Page 76 of Painless
We both looked to Shadow, who gave a small shake of his head. "I was with Gunner and Reaper, talking to the Sons of Odin."
"Someone should check on her." Jandro's hands closed around the edge of the couch cushion. "Fuck. I don't know ifanyoneknows about Dallas yet—"
"I'll tell her." I stopped his movement with a hand on his arm. "She needs to be the first one to know."
"You don't need to carry that burden,bonita," Jandro said softly. "Find Reaper and get him to tell her."
I shook my head. "He's got enough on his plate. Besides, I checked Dallas's body myself. She should hear it directly from me, before someone else has a chance to give her wrong information."
"Why you always gotta be right?" Jandro sighed. "Shadow, go with her."
"No, that's okay—"
"Babe, don't fight me on this." All the humor was gone from Jandro's voice. "We still don't know for sure how safe it is. I'd feel a lot better if Shadow was with you."
I looked at Shadow's dark, looming figure still standing in the middle of the room. "Do you mind?"
"Not at all," he said quickly, then hesitated. "I'll stay back a bit when we reach her house. I don't think Andrea likes me."
"Why?" I demanded with genuine disbelief.
Jandro disguised a laugh with a cough.
Shadow's eyes slid to him before returning to me. "I think it's because I scare her children. I, uh, accidentally made her son cry once."
Jandro looked like he was dying to tell the story, but my mood for fun and humor had vanished. I was about to tell someone the worst news they would likely ever receive.
"Let's get this over with." I started for the door.
"Hey." Jandro grabbed my hand at the last moment, tapping his lips as he pulled me back to him. "Beso."
I lowered onto the floor next to the couch to kiss him deeply, all the tension and anger draining out of my body. I savored the kiss of my living, breathing man—holding onto the warmth pulsing from his mouth to mine and shutting everything else out.
At the end of all this, I still had my man, and Andrea didn't have hers.
"Te amo," I murmured, my lips refusing to lose contact with his.
"Te amo, mi Mariposita," he whispered. "Hurry back to me."
Now the last thing I wanted to do was leave, but I forced myself up, and headed for the door where Shadow waited.
Andrea lived only four houses down, at the end of the block. We began our walk together in silence as cool, quiet darkness settled over the day that had been so chaotic.
"Thanks for coming with me." I hugged my arms around myself, even though it wasn't that cold. A memory of the man walking alongside me, his arms around me in a hug and my head in his chest, flashed through my mind.
"It's no problem," Shadow answered. His gaze was fixed straight ahead when I glanced at him, long strides keeping pace with my hurried steps. "How, um, how's your tattoo?"
"It's fine. You know, itchy."
Neither one of us seemed able to hold a conversation to distract us from the one about to happen. Andrea's house loomed up in front of us a long, tense minute later, and yet all too soon.
We stood at the bottom of her driveway, where Dallas's lifted truck was parked.
"You okay to stay back here?" I asked Shadow.
"Yeah," he swallowed. "If you don't mind. I don't...I don't want to make anything worse for her."
"That's awfully considerate of you." I forced a smile and exhaled quickly. "Okay. Wish me luck."
