Adam put his forehead against my shoulder. “No trouble you can’t handle, then.”

“I’m more worried about Christy,” I told him, and it was almost true.

He laughed without joy and pulled me tighter against him. “Me, too.” He whispered, “Don’t believe everything she says, okay? Don’t leave without talking to me.”

I turned around, and said fiercely, “Never. Not even if I talk to you first. You aren’t getting away now, buster.”

He dove for my mouth, and when he was finished ensuring that neither of us was going to get much sleep for a while, he said, “Remember that. We’re both likely to be clinging to that thought by the time this is over.”

I coaxed the bolt out with sweet words and steady, light hands.

I had already done all that I could this morning to find Coyote short of shouting his name into the open air—which I would have if I thought it would do any good. All I could do now was wait for the phone. Not that the fae was the only thing I worried about, or even the thing I was most worried about. Adam was, just about now, picking Christy up from the airport.

Mechanicking took my full concentration, letting my worries about the fae and Adam’s ex-wife fade in the face of a problem I could actually do something about.

The Beetle had been worked on by amateurs for decades, and the bolt that was turning so reluctantly was a victim of years of abuse. Her edges were more suggestions than actual corners, making getting her out of the ’59 Beetle a little tricky. So far I hadn’t had to resort to the Easy Out, and I was starting to get optimistic about my chances of success.

Someone cleared their throat tentatively and scared the bejeebers out of me—though I managed not to jump. He was standing behind me—a strange man, who was also a strange werewolf, my nose told me belatedly. Thankfully, he’d stayed back, waiting just outside the open garage-bay door.

Tad was twenty feet away in the office—and the stranger was probably only a customer who’d come around to the open garage bays instead of to the office. It happened all the time. I was perfectly safe. Reason didn’t have much effect on my spiking heartbeat and the shaft of terror that was my body’s reaction to being startled by a strange man in my garage.

I’d been assaulted a while ago. Just when I thought I was over it, some stupid little thing would bring it back.