Lydia had a lot of issues when it came to ghost-hunters. He had tried to distance himself from Guild politics as far as possible, but he knew that she still fretted about his connections to the organization.

Now, thanks to the near-fatal assault on Mercer Wyatt a few hours ago, there was no point in even raising the issue of marriage in the immediate future.

He poured two glasses of the evil white wine and put the bottle back in the refrigerator. There was no sound from the bedroom. Lydia had had plenty of time to change into a pair of jeans and a sweater. What was keeping her?

Fuzz tumbled silently into the kitchen and looked up at him from the floor. The dust-bunny bobbed anxiously.

"What is it, pal? Want a pretzel?" Emmett removed the lid of the jar. Dust-bunnies were omnivorous. Lydia usually fed Fuzz whatever she had fixed for herself. But when it came to snacks, he had a pronounced taste for pretzels.

But Fuzz ignored the pretzel. Instead he made an odd noise, a sound that was very close to a tiny growl.

"Okay, no pretzel." Emmett replaced the lid of the jar. "Something wrong, buddy?"

A tremor passed over Fuzz's fur. He looked as if he was trying to bristle, not an easy thing for a ball of lint to do. Then he bounced a couple of times, turned and scampered a few feet back toward the bedroom, halted and tumbled back into the kitchen. He bristled some more.

"Right." Emmett picked up the two glasses of wine. "You want to play the Find Lydia game, is that it?"

Fuzz drifted swiftly back down the hall toward the bedroom.

Emmett followed warily. They had played this game many times in recent weeks both indoors and outside on the street or in a nearby park. Fuzz loved it. The rules were simple. Emmett would look at Fuzz and say, find Lydia, and Fuzz would rush off gleefully to lead him to wherever she happened to be at that moment.