Page 60 of Speak of the Devil

Most likely not. His teleportation couldn’t be tracked, so he knew there was no way for the demons to know he was here.

Or at least, he didn’t think there was. If they’d been watching him for a while, they might have figured out his connection to Delia Dunne, but unless they were just as good at digging around on the internet as he was, they would have had a hard time discovering her home address.

“I don’t want to impose — ”

“You’re not,” she said. “I’m the one who offered, remember? Anyway, this house has four bedrooms, and one of them is already set up as a guest space. I’ll be glad to have someone use it, actually.”

A lot of room for a woman living on her own, but he supposed she’d bought a bigger house because it was a better investment.

Anyway, it wasn’t any of his business…although he’d certainly like it to be.

“Then thank you,” he replied. “Tomorrow I’ll get the situation at my house straightened out.”

“As long as it’s safe,” she said.

Was that her oblique way of hinting that she’d be just fine if he stayed here more than one night? Probably not; she’d already made it clear enough that their relationship was a professional one and nothing more.

“Oh, sure,” he said easily. “No point in making the great escape, only to get clobbered the second I let my guard down.”

Delia smiled then, but there was still something strained about her expression, as if she’d only done so because she thought he expected it and not because she was genuinely amused.

He finished the rest of his cognac, feeling the slightest bit swimmy when he set the glass down. In general, alcohol didn’t affect him as strongly as it would a person who didn’t have any demon DNA in their veins, but that had been a lot of cognac.

And he’d lost a lot of blood.

So he was just fine with having Delia lead him down the hallway and show him the guest room and its attached bathroom, both of which were nicely appointed and didn’t appear to have been used much, if ever. She even had a spare toothbrush still in its package and an accompanying tube of toothpaste, along with some other toiletries.

“You never know when someone’s going to forget something,” she explained as she shut the medicine cabinet after showing him all the supplies. “So I like to stock a few things.”

“You have a lot of guests?” he asked.

Now her expression was genuinely amused. “Not as many as I’d thought when I got all this set up. My dad’s family is still back in Chicago, and I suppose I figured they’d want to come out here to visit during the winter to get away from the snow. But the couple of times they’ve come, they wanted to stay in a hotel so they could use the swimming pool.”

Caleb was a little surprised she didn’t have one — a majority of the houses in Las Vegas seemed to have their own swimmingpools — but possibly part of the reason she’d gotten a deal on the house was that she would have had to put one in herself.

“Your parents wouldn’t host them at their place?”

She grinned. “My dad is one of four brothers. There are a lot of relatives, so I was trying to be the overflow. I guess I underestimated the draw of a resort pool in February.”

Her expression was so infectious, he just had to smile back. It was good to hear about normal families doing normal things, so unlike his own experiences. Because his mother was also an only child, he didn’t have any aunts or uncles.

No, all he’d had were the other part demons in his father’s circle, and they weren’t exactly known for being cuddly and “Kumbaya.”

“Well, I appreciate the guest room, so thanks.”

Delia’s smile faded a bit. “You’re welcome. I suppose I’ll leave you to it.”

The words ended with an upward inflection, indicating that she wasn’t quite sure whether he was ready to go to bed.

On most nights, he wouldn’t have been, since he rarely hit the sack before midnight. However, after that demon attack — and all that cognac — he thought he’d probably pass out the minute his head hit the pillow.

“Yeah, I’m going to try to sleep all this off. You have a good night.”

“You, too.”

He went into the bedroom and shut the door, glad that it was set up as a secondary main suite so he wouldn’t have to wander down the hall to brush his teeth and splash some water on his face before he went to bed.

As he headed into the bathroom, though, he couldn’t help wondering whether Delia intended to go to bed right away, too. It was kind of weird to think of her sleeping just down the hall.

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