Blood Bond (Anna Strong Chronicles #9) Read Online Free PDF Page A

only guess.
    “Having trouble?” he asks.
    I straighten and sigh. “It’s the third time this week. Can’t get it to start.”
    He joins me so that our hips are touching. “Don’t know too much about foreign cars, but let me have a look.”
    He bends over and begins touching this cable and that piston, checking gaskets and pulleys. “Well,” he says at last, “I can’t see anything. Do you have AAA?”
    I nod. “Just called them. It’ll be about thirty minutes.”
    My left hand is resting on the edge of the engine well and he places his right hand over mine. “You’re cold. Let’s go inside. I’d be happy to buy you a drink while we wait for them.”
    I slip my hand out from under his, grasp his wrist and he’s handcuffed before he can say, “What the fuck?”
    He struggles, but not too much. My grip is tight. He looks at me and snipes, “You’re strong for a woman. What are you? A fucking dyke?”
    Nice. I pat him down, none too gently. No gun. No knife.
    I manhandle him into the backseat of the Jag. He’s cursing and yelling and demanding to know what I’m doing. But he doesn’t try to fight back or make a break for it.
    Damn it.
    I ignore his howls of protest, snapping the cuffs through a metal bar I’ve had installed on the door of the Jag for just this purpose. Once I get him to SDPD, he’ll catch on. Now I’m just disappointed I didn’t get to have any fun after all.
    * * *
    DAVID AND TRACEY ARE WAITING FOR ME WHEN I GET back. The whole episode didn’t take more than two hours. I throw the paperwork on the desk and David looks it over.
    “Didn’t give you any trouble?”
    Not really a question. Little veins are bulging at his temple. He’s pissed.
    I pretend not to notice, knowing what’s coming. “Nope. Cakewalk.”
    He purses his lips. “I thought we decided we wouldn’t do any lone-ranger pickups. This guy is wanted for aggravated assault. He could have given you trouble.”
    I can’t say what I’m thinking—that a little trouble was what I went looking for—so I just smile like I don’t understand his irritation. “Worked out fine. Came along gentle as a little lamb.”
    “Damn it, Anna, don’t play innocent.” He slaps the file down on the desktop. “You should have waited for backup.”
    I look at Tracey, but she’s shaking her head. “He’s right, Anna. One of us should have gone with you.”
    Two against one. I raise my hands in surrender. “Okay. You’re right. Next time I’ll wait.”
    Tracey smiles, but David isn’t ready to let go of his frustration. I understand. I know he’s remembering a time when a skip got away from us and I was raped and beaten while David lay unconscious a few feet away. What he doesn’t know, what he can’t know, is that attack resulted in my becoming vampire. The reason he’s so protective is the reason he no longer needs to be.
    He shoves the file into the cabinet and slams the drawer shut.
    I clear my throat. “Does this mean you don’t want to go shopping with me this afternoon?”
    “Of course he’ll go shopping with you,” Tracey answers before he can, her tone as barbed as a fishhook. “I’ll stay here and tend the office.”
    “You speaking for me now?” David snaps.
    But Tracey takes no umbrage from his tone or annoyed glance. “It’s all you’ve been talking about,” she says in a voice so honey sweet you could smear it on toast. “You’ve been as excited as a little kid at the prospect of picking out furniture and toys. Don’t try to deny it.”
    “Really?” I layer my own sugary sweetness atop Tracey’s. “I do need your help, David. I don’t know what little boys like these days.”
    Then, because it’s the kind of guy David is, he gives in. “Yeah, yeah. Cut the bull. Jesus, you two going to gang up on me all the time now?”
    “Probably,” Tracey says. “Now go. I’ll hold down the fort.”
    * * *
    DAVID IS DRIVING. HE HASN’T SAID A WORD TO ME, AND in spite of Tracey’s insistence