Page 26 of A Bloom in Winter

Apex’s black stare narrowed. But then he focused on Mahrci. “You okay?”

She nodded. “My hand’s already healing.”

Mayhem looked back and forth between the male who’d brought him here . . . and the housekeeper who could keep him in this dead-head room for the rest of his natural life with just her smile if she wanted to.

“You know each other?” he asked them.

CHAPTER NINE

As Apex stepped into the big house, he wasn’t completely sure where he was. Glancing around at the animal heads, he wondered for a moment if he hadn’t entered some kind of new prison, one where they’d taxidermied the decapitated inmates, and everybody was wearing weird hats and needed a shave.

But then he focused through his stupid on Mahrci. The female was sprawled on the couch, a bloody towel around her hand, one of her boots on the floor.

With Mayhem sitting at her feet like a dog.

And after Apex asked her if she was okay, he became aware the female was looking at him with the kind of intensity that meant a message was trying to be communicated: It was like the pair of them were in an optical round of charades, where the first word rhymed with “putt,” the last with “s’up,” and there was an f-bomb in the middle somewhere.

What, he mouthed to her.

“Your friend wants to know how we know each other,” she said awkwardly.

“Oh.” He opened his mouth. Closed it. “Through work.”

As Mahrci exhaled slowly, he abruptly wondered if this assignment up here hadn’t been a ruse, after all. Except then he thought of the equipment in the back of the Suburban. No one,not even a male as wealthy as Whestmorel, would waste that kind of money just to monitor his daughter’s temper tantrum—

As his cell phone vibrated in his leather jacket, he frowned and took the thing out.

Speak of the devil.

He looked at her. Glanced at Mayhem.

“’Scuse me.”

Apex had never been to Camp Ghreylke before, but he’d studied the architectural plans to prepare for the job, so he knew where to go to find one of the five bathrooms on the first floor. Closing himself in, he accepted the call while he checked out the dark green, pinecone’d wallpaper and the rustic copper sink. There were two stalls with dark green doors, and lights that were set with copper shades.

Goddamn, he thought. This whole place was like if Paul Bunyan had decided to take up interior design.

“Hello?” came the demand over the connection. “Are you there or not?”

Well, wasn’t that the question of the hour.

Apex turned and looked at himself in a mirror that was framed with birch branches. A stranger was staring back at him.

Rubbing his eyes with his free hand, he heard himself say, “Yeah, I’m at your camp.”

“Is my daughter—”

“She’s here.” No reason to bring up the coyote attack. And he had to wonder if the guy knew his groundskeeper was a wolven. “Is that why I’m wiring up this place?”

“Put her on the phone,” Whestmorel demanded. “She’s not answering my calls.”

Apex checked himself out again in the mirror. Nope. Still recognized the features and knew nothing about the male behind the black eyes.

“Sorry,” he said, “I’m not a family therapist. If she doesn’t want to talk to you, that’s between the two of you.”

“She lied about her whereabouts. She told me she was at—”

“Annnnd we’re still talking about your kid problems. Why?”

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