Something was very wrong.
I tried to relax, be neutral, look back at him without tension as he scrutinized me. I don’t know whether he was satisfied, but Mick at last released me and straightened up.
“I guess the sleep did you good,” he concluded. “Come on, let’s go to breakfast. The sign says they have a hundred different kinds of omelets. I have to check that out.”
He flashed me a smile, good-natured, holding a hint of sin. And yet, holding back at the same time.
Mick hadn’t held back much lately, with all we’d been through, but I saw in his eyes a layer of his old evasiveness. Back when he hadn’t wanted me to realize what he was, he’d been very good at not letting me see past his facade. I needed to pin him down and ask him what was up.
For now, I was hungry, and the thought of omelets made my stomach growl. I scrambled out of bed, not shy around Mick, and found my clothes, neatly folded over the back of the room’s one chair.
Mick must have undressed me. Whenever I went to bed in exhaustion I threw my clothes every which way before I dove between the sheets. Mick was far more tidy.
“Why did you bring these?” I asked. The jeans were old, the shirt one I hadn’t worn in years. “I thought I gave these to Gabrielle. Or, rather, she helped herself.”
Mick’s eyes narrowed again, his grave suspicion returning.
As much as I loved Mick, I was not blind to how dangerous he was. If he thought I was acting weird, maybe a doppelgänger Janet or a spelled Janet, he would stop at nothing to save me, fix me—or kill me. My only defense at the moment was to act as normal as possible.
“Never mind.” My skin seemed to be clean, so maybe Mick had stuck me under the shower the night before. I pulled on the clothes and smoothed my hair—and then realized I wasn’t wearing my ring.
When Mick had asked me to marry him—in the human way—he’d given me an engagement ring. Not a standard gold and diamond ring, but silver with an intricate pattern of turquoise and onyx. Turquoise for healing, onyx for protection, silver for love.
It wasn’t on my finger, in my pocket, on the nightstand, or in the bathroom. I hated to think I’d lost it in the fight, that some demon had run off with it. But Mick was watching me again, so I said nothing. He might have put it away safe somewhere—I’d ask him once I’d reassured him that I was fine. I gave him a smile and let him lead me from the room.
The motel was a one-story, long wooden building with a row of a dozen identical doors and windows. We were in number five, a lucky number in Asian cultures. Mick would have picked it.
At the end of the row was a wider building with big windows and glass doors. The lit marquee in front said, Travel House, Your Home Away from Home. Comfortable Rooms, Best Breakfast in the County.
We walked into the lobby, which led to the small restaurant, and then it hit me.
I’d been here before.
I remembered the restaurant down to the last detail—the polished wooden walls, the scraggly plant next to the cashier, the glassed-in counter containing five slices of pie, two apple, three cherry.
I remembered the rows of wooden tables with captain’s chairs and the menus waiting on stands in the middle of the tables with the ketchup and salt and pepper. The older couple wearing thick jackets, who’d come in via the RV in the parking lot. The two Indian men I’d glanced at in curiosity, wondering which tribe they were from. The poster on the wall listing the hundred omelets and what they had in them. I stopped in shock, and Mick ran into the back of me.
“Janet?” He leaned down, his breath warm on my cheek. “What is it?”
He’d braced for danger, ready to fight whatever I’d sensed. The two Indian guys glanced up. They kept their expressions neutral, though I’m sure they weren’t thrilled with my bad manners.
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
I continued to the table the pink-skirted waitress had waved me to and sat down. Mick did another scan of the restaurant until he took a seat opposite me. He didn’t put his back to the wall, as fighting men do in the movies, but he did position the napkin dispenser to reflect what was behind him.
“I just remembered this place,” I said.
“Remembered?” Mick had his blue gaze on me again.
“Yeah.”
The déjà vu feeling made me crazy, but it wasn’t strictly déjà vu, because I had been here before. With Mick. I remembered watching him order a dozen of the omelets after bantering with the waitress about whether there were truly a hundred of them, not just variations on the first twelve.
“When was this?” Mick’s amused look was in place, but the way he watched me ... Black flickered through his eyes, the dragon filling the space. “I thought you said you’d never left the Southwest before you met me.”