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Mary snapped pictures all the while for whoever would win the auction for her freelance article on this.
After a while, the police came, and the police and the wet prince went. The gawkers left. Mary stopped at Van’s side.
“I’m going upstairs to the apartment with Cyn. Don’t let Brock come up.”
“But Brock came here. That must mean — ”
“She doesn’t want to see him, even if he did act like a jealous idiot tonight, the loveable fool.”
“Idon’tgetit.Howcanshethinkhe’sbothloveable and a fool she doesn’t want to see?”
Mary rolled her eyes. “Of course she can think both. Don’t you know anything about women yet? Anyway, those are my words, not hers. She doesn’t know yet what she thinks, and I won’t let her try to figure it out yet. I’m just going upstairs with her to help her cry.”
“Oh. How long will that take?”
Mary cast a withering glance in his direction. “I’m not sure I’ll be home at all tonight. You go ahead. I’ll take a cab if I don’t spend the night with Cyn.”
Van didn’t like the idea Mary might not come home. It would be the first night he’d spent apart from her since he’d moved in. But he couldn’t let her know how much it bothered him.
He put his hand on her arm to keep her close. Just another minute. Any longer and she’d catch on. She was always doing that. Catching on.
“Is Aunt Cynthia really going to cry?”
Mary patted him on the cheek and kissed him. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
He still wasn’t happy about his aunt crying, but truth be told, it would have bothered him a lot more if he’d had to watch her cry. It also would have bothered him a lot more if he weren’t fairly sure things had changed between Brock and her.
Van turned toward the older man to find out.
Chapter Thirty-Four
A Pot, a Kelne adC a rono
V
ANAND BROCKSATonabenchbesidethepool,with nothing but the sliver of moon to cast any light on the emotions they didn’t want to see on each other’s faces. The silence was strangely comfortable. Van didn’t even need to grunt wordlessly now and then. Neither, apparently, did Brock. Like guys should, they were coming to the same conclusions without exercising their vocal cords.
Finally, though, Van decided it wouldn’t hurt to break this companionable silence with a few words, just to set the record straight.
“So,” Van said, “you decided to come tonight.”“Uh-huh.”
They let that settle for a while.
“You wanted to see someone,” Van said.“I wanted to see the son of a bitch who thought he
might try to marry my Cyn.”
“Sonofabitch.Isee.”Vanclearedhisthroat.“Your Cyn.”
He paused, figuring he should let that sink in, in case Brock hadn’t realized how much he’d said in that one sentence.
Finally, words poured out of Brock. “I love her with all my heart. I’d turn a stampede of elephants for her. I’d fight off an army of demons for her. I’d — ”
“I see.” Van thought he should interrupt the flood before it prompted him to rhyme off a few hundred death-defying things he’d do for Mary if he let himself think about it.
“I’m — afraid,” Brock said.
Vanflinched.Thatsoundedasthoughthewordhad beentornfromthedepthsofBrock’ssoul.Itsounded like it would sound if Van tried to rip the word out of his own throat about Mary. Did the man have to spill his guts like this? It might be catching.
