“I don’t want to get him killed.”
“You won’t get him killed, Edward.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I know that you won’t take him unless you think his skills are up to the job. I know how good you are at training people for this; you helped train me. He’s got good instincts and he’s a shooter. He doesn’t hesitate. He’s brave as hell.”
He looked at me. “You like him.”
“We talk on the phone at least once a month, sometimes twice. He’s a good kid.”
“You called him a man earlier.”
I smiled. “When he’s shooting, he’s a man; on the phone, he still sounds like a kid.”
“He still has a crush on you.”
I nodded. “I’ve noticed.”
“It used to bother you that he liked you.”
“A little, but he needs a friend he can talk to about the stuff that the two of you are doing to train him up.”
“I didn’t know he talked to you about that.”
“I decided I’d rather know what you’re doing with Peter than have to guess.”
He looked at me. I looked back. We had one of those guy moments. He knew I didn’t approve, but I’d still support him and Peter. The silence said it for us, all that and more. “What do you think of his training?”
“I think that you’re a scary son of a bitch, and he’s lucky to have you in his life.”
Edward looked down at the steering wheel, his hands sliding over it, as if he just needed something to do with them. “Thank you for that.”
“It’s just the truth,” I said.
He looked up, that serious, almost sorrowful look still in his blue eyes. “Let’s get out and find Newman and try to reason with him.”
“Reason how?” I asked.
Edward gave me Ted’s grin, but it was his own words, “I’m a scary son of a bitch, let’s see if I can spook him.”
I grinned. “I like it. Scare him into giving up the lead.”
“Tilford will listen to us; Newman won’t.”
“Let’s go scare the rookie,” I said.
He grinned. “Let’s.”
10
NEWMAN WAS TALL, as in over six feet tall, but slender, in that way that’s all genetics. He was probably one of those men who had trouble putting muscle over an otherwise athletic frame. He ran his fingers through his short brown hair and put his hat back on, setting it on his head like he wasn’t used to it yet. I wasn’t sure if he thought the cowboy hat made him look older, or if it had been a gift. Either way, it was new and hadn’t been broken in yet. It wasn’t like Edward’s hat that was creased and loved by his hands and head. This was a new, white hat. At least Edward’s was sort of off-white.
“I appreciate the concern, really, I do, but I think I have a plan,” Newman said.
“We’re just trying to help out,” Edward said in his best Ted voice. He’d quickly realized that he’d get further with charm than scare tactics. Since I didn’t really have a lot of charm that worked with men I wasn’t trying to date, I let Edward do the talking. I rarely got in trouble letting Edward do the persuading.
“I do appreciate that,” Newman said, but he somehow implied in his down-home tone that he knew exactly what we’d been trying to do and he was having none of it. He was young, but he wasn’t stupid, and there was a quiet toughness to him that it was hard not to like. But the Harlequin wouldn’t care about his toughness, or his down-home charm, or the fact that he reminded me of a younger version of Ted. Not a younger version of Edward, but of Ted, if Ted had been really who Edward was, which was sort of weird, and made my head hurt just a little.
“What’s your plan?” I asked.
His brown eyes flicked to me, then back to Edward, then back to me. It was almost like he didn’t quite know what to do with me. He struck me as someone who’d been raised that women were to be taken care of, and here I stood all petite and feminine looking, but decked out in guns, knives, and a badge. Would I have puzzled him less if I’d been taller?
“Dogs. We’re going to track ’em.”
It was a good idea, but . . . Edward and I exchanged a look. Newman frowned, because he’d caught the look. “What? What did I miss?”
I gave a small nod, and Edward said in his pleasant Ted voice, “Well, now, Newman, did you find dogs that are trained to trail shapeshifters?”
Newman frowned harder. “They just have to follow the scent,” he said.
“Most dogs won’t track shapeshifters,” I said.
He frowned harder, which made him look even younger, like a serious five-year-old who just happened to tower over me. “Why not?”
“They’re afraid of them,” I said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Edward smiled, and it was a good smile, not condescending at all, just cheerful and sharing information. “Dogs get a whiff of a shapeshifter, especially one that’s partially or completely form shifted, and they’re afraid of ’em.”
I explained, “Dogs can be around humans who shift form, but there’s something about once the change takes place that freaks out most dogs unless they’ve been trained to it.”
“Why would that make a difference to a hound? They track any scent.”
I glanced at Edward, but he just kept smiling at Newman. “The dogs are afraid, Newman. They’re just afraid of them, that’s all.”
“But why?” he asked.
“Have you ever seen a shapeshifter in animal or half-man form?” I asked.
“I’ve seen pictures, film.”
I sighed, and said, “They didn’t even bring in a shapeshifter to shift in front of your class?”
“It’s too dangerous,” he said.
“Okay, why is it too dangerous?” I asked, and I had his full eye contact now. He wasn’t worried about me being petite or a woman, he just wanted to understand.
“Because once they shift they have to eat living flesh. They’ll kill anything near them.”
I shook my head. “Not true, not even close to true of most shapeshifters.”
“The books and instructors say it is.”
“It’s true of the newly infected shapeshifters. They can wake as ravening beasts and have complete blackouts as people for the first few full moons, but after that almost all of them regain themselves. They just happen to turn furry once a month, but they become the people they were.”
He shook his head, frowning and so serious. “Not what we saw on the films.”
“I’ll bet money they were newbies, the newly turned lycanthropes. They can be just animals.”
“You’re telling me that what I saw in class isn’t what they are, that they’re more people than monsters?”
“Newman, I live with two shapeshifters. Do you really think I could do that if they tried to kill me every time they changed form?”
He frowned harder. “So that rumor is true?”
“Some of the rumors are true, most aren’t, but that’s true. Trust me, the men that I love have never tried to hurt me in any form.”
