Go, go,” Sveti urged, grabbing the toddler and bag from him. “I’ll change Lena for you and take her to Zia. You hurry.”

“Wait!” Aaro shouted after the man as he loped away.

Bruno stopped in the doorway. “What?”

“Just thought you should know. We saw Lily Parr outside.”

Bruno looked like he’d turned to stone. His mouth moved. No sound emerged. “Where?” he finally croaked.

“That way. In the rhododendrons outside. She’s hiding.”

“Bruno!” Sveti shouted as he lunged blindly in the Lily-seeking direction. “The ceremony! The rings! You have to go! For Kev!”

Bruno swung on his heel, confused and agonized. He fixed Aaro with a burning stare. “You. Find her for me. Do not let her get away.”

Don’t f*ck up again, being the subtext of that directive.

Aaro nodded. “Got it.”

Bruno’s stiff arm dropped, but he still could not seem to move.

Aaro touched his shoulder. “Bruno,” he said quietly. “Breathe.”

Bruno bolted, leaving them with Sveti holding the wriggling baby girl, and a very uncomfortable silence. Sveti was the first to break it.

“Well?” she said crisply. “I could use some help.”

Aaro and Petrie exchanged terrified glances. “Uh, what kind of help?” Aaro asked, nervously.

Sveti’s eyes narrowed. “This table where I must change her is cold, hard glass, see? So unless one of you gentleman has a blanket or towel . . . ?” Her eyes fell to their suit coats. Oh, man. Harsh.

Petrie slipped of his Versace, spread it out on the table with a martyred air. Sveti sniffed and gave him a horrified stare. “You smoke?”

“Uh . . .” Petrie’s eyes shifted. “I, uh, just quit.”

Sveti harrumphed. She lay the wriggling baby girl on his coat and started the smelly process. “One of you get out wipes for me.”

The men looked at each other over the back of the girl’s slender bowed neck, exposed under gleaming, elegantly twisted-up hair, and the graceful, sweeping curve of her pale, mostly exposed back.

“Now, please!” The razor edge in her voice made both men jump.

Aaro took three steps closer to this smelly biological event than he had ever wished to, and popped open the package of wipes.

Sveti glared at both men in turn. “I know why you two are out here, hiding, eh? Sucking on cigarettes and liquor.”

“You do?” Aaro passed her a handful of wipes.

She swiped the poopy, wiggling bottom with practiced ease. “Yes. I do.” She directed her blazing stare upon Aaro. “You are sorry for yourself because they took Lily from you at the hospital, eh? I am sick of your attitude!” she scolded. “Remember when Novak took Rachel? His men took her right out of my arms! There was nothing I could do. I wanted to die, you know? I wanted to disappear!”

Aaro stuffed more wipes into her hand.

“Oh, yes, I know you think because you are big man, lots of muscle, big gun, that it should be different for you, but it is not different! It is same! Get out diaper, quick! Lena will get cold.”

“Yeah.” Aaro fished out a diaper. Baffled, but meek.

“And you!” Sveti turned her burning glance on Petrie. “You should be ashamed. Dirty opportunist. Attacking Zia with pictures of corpses!”

Petrie sighed. “You’re still hung up on that?”

“I am disgusted by that!” she shot back.

Petrie’s face had gotten some color, Aaro noticed. But a guy would have to be two days dead not to have his blood pressure affected by Sveti in a low-cut evening gown, spitting nails at him.

“Doesn’t taking a bullet for her cancel that out?” Petrie asked.

Sveti snapped Lena’s onesie closed and started wrestling the little girl’s white tights back onto her chubby thighs. “No. Any fool can catch a bullet. You just have to be in its way. Why should a bullet excuse you for being an *?” She lifted Lena into her arms, slung the bag over her shoulder. “You can take your jacket back,” she conceded.

Petrie picked it up, sniffed at it. Shrugged it gingerly back on.

Sveti glared at Aaro. “You, go find Lily, like he told you. And you.” She hefted the heavy, stinky diaper and plopped it into Petrie’s hands. “You get rid of this.” She stalked off toward the music. Lena’s bright dark button eyes regarded them with wonderment over Sveti’s shoulder.

They stared after her, their minds wiped blank by that surreal encounter. Aaro recovered first. “Wow,” he said. “Ouch. She hates your scrawny cop ass, man. She hates it bad.”