Twisted and Tied (Marshals 4)

I glanced at Aruna. “She swears a lot for a doctor.”

“No shit,” Aruna agreed.

“No shit,” Sajani repeated, which sent me into hysterics.

“Was that Sajani?” Catherine asked, which made the whole thing even better.

“Oh goddammit,” Aruna groaned, looking down at her toddler, who was clapping her hands, realizing she’d done something great.

“That’s it, add to her vocabulary,” I laughed, lifting Sajani out of the stroller and putting her down beside me so she could walk the rest of the short distance to the bakery with her little hand on Chickie’s head.

It was an adorable sight, the werewolf and the tiny little girl.

“Well, anyway, I think Janet’s all right, but we should go visit again soon. It was good we went when Cody was born, but I feel like she’s a bit alone there. She doesn’t have girlfriends or boyfriends around, and she has more trouble than Miro does making friends and trusting people.”

“Hey,” I groused.

“And next time when I say all, I mean you too, Miroslav,” Catherine scolded.

“What? Babies freak me out.”

“I don’t care. How’re you going to take care of your baby when the time comes if you don’t start practicing now?”

“Since when am I having a baby?”

“Ohmygod, that’s so funny, I was just telling him that he’d make a great father,” Aruna told her, wincing as she heard Sajani say “shit” again.

“It’s true, you would,” Catherine agreed. “You’re a natural caregiver. You’re way more maternal than me.”

And it was that, my two friends telling me how I would be with a kid, and the job change earlier in the day, as well as what Maureen Prescott had said, that prompted the response to Ian.

“Do you really think that’s the best use of me?”

“Use of you?” He was confused; it was there in his scowl and the instant crossing of arms. Ian wasn’t aware of it, but whenever anyone questioned him, he went instantly into his battle stance, bracing, feet apart, shoulders squared, chin up.

I shrugged. “I’m not a kick-the-door-down kinda guy, right? I’m more the ‘Can I come in so we can have coffee and talk?’ guy.”

“Yeah, but what does that matter? You go where I go.”

“Oh?”

“Is that not right?”

“Well, no, not necessarily.”

His eyes widened.

“No, not like that,” I said quickly, realizing with the amount of alcohol in my system, this was perhaps not the best time to talk about this. “I mean, we’ll always be together, just maybe not at work.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” he yelled. “I quit being a soldier for you!”

The accusation hurt, and I took a step back, but more than that, I was annoyed because I’d thought we were done with this. “No, you quit being a soldier for you.”

“No,” he argued, and I could feel the temperature of his voice drop by several degrees. “I quit because of our partnership at home and at work, so no, you don’t get to say now that you don’t want to be with me.”

“You quit to be home, and you quit because you knew you could still help people as a marshal, but those two things aren’t inseparable.”

“What?” he asked irritably.

“I’m your home, yes?”

“I already told—”

“And your job can be done with or without me as your partner.”

“That’s not what I signed on for,” he asserted, glaring at me, the muscles in his cheek working. “And I told you this would fuckin’ happen.”

“The hell are you talking about?”

“You’re sick of me being around, and you wanna get rid of me. You miss your time alone, and you wish I was off in some desert somewhere.”

The gasp was involuntary, it was like he’d hit me.

He looked startled, like he just figured out what came out of his mouth. “Wait,” he began, moving forward, reaching for me.

I deflected, brushing his hands away, and when he moved again, I backed up several more steps, needing the space. “Make no mistake,” I said, hearing the freeze in my voice. “I do not want you anywhere but home with me every night. But you want to be involved in the high-profile cases. You like going in first, with SOG, like SWAT. And you like to lead. I know that. I’m not asking you to change that about yourself.”

“Then what the hell are you saying?”

“That we don’t have the same skill set, and you know it,” I replied, shivering in the cold March air now that I was out of the club.

“The fuck are you doing?” he said, releasing a frustrated gust of air.

“You’re being an ass,” I told him. “How dare you say something so stupid to me, and if you really believe that you quit being a soldier for anyone but you—”

“Miro—”

“And if you’re gonna blame me for not doing what you love, then you should go back to doing it, and we’ll figure something else—”

“No,” he barked, rushing forward, taking my face in his hands, holding tighter when I tried to lift my head free. “I’m sorry, all right?”