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urge. I decided that leaning against the car, arms crossed over my stomach, looking bored might be hint enough.
    Edward drew back with a sigh. "After last night, I wouldn't think you'd be missing me this much."
    "I always miss you," she said in a voice halfway between sultry and a giggle. Donna gazed at me, hands still encircling him, very possessive. She looked right at me and said, "Sorry, didn't mean to embarrass you."
    I pushed away from the car. "I don't embarrass that easy."
    The happy light in her eyes turned to something fierce and protective. The look and her next words were not friendly. "And just what would it take to embarrass you?"
    I shook my head. "Is this my cue to say, a lot more than you've got?"
    She stiffened.
    "Don't worry, Donna. I am not now, nor have I ever been interested in ... Ted in a romantic way."
    "I never thought ... " she started to say.
    "Save it," I said. "Let's try something really unique. Let's be honest. You were worried about me with Edward," I changed it very quickly to, "Ted, which was why you did the teeny-bopper makeout session. You don't need to mark your territory for my sake, Donna." The last was said in something of a rush because I hoped she hadn't noticed my slip on the names, but of course she had, and I knew Edward had. "Ted's too much like me to ever consider dating. It'd be like incest."
    She blushed even through the tan. "My, you are direct."
    "She's direct even for a man," Edward said. "For a woman she's like a battering ram."
    "It saves time," I said.
    "That it does," Edward said. He drew Donna into a quick but thorough kiss. "I'll see you tomorrow, honeypot."
    I raised eyebrows at that.
    Edward looked at me with Ted's warm eyes. "Donna drove her own car in so we could spend part of the day together. Now she's going to drive home to the kiddies, so we can do business."
    Donna turned from him, giving me a long searching look. "I'm taking you at your word, Anita. I believe you, but I'm also picking up some strange vibes from you like you're hiding something."
    I was hiding something, I thought. If she only knew.
    Donna continued, face very serious. "I'm trusting you with the third most important person in my life. Ted is right behind my kids for me. Don't screw up the best thing I've had since my husband died."
    "See," Edward said, "Donna knows how to be blunt, too."
    "That she does," I said.
    Donna gave me one last searching look, then turned to Edward. She drew him away towards a car three down from us. They talked quietly together while I waited in the still, dry, heat. Since Donna had tried for privacy, I gave it to them, turning away and gazing off at the distant mountains. They looked
very
close, but it's always been my experience that mountains are seldom as close as they appear. They're like dreams, distant things to set your sights on, but not truly to be trusted to be there when you need them.
    I heard Edward's boots crunch on the pavement before he spoke. I was facing him, arms crossed lightly over my stomach, which put my right hand nicely close to the gun under my arm. I believed Edward when he said we had a truce on, but ... better cautious than sorry.
    He stopped by the car one slot over, leaning his butt against it, arms crossing to mirror me. But he didn't have a gun under his arm. I wasn't sure that a bounty hunter's license was enough to get him through an airport metal detector, so he shouldn't have been able to have a gun or large blade on him.
    Unless of course he'd picked it up from one of the cars, where he'd hidden it. It would be something that Edward would do. Better to assume the worst and he wrong than assume the best and be wrong. Pessimism will keep you alive, optimism won't, not in our line of business anyway.
    Our line of business. Strange phrase. Edward was an assassin. I wasn't. But somehow we were in the same business. I couldn't quite explain it, but it was title.
    Edward gave me a pure Edward smile, a smile meant to make me uneasy and