Hunter's Trail

I was far enough back in the living room that I couldn’t see who was behind the door when Molly opened it, but then she yelled over her shoulder, much louder than necessary, “Scarlett! It’s the fuzz!”

“Oh, man!” I complained loudly. “She said she was eighteen!”

“You guys are hilarious,” Jesse said drily, following Molly into the house and toward the kitchen. He was carrying a small paper gift bag and a to-go cup of coffee. I stumped back to my stool and picked up my mug again, raising my bad leg to rest on the only empty stool. Jesse could stand, as far as I was concerned.

Molly sat back down too and looked at me, silently asking if we needed to be alone. I shrugged noncommittally. If he wanted Molly to leave, he could ask her himself.

But Jesse ignored Molly entirely, coming right over to stand at my elbow. He was wearing jeans that somehow looked both comfortable and very expensive, a simple blue button-down, and a dark-brown leather jacket that made his eyes pop, dammit. “Sorry I was a dick last night,” Jesse said contritely. He gave me a look that was so sincere and apologetic that I started to blush. Damn his hotness powers.

“But I got you something,” he continued. He put the gift bag on the table in front of me. There was red glitter on the paper bag and matching red tissue paper sticking out of it. “Late Christmas present.”

“You . . . shouldn’t have?” I said uncertainly.

He nudged the bag toward me. “Open it.”

I picked up the gift bag, which was a lot heavier than its size suggested, and pulled away the tissue paper. Inside was a long piece of black leather the size of my hand. It had sort of a loop on one end, right next to a handle. “Jesse . . . ,” I said uncertainly, and pulled on the handle. A long stainless-steel blade slid silently out of the holster. “It’s a knife,” I said blankly. “You got me a knife.” Jesse knew I disliked violence—when we were hunting Olivia, I had refused to carry a gun even after we learned that, unlike most Old World creatures, she was willing to use to them. I’d taken a pretty firm line on not trying to kill people, and Jesse was now trying to work around it.

“It’s a boot knife,” Jesse replied. No one should ever be that cheerful before 10:00 a.m. “To go in your leather boots. I already sharpened it. If you won’t carry a gun, at least you’ll have something to protect yourself with if the werewolves come after you again . . . what?”

Happily, I had a great excuse for rejecting his newest attempt at arming me. “It’s a really nice knife, Jesse,” I said, putting it back in the holster. “But my boots were destroyed the night of the solstice.” It’s pretty hard to shred leather boots, which is why I wear them whenever the weather’s cool enough. But I’d had to crawl around in a great big mess of broken glass and blood when Eli had lost control of his wolf, and even if the boots had survived the glass, there was way too much DNA embedded in them. They’d gone into Artie’s furnace.

“Oh.” Jesse’s face fell.

But just then, Molly jumped up and grabbed my hand. “Come to the bottom of the stairs a sec?” she coaxed, tugging.

“Uh, okay.” I grabbed my cane and hobbled to the bottom of the staircase. Molly zipped up to her bedroom and back down, just barely managing to stay in my radius the whole time. When she trotted down the stairs, she was carrying a huge cardboard box with FRYE printed on the side.

“Back to the kitchen,” Molly sang. I let her lead me back to my chair at the counter. She placed the box in front of me ceremoniously. “I was saving this for your birthday,” she explained happily, “but I think you should open it now.”

I lifted the lid obediently. “Oh,” I breathed. Inside the box lay a pair of black calf-high boots, with a sturdy two-inch rubber heel and small silver buckles at the ankle and calf. They smelled of leather and polish, and were simultaneously simple, functional, and gorgeous. And my size. “They’re beautiful, Molly,” I whispered.

“Nice,” Jesse said smugly. “Those are totally you.”

Damn if he wasn’t right. I had figured that if I gave Molly money and asked her to buy new boots for me, she would come back with the kind of boots she’d wear—something thigh-high and bad-girl sexy with a five-inch heel. But she’d surprised me. These were exactly the boots I’d choose for myself . . . if I had four or five hundred dollars to spare.

“They’re too much, though,” I said sadly. “Way too much.” Molly and I do exchange gifts on special occasions, but I think the Sandra Bullock Blu-ray I’d gotten her for Christmas cost, like, twenty bucks. I pushed the big cardboard box toward her. “I can’t accept them.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Her smile was predatory. “I got quite the sale price.”

Jesse shot her his Suspicious Cop eyes. “You didn’t steal them, did you?”

Molly regarded him disdainfully. “Please,” she sniffed. “I pressed a personal shopper at Nordstrom years ago. She gave me her discount. And a sale price.” She pursed her lips in thought, then added, “And a coupon.”

“Oh. Uh . . . good,” Jesse said uncertainly. He turned back to me. “Anyway, now you can carry the knife.”

“I still don’t think it’s necessary,” I protested, but more feebly. “I have a Taser, Jesse.” A really, really good one that I thought was still illegal for civilians, but I wasn’t going to mention that part. “It has all the stopping power I need.”