She scowled at Kincaid. Then she said, “Trying to guilt me into playing worried girlfriend, domestic defender, and surrogate mother figure, eh?”

“I figured it would work better than telling you to shut up and get into the kitchen.”

She took a deep breath, studying the sleeping man. Then she reached out and touched his hand. She stood and faced me. “No. I’m coming with you.”

I grunted, rising. “You sure?”

“The girl is important to him,” Murphy said. “More important to him than anything has been for a long time, Harry. He’d die to protect her. If he was conscious, he’d be demanding to go with you. But he can’t do that. So I’ll have to do it for him.”

“Could be real messy, Murph.”

She nodded. “I’ll worry about that after the girl is safe.”

There was a clock ticking quietly on the wall. “The meeting’s in an hour.”

Murphy nodded and reached for her coat. The tears were gone, and there was no evidence of them in the lines of her face. “You’d better excuse me, then. If we’re going to have an evening out, I need to change into something more comfortable.”

“I never tell a lady how to accessorize.”

Going forth to do battle with the forces of darkness is one thing. Doing it in a pair of borrowed sweatpants and an ill-fitting T-shirt is something else entirely. Fortunately, Molly had been thoughtful enough to drop my own clothes into the washer, bless her heart. I could forgive her for the pot roast.

In the laundry room I had skinned out of Michael’s clothes and was in the act of pulling up my jeans when Luccio opened the door and leaned in, her expression excited. “Dresden. I think I know wh—Oh.”

I jerked my jeans the rest of the way up and closed them as hurriedly as I could without causing any undue discomfort. “Oh. Um. Excuse me,” I said.

Luccio smiled, the dimples in her cheeks making her look not much older than Molly. She didn’t blush. Instead she folded her arms and leaned one shoulder on the door frame, her dark eyes taking me in with evident pleasure. “Oh, not at all, Dresden. Not at all.”

I paused and returned her look for a moment. “Aren’t you supposed to be embarrassed, apologize, and quietly leave?”

Her smile widened lazily, and she shrugged a shoulder. “When I was a girl, perhaps. But even then I had difficulty forcing myself to act awkward when looking at something that pleased me.” She tilted her head and moved toward me. She reached out and rested her fingertips very lightly against a scar on my upper arm. She traced its outline and glanced up at me, lifting an eyebrow.

“Bullet wound,” I said. “FBI werewolves.”

She nodded. Then her fingers touched the hollow of my throat and slid slowly down over my chest and belly in a straight line. A shuddering sensation of heat fluttered through my skin in the wake of her fingertips. She looked up at me again.