The fierceness left his expression as he regarded her with sympathy. “After watching you for weeks, I know that, too,” he said softly. “I think it’s time you sit down so we can talk.”
Chapter 20
Aidan wasn’t about to make any promises he couldn’t keep, but when he saw the desperation in Emma’s blue eyes at the thought of losing her beloved writing, he vowed to do everything in his power to preserve that part of her life. Yet he knew the books were one of his father’s biggest concerns. If Emma continued to write and publish them, knowing what she knew, she might slip and reveal the Weres’
secret.
Obviously sobered by the threat of losing her writing career, Emma had returned to the sofa instead of going in search of her BlackBerry. She picked up her coffee and took a sip, but her gaze was unfocused. He could tel she was thinking hard, trying to find a way out of this box she found herself in.
“We should have something to eat,” he said. “I’l order chocolate cake if you insist, but I’d love to see you take in something more substantial than that.”
“Oatmeal would be great,” she said. “It’s what my mother used to fix me on winter mornings as a kid, and it’s my other comfort food besides chocolate.”
He refrained from gagging at the thought of that gooey stuff. He’d been forced to eat it out of courtesy once when a woman he’d been seeing made it for breakfast.
“Oatmeal it is.” He walked over to the phone.
“If they can bring it with some soft butter, golden raisins, and brown sugar, I can make it taste the same as it did when I was eight years old. Oh, and lots more cream, please. I think we need more coffee, too.”
“Done.” He picked up the phone, ordered her oatmeal with al the fixings and the steak-and-egg platter for himself.
“And hot chocolate with whipped cream,” she cal ed to him right before he hung up the phone.
“Hang on a sec,” he said to the person taking the order. He turned to Emma. “I thought you wanted coffee.”
“I want that, too. But if they could fix the hot chocolate with real whipped cream, and shake on a little bit of cinnamon—not too much—and some chocolate sprinkles, that would be excel ent.”
He gave the order and came over to sit across from her on the other sofa. They had some decisions to make, and putting the coffee table between them would help him keep on track. “I take it hot chocolate with whipped cream and that other stuff
—”
“Cinnamon and chocolate sprinkles.”
“Is that comfort food, too?”
“Absolutely. It goes with the oatmeal. Why are you making a face?”
“Because I’m trying to imagine drinking that sugary thing along with al the sweet stuff you’re putting on the oatmeal. It sounds god-awful.”
“You don’t have a sweet tooth.”
“No, I have a meat tooth.”
“Ha, ha. Is that werewolf humor?”
He thought about that. “I don’t think there is such a thing.”
“Real y? You al take yourselves that seriously?”
“Absolutely.”
“So when you’re al sitting around the bonfire, nobody tel s a joke that starts out, These three werewolves walked into a bar?”
“Nope.” But the concept made him smile. Maybe he and his pack could lighten up.
Someone like Emma hanging around could be a good thing, although Emma herself wouldn’t be hanging around. He’d already determined that she’d hate being confined to the estate the way Nadia’s aunt had been for the first few years of her marriage to Nadia’s uncle.
“I’ve been thinking about the problem,” she said. “And I think the answer is having me sign a contract promising never to divulge the existence of werewolves.” She beamed at him. “You must have legal eagles at your beck and cal . Have one of them draw up an airtight contract, and I’l be happy to sign it.”
“Nice try.” He drained his coffee cup and set it back in the saucer. “But people break contracts al the time.”
“I don’t!”
“That’s admirable, but a contract is worthless to us. Contracts only work when the person who signs it is worried about being sued. If you break the contract, we can’t sue you. You’d have exposed us, and our whole world would col apse into chaos.”
She cradled her coffee cup and stared into it. “I see your point. I’m like a live hand grenade.”
“Pretty much. My dad has the corporate jet on standby. He’s instructed me to bring you to the estate the minute the weather clears.”
“What estate?”
“It’s in Upstate New York. It’s my—Well, the Wal ace family home. Someday I’l inherit it.”
Her eyes lit up. “Are we talking about a mansion ful of werewolves?”
“That’s one way to put it, yes.”
“Cool. I’m not saying that I’l agree to hang out there forever or anything, but I’d love to see it.”
He was having trouble keeping up. “I thought you were determined to continue with your book tour?”
“Well, I am.” Her expression became resolute. “Yes, that’s what I need to do.
Finish the book tour.” She sighed. “But going to that estate—can you imagine how that would be for a person who’s spent years creating a fictitious world that she suddenly discovers is real?”
Aidan was no fool. He’d figured out early on that the book tour was a duty more than a pleasure. He saw an opening and took it. “What if I could arrange to keep al the stores on your tour happy without you having to physical y be there?”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
He noticed that she hadn’t turned him down flat, though. “I’m not saying it would be the same as if you actual y visited the stores, but the weather is bad. Denver isn’t going to be much better, and after that you’re booked into Seattle, which has snow predicted for next weekend. You won’t hit any good weather until LA and Phoenix.”
“Winter book tours are problematic.”
“So let me arrange for a virtual tour. I’l have large monitors delivered to any store that doesn’t have one, and you can do a live author chat at the same time you would have been there for the event.”
“What about the autograph session?”
Once again, she hadn’t said no, so he ran with it, spending Wal ace money with every word out of his mouth. “We’l get a list of the names from each store. You can autograph the books off-site, and we’l express-ship them to be distributed.”
“That’s a pricey option. Who’s going to pay for it?”
“Wal ace Enterprises.”
“Then how about throwing in free coffee drinks to al those who buy a book?”
“We could do that.”
“And an appearance by the cover model of Night Shift?”
In one stroke, she’d upped the cost by several thousand dol ars. He wondered how much she’d actual y end up costing him. On al counts. “Who would know? You see only his torso.”
“And a bit of his long black hair. Trust me; the readers know who he is. Hire him to show up at the bookstores, and I doubt they’l even miss me. What do you say?”
“If I get this guy, you’l give up the book tour and come to the estate instead?”
“I’l seriously consider it. But not to stay longer than a few days. And my mother has to know where I am at al times.”
“You mean geographical y or in general terms?”
“I mean she has to know where to find me.”
Aidan shook his head. “Sorry. It’s very secluded. We don’t make the location public knowledge.”
“What? Are you planning to blindfold me after I get in the car?”
“No, but we take a lot of back roads. You wouldn’t be able to retrace your steps.”
“You’re making this sound way too spooky, and I’m tel ing you right now that I don’t like scaring my mother.”
Aidan hadn’t pegged Betty Gavin as a woman who scared easily, so he figured this was another bid on Em-ma’s part to gain some control. “How about tel ing her you’re at the Wal ace family home in Upstate New York? Wouldn’t that be good enough?”
“She’s going to want an address, and if I give her this song and dance about an exclusive estate no one’s al owed to know about, she’l worry that you’re kidnapping me and she’l never see me again. I’m her only kid. She’s very protective.”
“I don’t doubt it, but—”
A rap at the door indicated their breakfast had arrived.
Emma stood. “I’l get it.”
“Let me.” Aidan moved swiftly to intercept her.
“Aidan, cool it. I’m not going to run out the door wearing a bathrobe.”
“I know you won’t.” He stepped in front of her. “But the Henderson pack member standing guard in the hal doesn’t. If you appear at the door, he might try to tackle you, which could play hel with the delivery of our breakfast.”
Her eyes widened. “There’s a werewolf guarding the door?”
“Yes, but anyone looking would see a six-five, two-hundred-fifty-pound bodybuilder.” He left Emma to consider the presence of a guard at the door while he ushered the server in with their breakfast.
The server arranged everything quickly and seemed eager to leave. Aidan didn’t blame him, considering the hulking presence outside the door. According to Howard Wal ace’s information about the guard, he was the Hendersons’ enforcer, a powerful werewolf who owed the pack his life and would kil for them. Literal y.
Aidan had closed the door behind the server when his BlackBerry chimed with his dad’s ring. “That’s my father. I need to get it. Go ahead and eat.” He crossed to the coffee table and picked up his phone.
“Don’t worry. I will. But ask him about the address thing. He’s a parent. I’m sure he’l understand.”
Aidan doubted it. The Wal aces had been guarding their location for a hundred years. They’d bought the abandoned and largely forgotten property through an intermediary. The pack had renovated it themselves slowly and quietly to maintain secrecy.
In the early years, they’d disguised the road by using a system of ropes and pul eys to raise and lower fal en trees. Aidan’s dad had replaced that awkward system in the fifties when he built a rushing, seemingly treacherous creek across the road using theme-park technology.
Al Wal ace vehicles were equipped with a button that slowed the water to a trickle.
A touch of a second button opened the dam upstream, and the creek flowed again.
Howard had created a modern-day version of a medieval moat.
Aidan answered his cal . “Hi, Dad.”
“Is Emma’s phone turned off?”
“Yes. I turned it off this morning. I thought—”
“I get that. I get that.” Howard sounded impatient. “But it seems her mother is a persistent woman. When Emma didn’t pick up her messages, her mother tried the hotel where Emma was supposed to be staying, and then she pestered the hel out of the airlines, and final y she cal ed Roger Claymore, who was at his place in the Hamptons and not happy to have his Sunday morning interrupted.”
“And Roger cal ed you.”
“Bingo. And I’m cal ing you. Roger told us to take care of it, and I promised him I would.”
Aidan looked at Emma. She’d cradled the mug of hot chocolate in both hands and taken her first sip. There was whipped cream on her upper lip. Aidan’s lust had been resting from the exertions of the night before, but now it yawned and stretched.
Turning away from the seductive picture of Emma savoring her hot chocolate, he paced a few feet away and lowered his voice. “Should I let her cal ?”
“I think you have to. That woman isn’t going to rest until she hears her daughter’s voice.”
“Yeah, but I can’t just let Emma say whatever she feels like saying. The cal has to be scripted.”
“So script it.”
“But then it’l sound like a hostage situation.”
“We have to take that chance. Emma needs to cal . I assured Roger that Emma is fine and we have the situation Wellin hand, but he’s not completely convinced that’s the case. And I have to admit, neither am I.”
“I’l handle it.”
“Ask him about the address!” Emma cal ed out.
“What did she just say? Something about an address?”
“Never mind, Dad. Everything’s under control. Bye.” He massaged the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath before turning back to Emma.
“I tried not to eavesdrop, but I’m pretty sure I heard the words hostage situation. ”
For a woman uttering that sentence, she looked reasonably calm. Maybe the hot chocolate had worked some sort of magic because the mug was empty. Emma had also started in on the disgusting mess she’d created with the oatmeal and its array of embel ishments.
She looked almost happy. But then, she hadn’t heard that her mother was ready to cal out the National Guard to find her.
Aidan searched his overworked brain for the best way to broach the subject. “I don’t want you to get upset about this, but—”
“Hold it right there. Nothing good ever comes after a sentence that starts like that.
Did you get permission for me to give my mother the address of your estate?”
“No. In fact, there’s no address, and the place isn’t on any map. The only way for anyone to know where it is would be to actual y go there. And before you even suggest it, I’m tel ing you right now that your mother isn’t going there.”
“I know that.” She sat primly on the sofa, the bowl of oatmeal in her lap. “But if I don’t give her a better idea of where this mysterious estate is, she’l demand to know why I’m being so secretive, and that’s not good, either, is it?”