River Marked (Mercy Thompson #6)(20)

"Get his ankle X-rayed anyway," advised Adam, who'd had no trouble hearing us. "I'm not a doctor, and sprains can be tricky."

By the time we made it down to the parking lot, Robert had recovered except for an exaggerated limp. His mother had lost the desperate edge to her voice. She thanked us again, and Robert gave Adam a wet kiss on his cheek.

"My hero," I told Adam, as they drove away. "You done here? Or would you mind going back up again?"

To my intense pleasure, Adam and I hiked for another couple of hours, then ate in Hood River. I'd never spent so much time with him without interruption. Here, there was no other demand on either of us.

I loved it. Loved watching the alertness fade and the strain of taking care of the pack, of me, of his daughter, of his business just wash away from his face and his body.

Usually, Adam looked like a man well into his thirties--though werewolves don't age at all. By the time we returned to the campground, he'd lost ten years of care and looked not much older than his daughter. Laughter lit his face in a way that I'd never seen before.

I had done this. Me. Okay, me and God's waterfalls and mountainside forest. Even though it had seemed I couldn't get through a day without throwing him in the middle of my hot water. Even though he'd had to fight vampires, demons, and waterlogged fae because of me. Even though he'd had to fight his own pack, I was good for Adam.

I'd seen him ticked off, in pain, in sorrow. It was indescribably better to see him happy.

"What?" he asked, finishing the second of his nine-ounce steaks, medium rare. "Why are you looking at me that way?"

The trendy little restaurant that occupied the old Victorian intimidated me a little, not that I'd let anyone, including Adam, see it. I don't think I've ever seen anything, except possibly my mother, intimidate Adam. But it was more than that.

He fit here. He'd fit out running around in the trails--and packing the little boy down the mountainside. For someone like me, who'd had to fight to make my own place because I didn't fit anywhere, he was ... Well, the truth of the matter was that he fit me, too.

Though, from their sideways looks, a lot of the rather affluent diners eating there obviously didn't think so. Adam might be going casual in jeans and a T-shirt, but he still looked like he just stepped off a modeling job. I looked like I'd been hiking all day even though I'd pulled the leaves out of my hair in the restaurant bathroom.

I sighed theatrically, resting my chin on my cupped hands and bracing my elbows on the table. "You are too gorgeous, you know?" I said it just loud enough that the people who'd been watching us surreptitiously could hear me.

Unholy laughter lit his eyes--telling me he'd been noticing the looks we'd been getting. But his face was completely serious, as he purred, "So. Am I worth what you paid for me, baby?"

I loved it when he played along with me.

I sighed again, a sound that I drew up from my toes, a contented, happy sound. I'd get him back for that "baby." Just see if I didn't.

"Oh, yes," I told our audience. "I'll tell Jesse that she was right. Go for the sexy beast, she told me. If you're going to shell out the money, don't settle."

He threw back his head and laughed until he had to wipe tears of hilarity off his face. "Jeez, Mercy," he said. "The things you say." Then he leaned across the table and kissed me.

A while later he pulled back, grinned at me, and sat back in his chair.

I had to catch my breath before I spoke. "Best five bucks I ever spent," I told him fervently.

HE WAS STILL LAUGHING WHEN HE BUCKLED HIS SEAT belt. "It's a good thing that we don't live in Hood River," he said. "I'd never be able to show my face in that restaurant again. Five bucks. Jeez." Adam was a gentleman raised in the fifties. He tried really hard not to swear in front of women.

"I thought it was pretty cool when that little old lady tried to give you a twenty," I said, and set him off again.

"The thing that spooked me"--he drove back out on the highway toward our campground --"was that woman at the table next to us, who looked like she bought the whole act, even after everyone else was laughing."

Ah, Creepy Lady. She'd watched us both with her eyes wide and her jaw open, and still her expression managed to be blank. I was betting she was either a total psychopath--or fae, which was sometimes the same thing. I could have gone closer for a good sniff--I've learned what fae smell like--but it was my honeymoon. I didn't want to know.

"I'm never going to be bored with you around," Adam told me. The funny thing was that he sounded happy about it.

"WANT TO GO FOR A RUN?" ADAM ASKED, HOPPING OUT of bed a few hours later.

We'd lain down to rest after our travels. Not much resting had taken place, but I wasn't going to complain. Still, every bone in my body was Jell- O, and he wanted to go run?

"Ungh," I said. That was the best I could do.

He grinned at me. "You can drop the act."

I waved a weak hand at him.

"I bet I catch a rabbit before you do," he said.

Oh. He meant a run. We'd gotten back to the campground about dusk, so it was full dark. Full dark meant that in the unlikely event that someone saw Adam as werewolf, they'd think he was a dog--helped along by pack magic that let people see what they expected to see. The magic works in broad daylight, too, but darkness helps. "Well, why didn't you say so," I grumped at him as I vaulted off the bed. I was wearing half a T- shirt--the left half--and my socks. The other half of my shirt was on the far side of the trailer. I was going to take an hour and clean the trailer really well before we returned it to its owner or I'd risk being embarrassed.