I WAS RUNNING toward him before I’d thought it through. I had time to see that he was wearing blue jeans and well-worn cowboy boots but was missing the cowboy hat that usually covered his short blond hair. The whole outfit including the brown leather bomber jacket was so not Edward, but perfectly Ted Forrester. I wrapped my arms around his waist, because I knew Edward was in there somewhere. He hugged me back, but I felt that moment of hesitation in his body, because in all the years we’d known each other, I had never greeted him like that. The hesitation made me start to pull back, but he held me tighter, and whispered into my hair, “What happened? What did he do?”
We both knew who he was. I pulled back enough to see his face. His blue eyes were already starting to fade from bright to winter sky blue. That was the color his eyes were when he killed. I didn’t want him to do anything unfortunate just because my nerves had gotten jangled. If we ever pulled the pin on the grenade that was Olaf, I wanted it to be for something real.
“Nothing. He’s actually behaved himself well.”
Edward moved us so that no one in the sheriff’s office could see his face, and then he stopped pretending. The face was still the same face, but the expression on it was cold and matched the winter sky eyes. “Tell me the truth, Anita.”
“I swear to you that Olaf has behaved himself. We’ve actually had two good conversations where he was reasonable and compromised.”
His eyes narrowed. You didn’t have to know him well to read the expression. He didn’t believe me.
“My word of honor, Edward—Ted—that he has done pretty good, far better than I expected.”
He settled his arms more comfortably around me and raised an eyebrow at me. I started to try to back out of the hug, but he held his arms in place. “You can get out of the hug when you explain to me why we’re hugging in the first place. Are you lying about what he did so I won’t go in there and shoot him?”
I frowned at Edward, my arms still around his waist. If he was holding on, then it was the most comfortable way to stand. “Well, if I actually thought you were stupid enough to kill him like that in front of witnesses, I might, but no, I’m not lying.”
He gave me cynical eyes and raised the eyebrow again. “So why run into my arms for the first time ever?”
That was a good question. I tried to think of a good answer. You always seem to have more good questions than answers in life. I stared off into the distance rather than meet his eyes while I tried to put it into words. “I think maybe because he is being so reasonable.”
“You realize that makes no sense, right?” he asked.
I nodded and looked back at Edward’s face. “When we started letting him think I was or would be his serial killer girlfriend, I thought it was just a delay tactic until we had to kill him because he stepped over the line.”
“It was,” Edward said.
“But he’s really being reasonable, Edward. I mean, like therapy reasonable, couple reasonable. I didn’t think he was even capable of that, even to pretend.”
“He’s as good an actor as I am, Anita. Don’t be fooled.”
“You mean the way you fooled Donna?” I asked.
“Donna knows as much as she’s comfortable knowing about who I am.”
Since I’d been in their wedding and spent quite a bit of time around them and the kids, I could only agree. “Fair enough, and I’m sorry if I put you in the same category as Olaf, but he seems to really be trying.”
“Trying how?”
I told Edward about the hand on the knee at breakfast and me reading Olaf the riot act. “And just now he asked permission before he touched my face.”
I actually didn’t want to admit that Olaf had asked for a kiss and I’d said yes. I was embarrassed or scared or something. The moment I realized just how conflicted I was about the last few minutes with Olaf, I knew why I’d run to Edward like some damsel in distress.
“You look calmer,” he said.
“I think we can stop hugging now,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I figured it out.”
He let me back out of the hug and then asked, “What did you figure out?”
“I’m not upset because Olaf behaved badly. I’m fucking freaked out because he’s behaving so well.”
“You said that already, and it still makes no sense.”
“Yeah, it does, if you’re inside my head.”
Edward actually smiled at that. “Well, I’m not, so say it out loud.”
“I’m trying to explain it.” I stared up at him, frowning. “You once told me that Olaf agreed to try vanilla sex with me, which was the first time you knew of him being willing to try that with anyone.”
“I remember.”
“I can’t remember if you encouraged me to just let him think I’d have sex with him or to have sex with him.”
“Both at different times, I think,” he said.
“Okay. Where are you on the question right now?”
“No real sex. Just play along.”
“Good, but I can’t keep pretending, Edward. Olaf is actually doing what I ask him to do so we can get to a point of going out on a date.”
“No, Anita.”
“I don’t mean sex but dating, like doing something together to get to know each other better.”
“He won’t understand what that means, Anita.”
“I agree, but if he’s working this hard to try to meet me halfway, then it seems shitty that I won’t go through with it.”
“Run that by me again slowly,” Edward said, studying my face.
“If I won’t actually date him, then it’s shitty to let him keep believing that I will.”
“I told you, if he ever thinks you aren’t his serial killer pinup, he will put you in the victim box. He’ll probably kill me first, quick and efficiently, because he knows what I would do to him if he didn’t. But then you would die, Anita, but it wouldn’t be quick. It will be long and lingering and more terrible than you can imagine.”
“I know you’ve seen what he does to women.”
Edward grabbed my arm, and there was anger in his eyes, but there was also fear. Edward was afraid of almost nothing. “I have, and I never want to see it again. The thought of him doing that to you makes me want to go inside and kill him, witnesses or no witnesses.”
I swallowed, because my mouth was suddenly dry. “Which is why the fact that he just asked, as polite as I’ve ever had anyone ask before, if he could kiss me scares the shit out of me.”
“You ran out without giving him an answer? He won’t like that, Anita.”
“I gave him an answer,” I said.
“He’ll hate you saying no.”
“I didn’t say no.”
“What did you just say?”
“I didn’t say no.”
Edward stared at me.
“Don’t look at me like that, Edward. I feel bad enough.”
He blinked, and I watched him fight to process it all. “So, you agreed to kiss him?”
I nodded.
“Anita, he’s going to expect you to make good on that.”
“I already did.”
“What?” He looked shocked. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him look quite that much at a loss.
“I said yes, and he kissed me.”
Edward just stared at me for a few heartbeats, and then he finally asked, “What am I supposed to do with that, Anita? Do I ask how it was?”
“Gentle.”
“What?”
“It was gentle. The kiss, the touch to my face—they were both gentle.”
“He’s not gentle. Don’t let him fool you the way I’ve seen him fool other victims. You of all people know what he is.”
I nodded a little too fast. “That’s just it, Edward. I do know. So how the fuck do I tell if he’s just pretending and setting me up for the kill, or if he’s as sincere as he’s capable of?”
“He is not capable of having a normal relationship, Anita.”
I nodded again. “I think you’re right.”
That seemed to settle Edward down a little. It was rare to see his calm broken so badly. Once I’d lived for moments when I could make him drop his cool, but not now, not about Olaf.
“Good. Then we’re still on the same page.”
“Yes, but I’m not good at pretending things I don’t feel. I will not be able to keep up this act for much longer, Edward. We’re getting too close to me having to put up or shut up with Olaf, and I don’t know what to do.”
He took in a lot of air and let it out slow, as if he was thinking about our options because it wasn’t just my life on the line. Yes, metaphysically the people tied to me might die if I died, but that wasn’t all. Edward was right about Olaf probably starting with killing him. Olaf thought we were lovers, so if he was going to kidnap, rape, torture, and kill Edward’s girlfriend and live through it, then he had to start by killing Edward. It was just logical, and underneath the pathology, Olaf was cold, dispassionate, and logical, just like Edward and me. Practical, we were utterly practical about survival most of the time. Of course, it wasn’t logical for Edward to have tried to pretend to be my lover so Olaf would back off. It hadn’t been logical of me to play along, or to keep talking to Olaf as if any change on his part would make him datable for me. It wasn’t practical or logical that Olaf had been willing to compromise and grow as a person to get to a point where I’d been willing to agree to a kiss.
“I thought he’d cross the line with you before it got this far, Anita. It never occurred to me that he’d try this hard.”
“Me either, but he is, so what the fuck do we do now?”
Edward shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Newman’s voice rang out far louder than it should have for what he said. “Yes, Duke, Marshal Ted Forrester just arrived. Blake is filling him in on the case.” Newman was telling us that the sheriff was about to get us in his sights. We weren’t doing anything we didn’t want him to see, but Newman didn’t know that. Bless his heart, he was a good wingman.
I whispered fast, “What do I do when we go inside?”
“Did you kiss him in front of everyone?”
“No, of course not. Told him no romance in front of other cops.”
“Then act like nothing happened and stay in sight of other people until we figure something out.”
I might have said more about the mess of it, but I could hear the sheriff’s feet crunching across the gravel of the parking area. He was almost here; we’d have to talk about the personal mess later. We had to put our cop faces on and catch the bad guys.