Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(35)

“Mmmm,” I said, which meant nothing but was a noise Mama used to make when she was half listening. The donuts were fantastic. I wondered if I would be guilty of the sin of gluttony if I ate one more. And if I should care. I took another.

Occam took another step toward me. “Nell.”

My head came up fast and I forgot all about donuts. There was something in his tone that stole all my interest.

“I’ve given you time to think things through and cement your position in the unit. I’ve done all the things T. Laine and JoJo said a cat needed to do to let you be comfortable with me.”

My eyes went wide. Lainie and Jo had done what?

“But I’m done huntin’. Done stalking. Done being patient. I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again. I want to take you to dinner, Nell, sugar. I want to date you.”

My hand was still holding the donut, paused halfway to my mouth, which hung open. Slowly, I closed my mouth and set the ring of uneaten fried dough on the table. Jezzie bounded across the tops of the furniture to the table and batted the donut to the floor. Pea jumped after it, a neon green flash. I didn’t even care.

“What?” My voice croaked and I cleared my throat, but I didn’t repeat the word.

“I want. To take. You. To dinner,” he repeated, separating the words just enough to make sure that I understood them. “On a date. Casual, easy, something simple but tasty. I was thinking maybe the French Market Crêperie or Chesapeake’s. Tonight. It’s a weeknight so we should be able to get in without reservations on your way to work.”

“I—um. I thought you had changed your mind,” I said, my voice sounding odd as I remembered the two of us, lying on the concrete in the dark, between the planters. He hadn’t said anything then and that would have been a good time to renew a discussion of dating. Or maybe not, with bullets flying. It had been weeks since he’d asked for that date. Was I supposed to bring it up next? Was there a date protocol I didn’t know about?

I remembered his eyes on me from time to time in the office. “Ummm,” I said, my thoughts flashing. What was I supposed to do? “I’m a widd—” I stopped. Remembering my family’s house, the boisterous happiness of domestic clatter. And Benjamin. Suddenly oxygen deprived, I took another breath and this one quaked slightly as it went down. Occam tilted his head, watching me, analyzing me, one hand still soothing Torquil, standing in front of me, otherwise motionless, waiting.

His expression made me analyze myself, my own feelings. I was feeling something. Unfamiliar somethings. Curious. Interested. Resistant. Stubborn. Vulnerable. And suddenly thinking about Benjamin, the man Mama surely wanted me with. And how he would know and understand my odd quirks of reticence, my lack of sophistication. How he would be patient and kind and funny and fit into the old life I had left behind with such ease. How he would never push me. Would keep me sheltered. Protected. In a home on church lands. That wasn’t what I wanted. Benjamin wasn’t what I wanted. But . . . I was aware of who he was and what he represented in terms of safety and effortlessness, of who he was as the man introduced to me by my family. Sam’s friend. Someone I had met from the past. Someone who represented familiarity and simplicity. Someone easy. Someone safe.

Occam represented something totally different. A date. A future that was absolutely unknown. And he had taken advice from T. Laine and JoJo to back off and give me time. Time I thought meant he wasn’t interested anymore. That had probably been the wrong advice.

“Nell, sugar?”

I blinked and my eyes burned. I’d been staring so long they had dried out. Beside Occam on the reading table was a library book that had been there over a week. There was a thin layer of dust on top. It had been suggested to me by Kristy, a librarian and my friend. It was a book by a psychologist and it dealt with victims of polygamy, incest, child marriage, sexual slavery, and rape. It was hard reading. I hadn’t gotten very far in it. But I had learned that abuse victims often formed negative patterns of thinking and feeling and living, and could sometimes be lured back to what the author called “unhealthy lifestyles and situations.” I blinked again. That was why I was thinking about Benjamin.

“Ohhh,” I said. From a strictly intellectual standpoint, I understood that my own confusion and reticence to fully enter the nonchurch world was pattern based, but that didn’t make the patterns go away.

“Ohhh,” I said again. “Ummm.” This time I cleared my voice. “A date? You sure? Like normal people?”

“Nell, sugar, you and me, we ain’t normal. We’re paranormal. übernormal.”

“You and me? What’s Pea say?”

He pointed. “She’s right there. Ask her.”

I looked at the grindylow, who had finished off the donut. She leaped to the tabletop and bounded to the Krispy Kreme box. Her five-fingered hands, vaguely raccoon-shaped but with opposable thumbs, struggled to open the box top. “Donuts are bad for you,” I said.

The grindy chittered at me, sounding as if she was telling me to mind my own business. She pushed the top up. With one hand-paw, she scratched the sugar from the edge of the box and lifted it to her mouth, where she licked it off. Her tongue wasn’t red. It was an odd shade of green. Had it been that color before?

“Is it okay for me to date Occam?” I asked her. At the words a hot blush shot through me. “Would I get the were-taint if we . . .” I swallowed, not able to say the sex word. “. . . dated?”