Runaway Vampire (Argeneau, #23)(17)

“No!” Mary barked, her mind filling with a sudden image of his sitting in her lap with nothing but the ridiculous afghan covering, or not covering, his bits while she tried to slip out from under him. Good God! Trying for a calmer tone of voice, she said, “No, but thank you. I’ll be fine.”

Dante was silent for a minute, and then murmured, “If you are sure . . . ?”

“I’m sure,” she said solemnly, and then changed the subject, asking, “How did you end up working for the Feds?”

“The Feds?” Dante queried uncertainly.

Mary glanced to him with surprise, but then turned her gaze back to the road and said, “I assumed since this was a kidnapping case, that the task force you were helping out was federal. Isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, I see,” he murmured and then cleared his throat and said, “My brother and I volunteered.”

“Really?” she asked with surprise. “So you aren’t a fed yourself?”

“No,” he murmured.

“What do you do then?” she asked curiously.

Dante hesitated and then shrugged. “Some protection work, some other things. Whatever is needed.”

“I see,” she said slowly, and thought the translation of that was probably that he was mostly unemployed. There seemed to be a lot of that today. When she’d been young, most people had graduated from high school to go on to further education, work, or sometimes—for the girls like her—marriage. There had been perhaps a handful of kids who hadn’t graduated and had fallen by the wayside, but for the most part they were the exception to the rule. Nowadays, it seemed like there were a lot more exceptions to the rule. More of the young seemed to be not settling into work or a career, but wandering through life, mostly unemployed and unsettled, couch surfing their way through life.

Mary grimaced to herself and acknowledged that she was sounding like her own grandmother. She couldn’t recall how many times the woman had started a rant by saying, “when I was young.”

“Tell me about your husband,” Dante said suddenly.

Mary glanced around with surprise at the request and then turned forward again. She opened her mouth to say no, and instead found herself saying, “He was a good man.”

When she didn’t continue, Dante asked, “How did you meet?”

“We were high school sweethearts,” she answered solemnly. “My first kiss, my first date, my first everything.”

He seemed to consider that and then asked, “Do you ever feel like you missed out? Not getting to date other men or experience—?”

“No,” Mary interrupted. She’d been asked the question before. Usually by younger people who seemed horrified that she hadn’t kissed and slept with loads of men before settling down with Joe. “I was very lucky. Some women go their whole life searching for, but never finding their perfect life mate. I was lucky enough to find mine before I was even looking.”

“Life mate?” Dante asked and something about his tone of voice made her glance curiously his way.

“Yes,” she murmured, noting his odd expression before glancing back to the road. “Mate for life. I could have said husband, I suppose, or dream man, but dream man sounds stupid, and husband just doesn’t cover all that Joe was to me.” She paused briefly, and then said, “I suppose life partner is the better description. He was my partner in every sense, my best friend, my lover, my husband, my cohort in crime,” she ended with a grin.

“Crime?” Dante sounded shocked and she chuckled at his tone of voice.

“Not criminal type crime,” she assured him. “We weren’t Bonnie and Clyde or anything. I just meant, if there was a prank to be pulled, or a gag joke . . .” She shrugged. “We had the same sense of humor and laughed a lot over the years.”

“It sounds . . . perfect,” Dante said, and she noted that he sounded less than pleased to say so.

“No,” she said solemnly. “Nothing is perfect. Not even my Joe. But after a couple of bumps in the beginning we had a good life.”

“What kind of bumps?” Dante asked at once, sounding almost eager.

Mary hesitated, very old, very painful memories welling up inside her, but then she merely shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. No one is perfect, Dante.”

They were both silent for a moment. Dante was eating and Mary was shifting her attention between the road and her own sandwich, trying to figure out how the hell she was going to eat it. She hadn’t come up with anything by the time Dante finished his sandwiches and headed back to set the plate in the sink. At least, she hoped he put it in the sink. It would go flying at the first turn or stop if he didn’t, she thought, and risked a glance over her shoulder. Her attention was caught then as she noted the RV had been cleaned up. There were no more items littering the floor. Everything had been stowed away and all the doors and drawers were now closed once more.

“Eyes on the road,” Dante said mildly, catching her looking when he turned to head back toward the front seats.

Mary turned forward again, but said, “Thank you for cleaning up.”

“It was my fault,” Dante said simply as he reached her side. He didn’t immediately take his seat again, however, but scooted Bailey out of the way, and knelt where the dog had been lying.