“Not really,” she said, sitting up straighter and jerking off her boots. Chudo-Yudo ducked as one went sailing over his head. “Ah, that’s better.”
Liam smiled. He got a kick out of the fact that she hated to wear shoes, although he couldn’t have said why. Just part of who she was.
“I had the Riders as friends, when they came to visit my Baba, and Koshei.” A slight flush turned her tanned cheeks rosy for a brief moment, then vanished. “And Chudo-Yudo, of course.”
Liam raised an eyebrow. “Every girl should have a dog. Even if he is part dragon.”
Chudo-Yudo coughed a tiny spurt of flame, singeing Liam’s shoe. “Dude—I’m all dragon. I just look like a damned dog. Try and keep this stuff straight, will ya?”
“I’m trying,” Liam said, “Really, I’m trying.” He looked at Baba. “So the old Baba raised you, and taught you about herbs, and uh, all that other stuff?”
“Magic, yes.” She bit her lip, trying not to laugh at him. “It’s not as bizarre as you think. More like a type of science you simply haven’t learned enough about to comprehend.”
That actually made a kind of twisted sense to him. “You mean like physics? I never could wrap my mind around physics.”
Her smile finally reached her mysterious eyes, washing away some of the sadness there. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Most of what people believe about physics isn’t true anyway.” She pointed at Chudo-Yudo. “That whole ‘conservation of mass’ thing? How on earth could a dragon with a ten-foot wingspan become an only-slightly-larger-than-normal pit bull?” She snorted. “Physics. Bah.”
Liam pushed his hair back out of his eyes again. He wasn’t sure if it was good or bad that Baba was starting to make sense to him.
“Is there anything else you need to know?” she asked. “I don’t want us to have any more secrets between us. I want you to be able to trust me to help.”
Secrets. He looked down at his shoes, one of which now bore a large charred spot, and thought about the things he hadn’t told her about. Melissa, in particular. The truth was, he didn’t think he could ever trust another woman after what he’d been through with Melissa. Not even one he had to fight the urge to kiss every time he got within two feet of her. He opened his mouth to say something; to reward her story, which had clearly taken courage for her to tell, with his own.
What came out instead was, “I don’t suppose you have any pie?”
*
BABA SUPPRESSED A surge of irritation. She tells him her life story, and his only response is to ask for pie? Seriously?
“Pie?” she said, sparks flickering dangerously at the tips of her fingers. “You want pie now?”
The man had the nerve to grin at her, that elusive dimple flashing at the corner of his lips. “Well,” he said in a practical tone, as if he wasn’t ten seconds away from being set on fire, “we’ll need to keep our strength up if we’re going to be out tomorrow and who knows how many other days, watching the two kids we think Maya is most likely to target next.”
Oh. “Does that mean you’ve decided to trust me after all?” she asked, the sparks dying away harmlessly.
Liam sighed. “It means I realized I’ve trusted you all along. I’ve just been letting my discomfort with the idea of magic and the Otherworld and all that comes with it get in the way of my common sense and my instincts.” After all, it was a simple thing to trust her to help, really. Just so long as he didn’t have to trust her with his heart.
He looked for someplace to put his empty beer bottle down, and Baba made it disappear with a snap of her fingers. Liam jerked. “See—like that! I will never get used to that.” But he smiled as he said it. “Now how about that pie? Or I’ll settle for cookies or some ice cream, if you don’t have pie. Man can’t live on hot dogs alone, you know.”
“Dogs can’t either,” Chudo-Yudo said, endeavoring to look pitiful. A pretty difficult look for a two-hundred-pound pit to pull off, no matter how cute he was.
“Fine, I’ll check,” Baba said, and got up to look in the refrigerator. “Well, there’s pie,” she said, not terribly surprised. “But I hope you didn’t want milk to go with that, because apparently we’re all out.”
Liam wandered over to have a look, and burst out laughing at the sight of what must have been dozens of pies, all stacked on top of each other.
Chudo-Yudo made a disgusted noise. “They’re all cherry. I hate cherry pie.”