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.They all had this stamped-out-of-thesame-mill feel to them.Rowe was the closest to his own person, but everyone else smelled of a system that trained large groups of men to fight other large groups of men.They came out of the military straight into another kind of unit, which had not helped them lose their cohesiveness.He talked as he moved in front of the minibar to stand beside us.“They wanted to show the man the wedding dresses,” Sanchez said.I looked at Shad.“May I?”He nodded.I stepped forward and offered a hand to Sanchez.He looked a little startled, but he gave me a good handshake.He had small hands for his size, or at least for the shoulders that were straining his suit.It looked like he’d hit the gym a lot recently, and hadn’t bought the next size up suit.It made his gun show very stark at his hip under the jacket.Rowe said, “Sanchez, you gotta get a bigger jacket, man.Your gun shows bad.”Sanchez shrugged the big shoulders, though he was only about five foot six, the shortest guard I’d seen among Peterson’s people.Maybe that’s why he’d hit the gym so hard; compensation.His eyes were so brown they were almost black, darker even than my own.He flicked the eyes to Rowe with a frown, then said, “Not in front of—”“The mark,” I said, “the job, what do you call the people you babysit?”file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl.10/18/2009BloodNoirPage 156 of 287He gave me a speculative look out of those very dark eyes.“You’re from out of town.” He made it a statement.I smiled.“You have no idea.”He actually grinned, before Shadwell said, “If they’re changing clothes you and Price can stay outside the room.”Sanchez shook his head, frowning again.“They aren’t changing, but our orders were explicit.Until further notice we do not lose sight of our”—he glanced at me, then finished with—“charges.”He said the last softly, as if it wasn’t quite the word he would have used if one of the “charges” hadn’t been standing in front of him.I smiled at him, and something about the smile made him shift, or maybe the gun was digging into his side.“Your jacket fits nice, but it’s harder to hide a shoulder holster,” he said.Oh, he’d noticed the gun.It was my turn to shrug.“I got used to wearing it.”Shadwell said, “She’s a federal marshal, and the girlfriend of the man.”Sanchez’s eyes went a little wide.“He don’t act like he has a girlfriend.”I smiled, and this time it was a happy one.“Are his clothes still on?” I asked.Sanchez tried not to look startled, but failed a little around the edges.“Last I checked.”I smiled wider.“Then Jason hasn’t gotten too carried away yet.”“He take his clothes off in front of groups of women a lot?” Sanchez asked.I nodded.“All the time,” I said.I didn’t explain what Jason’s job was; I was enjoying Sanchez’s reaction too much.It was helping me delay going into the next room, which was pretty much my goal.“He’s a stripper,” Shadwell said, a little disgusted.I gave him a dirty look.“I’ll thank you to keep a civil tone about my boyfriend’s job, thanks.”Shadwell’s eyes flashed at me from behind his glasses, showing that there was a little blue to all that gray in his eyes.“No offense.”“Sure,” I said.“He the entertainment?” Sanchez asked.“No,” Shadwell said, and he didn’t explain either.Great, we were just going to play need-to-know until we were all confused.It was Rowe who moved around so he could look me in the face.His eyes had seemed very brown, until I had Sanchez’s to look into; now they seemed pale.file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl.10/18/2009BloodNoirPage 157 of 287“You’re delaying so you don’t have to go into the other room.”I gave him an unfriendly look.“You don’t know me well enough to make that guess.”“It’s not a guess,” he said.I turned the look into a glare.He laughed, and raised his hands ceilingward.“Hey, don’t give me that look just because I’m right.”I shrugged, and tried not to be childish about it.I settled for sounding a little sulky, but I couldn’t help that part.“You’re smarter than you look, Rowe.”“Now you’re just being mean,” he said.“Accurate,” Sanchez said, with a smile.“You said if we had a problem tonight it wouldn’t be you,” Shadwell said.I turned the remnants of the unfriendly look on him.But explaining might keep me in this room until they stopped looking at the wedding clothes.“I am an unmarried woman who is dating a man seriously enough to drop everything and come home to meet his folks.We have no plans to marry, but if I go into the other room with the wedding dresses being ooh ed and aah ed over, the women are going to ask about our plans.Jason and I don’t have any plans, and that will bug the women.I don’t want to mess with it.”“Why would you come home to meet someone’s family if you have no plans to marry?”Shadwell asked.“I’ll answer your question if you’ll answer one of mine first.”He looked suspicious, but I think they weren’t much more eager to go into the next room than I was.The sound of giggling was being punctuated by Jason’s laugh.“You can ask.”“What caused the order to come down that you aren’t to let your charges out of your sight?”Shadwell shook his head.“If Peterson gives us permission I’ll be happy to tell you, but until then, I can’t.”“Orders,” I said.“Chain of command,” he said.I nodded.“What happens when Chuck comes back? Is he higher in the chain of command than you are?”They all exchanged glances.Shadwell actually rolled his lower lip under, which was the most nerves I’d seen him show.“You don’t know where he stands in the chain of command, do you?”“That’s none of your business,” Shadwell said.file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl.10/18/2009BloodNoirPage 158 of 287“Whatever you say, shall we go see if everyone’s still got all their clothes on?”“We could just keep talking out here,” Rowe said.“We could, but I’ve delayed as long as my self-respect will allow.Time to brave the giggling horde.”“All women giggle,” Rowe said.“I don’t,” I said.He gave me a look that was neither professional nor okay from a strange man.“I bet I could make you giggle.”“Rowe,” Shadwell said, in a serious voice.“You just lost points in my book, Rowe, serious points.”He held up his hands in a push-away gesture.“Sorry, that was out of line.”“Yeah,” I said, “it was, and if you expect to be in the room with us while we sleep tonight, you are so very wrong [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]