I had to admit, this wasn't what I expected when my dad told me that I'd have a partner. He said she was capable, but what I saw before my eyes was a woman my age, and she had a huge chip on her shoulder. But my dad had told me to go with her. So, I was in her Mustang (not a bad choice for a car, I had to admit—so, at least the girl had taste), watching as we pulled up to some dive motel. We were actually supposed to stay there? I looked at her with an inquisitive look on my face. Outside, god, there were chips of brown paint dragging almost halfway down the walls, revealing the color underneath, which was something of an off bright greenish yellow. And it looked like no more than a quintuple wide trailer. Smaller than any hotel I had ever seen in my life. "You're not serious, are you? We're staying here?"

She looked at me with an annoyed look on her face. "Well, if you can cough up for four hundred dollars a night to stay in the Ritz Carlton—or, better still, FIND a Ritz Carlton in central Iowa? I'd be more than happy to stay there, but...I don't see any, so the..." she glanced up at the name of the hotel, and scoffed a little. "...Rusty Snail?...it is..." she said as she opened the trunk. "Rusty Snail? As if they couldn't come up with a better name for a hotel than 'the Rusty Snail.' What is it supposed to be, like, us sleeping in the shell or something?" she took out my bags and handed them to me, then slung her own over her shoulders.

I had to laugh, because the Rusty Snail was a really pathetic name for a hotel. "At least it isn't in the shape of a snail..." I added with a shrug, reaching into my pocket for my wallet and the fake ID that my dad had put together for me. Alexander Petrov? Was I supposed to be Russian? I decided that I'd just be silent and let Grace do all the talking once we got inside. If she was as good at what she did as my dad said she was, she could certainly handle it. "Petrov?" I asked with an eyebrow cocked. I glanced at the age. Well,at least he'd made me over twenty-one.

She shrugged and grinned. "It was either that or Elivander Brudgecko. And I'm not even sure what nationality that name is, so I chose the one that I could at least recognize..." she smirked and nodded toward the door.

I stopped in my tracks. "You chose these?" I asked, rushing to catch up with her. "What name did you give yourself?" I asked her, waiting as she pulled the fake ID from her pocket. I looked it over. Christiane LaValle. So, she was supposed to be French? This I had to see. The girl looked as all American as the day was long. I watched as she walked up to the front desk and put her...or, Christiane's credit card on the table.

"'Ow you say...a room pour le deux, sil vous plait?" she asked the clerk with flawless pronunciation on all words, and I let a small smirk come to my face when the clerk gave her a confused glance. "Uh...un room..." she reached into her bag and pulled out a French to English dictionary, holding her index finger up. "Alexander...aide, sil tu plait..." she called me over her shoulder. Nice touch. She flipped through the pages. "Room...for..." she paused, and I pointed out a word on the page. "two..." she said, pronouncing the 'w' in two, for added effect.

The clerk raised an eyebrow and nodded, taking the credit card from the desk. "One bed or two?" she asked quickly, but held her fingers up to signify what she meant, putting her hands to the side of her face when she spoke the word 'bed.' I stifled a laugh and watched as Grace held two fingers up. The clerk pointed at the price on the computer, and Grace nodded as she put the card through the reader, then handed us a room key and the credit card. "Enjoy your st—ah, you can't understand me..." she said as she closed the window.

I smirked and followed Grace to our room. Room eighteen. She opened the door, and although it wasn't much to look at, there were two beds and four walls. And a shower. I tossed my bags to the floor and chose one of the beds, looking at Grace for a second. "I'm impressed..." I told her after she'd shut the door and tossed her bag onto the other bed. She looked at me inquisitively, so I kept talking. "Well, part of me expected you to be..."

She rolled her eyes and interrupted me. "Some twenty-something, tall, leggy blonde with big boobs and blah blah," she said in an obviously annoyed tone. "And when you saw me you thought you were going to have to teach me what to do but you saw me right there and your mind is changed?" she asked. Well, yeah, that was more or less it. I nodded and turned a little red. "It's okay, Dean. It's a normal reaction. But you know what? I've spent the past two years trained by your father. And before that, I lived right across from one of those roadhouses for hunters, so I learned a lot about hand-to-hand combat and weapons and all that. I do still get the occasional skeptic, though."

I sat on the bed and smiled at her. "It's not that I'm skeptical, Grace. If my father has so much faith in you, and lets you and I go out on our own? You must be good..." I told her, brushing a hand over my hair, noting that it was almost time for a cut. I looked like one of those guys in those boy-bands. "I just didn't expect you to be so good at conning. That French accent was...almost authentic. That's what impressed me..." I said as I reached into my bag of clothing and pulled out a set of pajamas.

She chuckled and reached into her bag, getting her own pajamas. "Well, my last name is Desrosiers. French name..." she laughed a little. "I had to learn French because my mom would only speak it after..." she paused, then turned toward the window on the other side of the room. "Let's go to bed, Dean. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow..." she told me, biting her lower lip as though trying to shut herself up.

But I was really curious now. I bit my lip and looked at her as she walked into the bathroom to change. Just because she wasn't a tall, leggy blonde? By no means meant that she wasn't hot. She was hot. And I was curious about her. And in that same breath, I was actually kind of glad that my dad had partnered me up with her. I changed into my pajamas while she was in the bathroom and walked into the bathroom after she left, leaving the door open a little, since I was already changed. I grinned a little. How was it possible for a woman to smell good when getting ready for bed? I leaned over the sink and rinsed my face, then glanced out at her. So, she was the girl that my dad was so proud of. Maybe she knew...things about my dad. Maybe she could answer the questions I had about my dad's life when he was away. Sure, he'd taught me enough to get by, but...I felt like I barely knew him. I opened the door when I was done rinsing my face, and look at her as I shut the door behind me again. "So, what was it that made you have to learn French?" I asked her as I took a seat on the bed.

She looked at me and shrugged. "Oh. Um..." she lay back on the bed. "My dad died when I was four. Boating accident, I guess. I like, just barely remember it, but...I was told that my family was on a boat together and...my mom grabbed me and jumped off with me, just in time for my dad to, like, crash into another boat..." she frowned. "And after that...my mom...she reverted back to her French state of mind, you know? So, she'd only speak it, and I needed to learn to, in order to be able to talk to her..." she trailed off.

I nodded and lay back in bed, too, propping myself up on my hand and putting my elbow to the bed. "I was four when my mom died, too. I didn't see her die, all I saw was my dad putting my little brother in my arms and telling me to run for the door and don't turn back..." I told her. We had a lot in common. I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, then took a deep breath.

She nodded and ran a hand through her hair. "I know. John told me..." she said sadly, and I looked over at her. "I know that you don't understand a lot of the things your dad tells you to do, Dean. You and your brother. But..." she shrugged and showed me a small smile. "I've been working with your dad for two years now. And he's never put me into a situation that I couldn't get myself out of. And I'm not even his kid. So, I'm sure he'd never do it to you..."

I smiled at her and shrugged a shoulder. "I know that. I do, but...it's just weird that, I don't, like, hear from him for a couple weeks in a row, and all of a sudden he calls me and says that I'm supposed to work with a stranger, you know?" I paused, realizing that I may have sounded a bit rude. "I'm sorry. That wasn't supposed to be that rude. It...wasn't supposed to be rude at all. I just—I don't know. I am sorry, though..." I bit my lip and ran a hand through my hair.

She nodded and showed me an apologetic glance. "I know, Dean. I mean, I don't know from personal experience, but...I know it has to be tough..." she put her arms behind her head. "Let's, like...try and get some sleep, okay? I'm not trying to avoid the conversation, I promise, but..." she sighed. "I just...don't know what I'm supposed to say. I feel really bad. Like I, like, stole your father. And I didn't mean to..."

I shook my head. "I don't think that," I told her. I didn't. I understood why she thought that I might, because I'd never heard of my dad talking about me like he did about her. But, I didn't resent her for it. "I just...wish he was as proud of me and the fact that I'm trying to be everything he wants me to be...as he was of you..." I told her. I didn't mean to say it. It just kind of slipped. "Um...I mean..." I tried to cover my ass, but it was too late.

Grace shook her head and looked at me. "Dean. He is so freaking proud of you it's insane. Seriously. Both you and Sammy. All he talked about to me was how he couldn't wait until I got a chance to hunt with his two sons. 'The finest hunters out there,' he'd say. He is so freaking proud of you that...God, I wanted a family like yours, Dean..." she said, glancing at me. "You know, I know all of the little 'what Dean used to do when he was little' traits, and we've only known each other for three hours?" she laughed.

I turned a little red. "Really?" I asked and watched as she nodded. Hearing her say that my dad was that proud of me...I suddenly felt a little better about working with her. A little more confident in myself, too. She smiled at me and I smiled back, then lay back against the pillow a little more. "G'night, Grace..." I said softly as I reached over to turn the lamp beside my bed off and closed my eyes.

Grace did the same, and I heard a smile in her voice as she said, "Good night, Dean..."

I thought about the situation I was in for a second. Maybe this wasn't the WORST thing ever to happen to me. Maybe Grace and I could work well together. Maybe we could even become friends...