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Anyan held out his hand to me from where he sat on the bed I moved forward to take it, and he pulled me down to sit next to him

"Nope, it’s not about you It’s about survival And you’re no more a victim than they are, Jane You’ve never once backed down, even though you were scared You’ve never once put others ahead of yourself, when it caer"

I didn’t point out that I’d hidden behind Anyan, himself, at least five dozen times this week He was on a roll of Jane Adoration, and I was enjoying it

"So just be yourself, Jane Don’t stress out about being anything else You’ve done heroic things dozens of tiot faith in you And if what those people need right now is some of that sa to take that away from them?"

I shook my head "No, sir" And I wasn’t I still wasn’t happy aboutAnyan said hadwith or without me--and if I needed to step up and shoulder my part of the load, that’s what I’d do

He smiled down at entle, affectionate, and lingering It also took , ere lying side by side His favorite soft Eukenuba shirt was against ainst hi that I like it when you call h turned into a yawn I was suddenly exhausted both physically andcrazy, even for all the recent crazy days we’d had We’d fought Morrigan first thing that , then been kidnapped, I’d had that confrontation with Grae with the rebel soldiers

In technical terms, I was pooped

I was also finally alone with Anyan, in our own bedroom, replete with all the privacy in the world

So it ith hest’s arms I slept deeply and drea to findifso fast I could hardly understand him

"Linda Allen reads the craziest books, have you ever actually read one of them? And oh my God have you seen what Miss Carol orders? I think irls are fine, although Tracy is about as big as a house by now, and Grizzie’s acting like she’s okay, but I can tell she’s freaking out, and she wants to paint the baby’s roo nudes,’ but Tracy is putting her foot down…"

I listened, patiently, until he took a moment to breathe

"Dad? How many coffees have you had today?"

"I don’t know Why do you ask? What does it hed For the past fifteen years my dad hadn’t been allowed more than one cup of mostly decaf coffee a day, because of his heart condition But now that he was healed, all bets between him and coffee were apparently off

"Dad, just tell me How many have you had?"

"I had some for breakfast, obviously And then one at work And then Grizzie was teaching es with cinnaood at--and so we had to drink e used to practice, and then the boys called up from the fire station for so to go to waste, anyway, so…"

My father continued irl on ht through the consequences of leaving him alone in a state-of-the-art café After all those long years without real coffee, training hiouranize the bookshelves by size and shape, when I interrupted him more forcefully

"Dad, I really think you should talk to Tracy and Grizzie before you do any reorganizing Andit up Have you been sleeping, by the way?"

"Of course I’ve been sleeping Why wouldn’t I be sleeping?" he said, clearly lying