“You had a lot of stuff to consider. But now that the baby’s coming…My father…He’s even more excited about it than I am.”

“He loves kids.”

A nod as Nick dropped his gaze to his coffee cup.

“Is that it? You feel like you should give him one? A grandson?”

“Shouldn’t I? Hell, what else do I give him? I’m forty-three, never left home, piss around his company pretending I’m working…” He cut himself off with a snarl of disgust. “And I can’t even bother bringing him home a grandson?”

“Do you think he cares? My God, Nick, if you think your father expects you to have a son for him…Antonio would never-”

“Of course, he wouldn’t. He doesn’t expect anything of me. And he’s never disappointed.”

I leaned forward and moved my leg against his. As I opened my mouth, he moved back fast, gaze flying over my shoulder.

“Clayton’s coming,” he said. “Don’t-”

“I wouldn’t.”

“And…forget I said a thing, okay?” He leaned back and made a face. “I’m just…in a mood these days. You’ve got enough to worry about-”

“I can always use a distraction. I won’t forget it, whether you want me to or not.”

I looked over my shoulder and called to Clay, “Better hurry. I’ve been eyeing your bagel.”

Clay walked up to the table and put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s yours, darling. You two divvy up my plate. I’ll get more.”

I smiled up at him. “Thanks. Oh, and if you could-”

“Yeah, I’ll top up your coffee.” He took my half-full mug, but waved off Nick’s. “You’re not pregnant. Get your own. You can move that table over here too. Jeremy and Antonio are on their way.”

“Are they bringing Jaime?” I asked.

Clay shrugged, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. That was no bad reflection on Jaime. Clay might not have been particularly interested in Jaime as a person, but he didn’t dislike her either, which was, with Clay, about as much as an outsider could hope for.

Jeremy did arrive with Jaime…and with news. Cholera cases were still trickling in-either unreported incidences from the original outbreak or secondary contamination.

“The hospitals are scrambling,” Antonio said, “but it’s under control. The problem now is convincing people of that.”

“Like SARS,” I said. Just a year ago, the WHO had issued an advisory against traveling to Toronto after the outbreak had been contained, and the city was still reeling from the effects.

“The memory of SARS only serves to magnify the panic,” Jeremy said. “As with that Walkerton water contamination case. People are understandably nervous and, apparently, many have decided to squeeze in an unplanned week at the cottage.”

“Traffic jams on the 400 northbound instead of south this morning, I’ll bet. I’m afraid to ask: anything…new?”

Jeremy hesitated, as if as reluctant to say anything as I was to hear it. “Reports in two papers about an outbreak of rat bites in the downtown area, but it pales in comparison with the water contamination problems.”

“So far,” I muttered. “Any signs of things spreading beyond Toronto?”

He shook his head. “Everything appears to be contained to the city, and primarily the core.”

“It’s likely to stay that way too,” Jaime said, her first words since we exchanged good mornings. “The effects are usually localized.”

“So-”

The ring of my cell phone cut me off. An unfamiliar local number appeared in the display.

“Shanahan?” Nick mouthed.

“Let’s hope so,” I said before I pushed the talk button.

“Good morning,” sang a chipper female voice. “I’d ask to speak to someone specific, but I don’t have a name. I suppose I could ask for the lovely lupus I met the other night.”

“Hello, Zoe,” I said. “You got my message?”

“Message?”

I told her about my visit to Miller’s.

“Ah, no. Message undelivered. I didn’t stop in last night and Rudy can be a bit protective, so he didn’t phone me to say you’d called. Here, let me give you my number, in case that happens again.”

I jotted it down. “You remembered something?”

“After a night of mind-clearing thievery and a morning of mind-settling yoga, I do believe the memory files are creaking open. I’m just running off to the library right now, but perhaps we could meet for lunch?”

“Which library?”

“At the uni. Getting a head start for my fall classes. Got to keep the mind sharp. At my age, it’s the first thing to go.” A tinkling laugh. “Or, with vamps, the only thing to go. Are you familiar with the campus?”

“York or U of T?”

“U of T.”

“Very. Give me a place and time, and I’ll be there.”

Professor

WE’D BEEN AT THE UNIVERSITY ONLY FIVE MONTHS AGO, when Clay had done a stint of lectures, filling in for a hospitalized colleague. We hadn’t come to this particular cafeteria, though. I’d avoided it, sometimes going several buildings out of my way rather than grab a drink or snack at this one. Clay knew why, though we never discussed it. When Zoe suggested this cafeteria, I’d been tempted to insist on someplace else, but hadn’t. I needed to get past this.

This was the cafeteria I brought Logan to the first time I’d met him, and the one we’d always used when he came to the university to see Clay and me. Logan, my Pack brother, the best friend in those years when I’d fought my ambivalence about the Pack, about being a werewolf, and about the man who’d made me one. Logan, dead five years now.

Five years. My breath caught when I even thought about it, as if unable to believe so much time had passed when the pain was still so sharp, when I could look down the hall, see those empty tables and see him there.

“I can grab Zoe,” Clay murmured, his breath warm against my ear. “Bring her outside instead.”

I shook my head.

“Can you grab us some cold drinks?” Clay asked Nick, with none of his usual mock-bullying bluster. He even reached for his wallet, but Nick waved him away.

Logan ’s relationship with Clay had been an uneasy friendship even before I came along. They were too different for anything more. After Clay bit me…well, they’d never been close after that. Clay hadn’t been able to control his jealousy of my friendship with Logan when I was often barely on speaking terms with him. Logan had never forgiven Clay for biting me, not after he’d sworn he’d never hurt me.

I remembered the first time Logan saw Clay after he bit me. I’d finally asked Jeremy to revoke Clay’s banishment, and a week later, Logan had come to Stonehaven. He hadn’t known Clay was back, and we hadn’t known Logan was coming. At the time, I’d been out grocery shopping with Nick while Antonio and Jeremy had gone to Syracuse.

When Nick and I came back, we found Clay and Logan on the back patio. I can still see-no, I can hear it. That’s what I remember-hearing the dull thwack of fist hitting flesh.

We’d raced to the back door. There was Logan -good-natured, easygoing Logan -beating the hell out of Clay. And Clay? Clay just let him-just took it, his face already swollen and cut, his shirt bloodied, blood flying from his mouth.

In the years that followed, I’d thought of that scene, and I would tell myself that Clay had staged it, that he’d let Logan whale on him because he’d wanted me to see him taking it, like a little boy getting a whupping he thinks he deserves.

I knew better, even then. Clay was incapable of plotting and carrying out a ruse like that. He’d taken the beating because he’d thought he deserved it, and because he’d thought Logan deserved to be the one to dish it out.

Clay cleared his throat. I looked over at him.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I know you don’t want to talk about names…for the baby, I mean. And this probably isn’t the time, but I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and maybe you wouldn’t want to, but if you did, if we have a boy…” He shrugged. “ Logan ’s a good name.”