Free Dead If I Do by Tate Hallaway Page B

uninvited, nightwalker. I suggest you leave.”
    I cleared my throat. “Uh, actually, technically I invited him in.” Sebastian’s face tightened as though he’d suddenly contracted a headache. I moved to quickly take Sebastian’s hand. “Look, honey, Parrish just needs to bandage his hand. Then he’s leaving.”
    Parrish flashed me a hurt expression as if I’d all but chucked him out into the snow on the spot. I gave him the what-did-youwant-me-to-say? eyebrow quirk in return. Sebastian glanced at Parrish’s wound. “It looks bad. I served as a medic in World War Two,” he said, taking the bandages and tape from me. “I’ll dress it for you.”
    Parrish offered his hand, though there was a trace of sarcasm in his tone as he said, “You’re a true gentleman, sir.”
    Sebastian snorted but gently inspected the burn. Slowly, carefully, he wrapped it in a clean bandage. “You’re a fool to come here,” he said, as he taped off a very neat turn of gauze. “You have no claim to Garnet.”
    “Yet your heart is divided,” he said quietly as he admired Sebastian’s ministrations.
    “No, it’s not,” Sebastian said, looking directly at me.
    The intensity of Sebastian’s look made my heart flutter. Despite myself, I doubted him a little. I knew Sebastian loved me, but Teréza was more than just some past fling. She was his son’s mother.
    Parrish’s nod was curt. “I see. Well, I look forward to the ceremony. I wish you both well.” He tipped an imaginary hat and made his way to the door. With his hand on the knob, he paused. Over his shoulder, Parrish said, “A medic in the Second World War? Hitler was an Austrian, too, wasn’t he?”
    Sebastian stiffened, and his eyes narrowed. “I believe you were leaving.”
    Parrish nodded knowingly. “Well, then, good night to you both.”

    Sebastian was agitated the rest of the night. Over a midnight snack of peppermint ice cream with hot fudge, I told him all the gory details of my encounter with Teréza. He nodded absently as he cleared the dishes. In bed, after we’d changed and done all our settling in rituals, he finally said, “I want you to know I was never a Nazi.”
    “I never thought you were, Sebastian,” I said quite honestly. In fact, I tended to forget that Sebastian had actually lived through things I’d only skimmed over in my high school history textbook.
    “I fought in Africa with Rommel.”
    I blinked at him.
    “The Desert Fox,” he tried.
    It still wasn’t ringing any bells. I stretched my knowledge of the events of World War Two, until I had a vague inkling. “That would make you on the wrong side, wouldn’t it? I thought you just said . . .”
    “Things are more obvious in hindsight,” he said, perching on the edge of the bed. He wore blue and green flannel pajama bottoms. I could see the scar from the sword that pierced his heart. “If I had known . . .” He shook his head. “I thought . . . the economy, you see. National pride . . . I never saw. . . . No. No. There are no excuses.”
    I stood there with my mouth agape; I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.
    “Do you want me to sleep on the couch?”
    “No,” I said reflexively. “I will.” I grabbed a pillow.
    As I passed him on my way out, without looking up, he said, “What have you done about Guantánamo or Abu Ghraib, eh?
    What horrors have you allowed?”
    “That’s different,” I said.
    “Is it? Only time will tell.”
    I hated to admit he had a point. “I’m still sleeping on the couch.”
    “And I’ll be here in the morning.”

    Turns out, Sebastian didn’t have to wait until morning for me to forgive him. The couch has never been terribly comfortable, and the temperature dropped in the middle of night, making the skimpy blanket I ’d dragged out of the hall closet completely useless. Plus I could feel Benjamin watching me. I woke up at one point when he was stroking my hair. I’d been dreaming about some strange combination of the