Free Motor City Fae by Cindy Spencer Pape Page A

the adoption stuff. Find out what he knows about your biological family. Then I’ll hold him while you slap him silly.”
    That was a good plan, she had to admit. If he knew something about her origins, she owed it to herself to find out. She let out a breath. “Okay. I’ll call him.”
    “Good girl.” Jase leaned over, dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Now I’m going upstairs to shower and change. I’ll also see what the cards have to say about all this mess. You call me if you need me, you hear?”
    “Yes, sir.” She smiled again, for real this time. “I love you, Jase. Thanks for everything.”
    He unfolded himself from the chair and patted the top of her head before walking toward the garage. “Love you too, sweetie.”
    Heaving a sigh, she stood, walked back into the house and picked up the phone. Ric’s card still lay on the kitchen counter, only inches from where they’d nearly made love early that morning. She picked it up, sucking in a breath as the memory of his touch seemed to radiate from the pasteboard and assail her.
    Hands shaking, she dialed the phone, mentally trying out her words as she did. She had to get this right, had to stay tough, stay in control.
    “Hi there, you’ve reached my voice mail. Since I’m sure I’ll want to get back with you, please leave a message after the beep.” His sexy, glorious voice was flattened into detached technological coolness.
    Meagan closed her eyes, counted to three and spoke into the phone, hoping she managed a coolness of her own. “Ric, this is Meagan Kelly. I guess you were right, we really do need to talk, so please get back to me when you get the chance.”
    She switched off the phone, slid down into a chair and laid her face across her arms on the table. There was one thing you could say about the whole mess, she mused.
    Today couldn’t possibly get much worse.
     
    “What do you mean your people fucking lost him?” Ric shouted into the cell phone, still slouched in his Jag, watching the front door of Meagan’s house. Six empty coffee cups littered the floor of the passenger seat and another, newly empty, was clutched in his hand. Absently, he crumpled the foam cup and conjured a replacement.
    Today, even caffeine, a potent drug to one of his kind, wasn’t helping his mood. He wished he hadn’t given up cigarettes years ago. They weren’t going to kill him, after all. He’d done it out of concern for the humans around him. Well, that, plus he had to admit, the smell was disgusting. “I thought your people were good at their jobs.”
    “They are good,” Aidan growled, as pissed as Ric had heard him in years. “But so is Owain. Just go talk to the girl, all right? Use a spell if you have to.”
    Ric started to snarl an answer, mostly profane, when he heard a loud knock on the window beside him. He jumped, this time succeeding in spilling the steaming hot coffee all over his lap. He swore as he pressed the automatic window switch.
    Meagan’s friend Jase stood outside the car with arms crossed over his chest and a menacing look on his face.
    “Do I need to call the cops?”
    “Why?” Busy mopping coffee off his singed privates, Ric wasn’t following the mortal’s train of thought.
    “Stalking is illegal in this state.”
    “Fuck me.” After tossing the pile of napkins he’d been using to the floor, Ric banged his forehead against the steering wheel. “I’m not stalking her; I’m trying to protect her.”
    Better to have her friend on his side, if it came down to it, even if that meant Ric had to say more than he probably should. Llyris could always wipe the mortal’s mind later. “If she is who I think she is, she could be in danger. It’s complicated.”
    “This has to do with her biological parents?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you some kind of cop?”
    “Not professionally.” Not for any authority in this world, anyway.
    “Then how did you get involved?”
    “I’m a friend of the family. They asked me to do what I