by M. L. Briers
When Jerry gave Cain that drink she didn’t want to be anywhere near him in case he found the need to thank her, not that she expected he would, the man might have been a white knight saving her from Jake’s attention, but that was probably etched in his DNA, being nice didn’t seem to be in his repertoire. It was lucky he had good looks and a body like a Greek God; it was his only saving grace.
Claudia hummed to herself as she bobbed to the beat and made her way through the crowd. She’d love to meet the mate who’d had to put up with Cain for all those years. Or maybe not, she was probably a she-wolf from hell.
~
“Now, Marilyn, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea unless you want you, but I have something to whisper in your ear,” Neal said and edged around the seat of the booth until he was almost beside her.
Marilyn turned a steely gaze on him, and he stopped moving and questioned her with a raise of his eyebrows. “One more slither towards me, and you’ll be carrying your balls home in a glass,” she said with a sickly sweet smile made for anyone watching them.
“I’m not fond of that idea,” Neal said, but he had an easy smile on his lips, and she couldn’t help but notice how good he looked.
“Funny, now I’ve said it out loud the idea is growing on me,” Marilyn replied.
“I don’t think you mean that.”
“Oh, I think I do,” Marilyn informed him, and that sweet smile hadn’t left her lips once, but it was the sparkle of mischief in her eyes that warned him off. But even that didn’t stop him from leaning in, and she held her breath when her body took it upon itself to note his closeness.
“Now, don’t overreact and draw attention to yourself, but…”
“Seriously?” She pulled back and eyed him as if he was insane. “You do not start a sentence with the warning that the sky is about to fall, but please remain in your seat and smile for the world.”
Neal’s lips quivered as he went to speak, but thought better of it. He narrowed his gaze on her as he considered her words. “Fair enough, I take that back,” he said.
“No, because now I’m on edge…”
“And overreacting,” he offered. Then he put his index finger to his lips and leant in towards her once more. “Scott has moved into my house for his own safety.”
Marilyn snapped to attention. She drew back and scowled at him. “Safety?” she demanded an answer without doing the motherly thing of overreacting, or pointing out that he was a damn vampire and how safe could it be?
“There’s a new shifter in town,” he informed her.
Straight away; Marilyn started to scan the faces in the crowd looking for the threat that might be aimed at her son. It wasn’t overreacting to know where your enemy was and to get to him before he got to you, was it? She stopped at Lottie and Hank and rolled her eyes. “Do you mean Hank?”
“Who’s Hank?” he asked and followed where she pointed. “Hardly.” For obvious reasons, he couldn’t take his eyes off Lottie dressed as Dolly and shaking her thing with the elder shifter. “What…?” It was his turn to point, but he felt the harsh sting of magic and snapped a look back to Marilyn.
“Pointing is rude and makes people self-conscious,” she berated him, in her best motherly tone, not that Lottie was in any way self-conscious at the best of times, but he didn’t need to know that.
“You did it,” he reminded her.
“That was different,” Marilyn said, and when he went to protest, she changed the subject. “So, why would living with you make him safer than living with me?”
“Is that question because I’m a …” He deliberately stopped and looked around him, unseeing and uncaring of who was there, but it made a good dramatic pause and lightened the moment. His voice was still low, and no human could have heard him over the music in the venue, but he leant in anyway, using it as a good reason to stay close to her. “You know?”
“Nutritionally challenged?” There was a teasing smile on her lips that bewitched him.
“You mean…?” He tapped an incisor tooth with his fingertip. If they hadn’t been surrounded by humans, he might have shown a little fang, but it was neither the time nor the place for that.
“Fangs for the memories?”
Neal smiled, and that smile was tempting in ways she couldn’t control, but Marilyn reminded herself that he was designed that way. Being attracted to a vampire wasn’t a crime or a sin, but giving in to that temptation was bad for the soul and the blood supply.
“You put it so politely.”
“Well, we are out in public.”
“I have been invited into your house once before if you wanted privacy…”
“Bite me,” she offered with a big, teasing dollop of relish.
Neal leant in once more. “Tease,” he whispered against her ear, and that set off a little cascade of excitement and adrenaline within her that she hadn’t quite expected.
“Maybe in the old days, but now it’s just a flat out no.”
“No?”
“No, thank you?” she corrected and smacked on the brightest smile that mocked him.
Neal sat back against the seat and offered her a drop-dead gorgeous smile. Not hard, considering he was dead, and his kind of dead led unsuspecting women into his vampire-trap. Well, not her. He wasn’t the Borg from Star Trek and resistance wasn’t futile where he was concerned.
“I do like a challenge,” he said, and winked.
CHAPTER TWELVE
~
“I think I’ve put my hip out,” Lottie moaned, gingerly sliding onto a stool at the breakfast bar and holding her head. “How much did I drink, my head is throbbing an awful beat?”
“At least you didn’t put an eye out with your Dolly breasts,” Marilyn said and chuckled for good measure.
Claudia turned to look on the elder from her place at the counter two stools down and chuckled. “I’m surprised it’s just a hip,” she said. “Watching you and Hank on the dance floor last night was like watching an episode of Animal Kingdom.”
“How did I get here?” Lottie asked.
“It was for your own good, females circling the wagons around one of their own to stop them making a terrible mistake,” Claudia said.
“And you were going to stay with my mother, but you two had a bit of a blowout, so I put you in Scott’s room,” Marilyn added.
Lottie groaned at the sight of the pancakes that were shoved under her nose. Experience told her she needed to eat, but her tongue was practically sticking to the roof of her mouth, and she didn’t want to. “I remember dancing,” she said, thinking hard, and the thought of Hank slapped her in the face like a wet dishcloth.
“Oh, you did that,” Claudia said with glee.
“And then you moved on to shots,” Marilyn informed her.
Lottie narrowed her eyes until they were just dark slits and hummed in remembrance. “That’s right; I did that.”
“And then you were going to go home with the big, bad silver foxy-wolfman,” Claudia said, and Lottie perked up a little.
“I was?” she asked. “I don’t remember that part.”
“Which is why we circled the wagons and brought you home with us,” Claudia said.
“Well, you’re no fun,” Lottie grumbled, and the others chuckled.
“I thought I’d find you here, Jezebel,” Louann’s accusing tone echoed through the kitchen to announce her arrival.
“No thanks to you, I hear,” Lottie shot back, but she turned her head too fast and grumbled with the little sharp ice pick of pain that her body decided was payback for how she’d treated it the night before. She groaned.
“Serves you right,” Louann scolded her as she joined the others on the stool at the breakfast bar. “Lush.”
“Like you can’t put a good bottle of wine away in a sitting,” Lottie shot back.
“That’s in the comfort and privacy of my own home,” Louann said and nodded her thanks for the pancakes that appeared in front of her. “You looked like a geriatri
c call girl last night.”
“Jealousy is a terrible thing, Louann,” Lottie offered and got a snort of contempt in return.
“Act your age,” Louann bit out.
“Why you do enough of that for the both of us,” Lottie replied, and Claudia looked to Marilyn with a teasing smile.
“Don’t,” Marilyn warned her.
Claudia grinned, she couldn’t help herself. “I see our future, and it’s…”
“Scary,” Marilyn said with a grimace as she looked anywhere but at Claudia’s smug expression. When she shot another look at her, Marilyn groaned. Yes, she was in danger of becoming her mother. “I get it – I do – but, throwing me under the vampire bus is not the answer.”
“Hear, hear,” Louann said.
“Where’s Scott?” Lottie suddenly piped up.
Marilyn looked a little sheepish. It probably wasn’t the best time to tell them, considering her mother hated Neal and Claudia’s constant teasing, but she couldn’t put it off forever. “He’s moved in with – Neal,” she said, and lunged for Claudia’s plate, so she had a reason to make a fast escape to the other side of the room, but the witch got a grip on it, and she wouldn’t let go.
Claudia met Marilyn’s warning glare as they both held onto the plate. Claudia lowered her chin, and the corners of her lips stretched upwards, and Marilyn’s heart sank. “Winning over the family one child at a time,” she said. “I like his style.”
Marilyn practically growled. “There’s a new shifter in town, and it was the only way to protect Scott…”
“The only way?” Claudia asked with a mocking grin.
“What new shifter?” Louann asked.
“So that Scott could put wards up to keep shifters out of the house, or should we ban Josh and your friend Cain from coming here?” Marilyn was surprised when Claudia released the plate; she was caught off balance and took a step back.
“Cain is no friend of mine,” Claudia protested, dropping her gaze and reaching for the mug of coffee.
Marilyn put the plate aside, rested her elbows on the counter and placed her chin in her upturned hand. “I’m sensing that there’s a story there, tell me more.” It wasn’t what she’d said, but the sickly sweet way in which she’d said it that made Claudia nervous; she knew her friend, and that friend was like a shark smelling blood in the water.
“What?” Claudia asked with a look of mock disbelief and pure innocence, and she hoped she Marilyn was buying what she was selling. Heaven forbid that Marilyn would find something to get payback for Claudia teasing her about Neal. “There is no story here, go snoop-wolfy-wolf elsewhere,” she added and flicked her gaze at Lottie, hoping to use her and Hank as a distraction for Marilyn’s evil ways.
“I’m too old to take on a father and son,” Lottie said, and Louann snorted. “At the same time,” she added just to rile her friend up.
Claudia leant in over the counter towards Marilyn. “But if you want to add to your suitors…?” She flashed a bright, mocking smile, and jumped in place when the magic flicked her thumb like a snap from a ruler. Claudia cursed under her breath and sucked the sting out of it.
“Suits you,” Marilyn said with a mocking grin of her own. “I am on a men-on-pause, and anyone that messes with that is going down,” she warned.
“Well, you might want to rephrase that dear,” Lottie said with a wicked little smile of mischief.
Marilyn considered her words and groaned. “This is now a man-free zone,” she said motioning around her. Then she narrowed her eyes on Claudia. “You stop meddling and keep your nose out. No men.”
When the broom fell; Marilyn’s heart felt as if it dropped from her chest into her stomach and was vying for space with the large stone that had taken up residence there since her ex had gotten back into town. “Let’s see how long that lasts,” Louann grumbled into her coffee mug, and Marilyn was about to answer her when the doorbell rang out with perfect timing.
Claudia straightened and offered Marilyn a sweet smile. “I’d get it, but I’m keeping my nose out as per requested.”
There were times when Marilyn could gladly crawl into her nice big lonely bed, pull the duvet over her head, and stay there for an eternity – this felt like one of those times.
~
Sandy switched the sign on the shop door from closed to open and there he was, Amber’s father, looking all hopeful smiles and eagerness, and yet, there was something about him that made Sandy wary. A little rock formed and stayed in her stomach as she took a couple of steps back and opened the door to allow him in. Perhaps after hearing his story from Louann and Lottie, she was just projecting her dislike of his morals onto the man, but Sandy didn’t think so.
“Good morning,” Jake said, stepping inside the store and ignoring everything but her.
“Amber isn’t in yet, it’s my day to open up,” Sandy said. “But she’ll be here later.”
Jake grimaced. “I was hoping to see her before I went to see Scott,” Jake said. “I wanted to invite them both to lunch.”
“I don’t know where Scott is,” Sandy lied. She did know, but she was sworn to secrecy about the vampire, and she figured that telling anyone about Scott living with the man was a no-no – even if that man was his father. “He left.” She shrugged.
“Left?” Jake looked disappointed, but there was something else underneath that disappointment, like frustration, that made her curious.
“Town.” Sandy lied again, forcing the point home, and she wasn’t sure why; it was just a feeling, but she didn’t trust Amber’s father.
“Is he coming back?”
“I don’t know; I just work here,” she said with a small shrug.
“Don’t you live at Lottie’s?” he asked.
Now Sandy’s alarm bells were ringing, why would he know that? Maybe Amber had told him, maybe not. Maybe she was just on edge after everything that she’d been through with her ex, but something didn’t feel right, and she was learning to trust her instincts. “I do. Lottie was kind enough to take me in when the place I was staying burned down, but…” She left the words hanging on another shrug.
Jake looked as if he wasn’t sure if he was coming or going, and Sandy hoped he was going, but he seemed to be sizing her up for something, and she didn’t like it. Just then; Mrs Beaton appeared at the doorway and cleared her throat.
Jake moved out of the way, turned, and eyed the woman. “Estelle,” he said, recognising her immediately.
Mrs Beaton eyed him up and down and snorted her contempt. “It’s you,” she said with a dismissing tone. “Are you back?”
“I’m visiting,” Jake replied with a cordial smile, but for Sandy, his real feelings were right there in his eyes, and he didn’t look too happy about it. “Well, I’ll see Amber later,” he informed Sandy, and she nodded.
“I’ll tell her you were here asking about Scott,” Sandy said, and noted that he hesitated once more on his way out of the store. When he was finally gone she let out the pent up breath she was holding. Mrs B cocked an eyebrow at her. “Is it just me…?”
“Nope, he’s a wrong ‘un,” Mrs B said, and carried on into the store. Sadly, Sandy had to agree.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
~
When Marilyn pulled open the front door, her heart leapt from her stomach back into her chest and pounded an eighties beat. There he was, dressed in leather and jeans and he looked as if he’d just stepped out of a biker bad boy movie – not James Dean, but not a shiny vampire depicted in today’s movies either. He was – unique.
“No!” Marilyn offered her firmest denial of whatever it was that he wanted.
Neal offered her a lazy smile that was still devastatingly sexy. Ugh! Vampires. “Are you sure?” he whispered the words just to draw her in a little more and put out whatever bad mood fire she was in.
“Yes,” she offered with a sickly sweet smile.
“But, you have no idea what it is that I want,” he reasoned.
“True, and I can only
imagine a list of things that would bring you to my doorstep, but hey-ho, I’m not the kind of gal that gets all bent out of shape with the not knowing bit.”
Neal knew that about her, and it was annoying. Claudia was more likely to rip his arm off and beat him over the head with it until he spilt the beans, but Marilyn, she was her own person, and gossiping wasn’t on her to-do list. “It’s about a puppy,” he offered and noted her complete turnabout – now she looked interested.
“Puppy?” she asked and narrowed her eyes on him. “What did you do to the puppy?”
“Me? Not a thing, except give him a home in times of need,” he said, and that easy smile turned into a devilish one.
Marilyn snapped to attention. “It’s not a puppy, is it?”
“Well, the puppy is yay tall.” He motioned almost to his own height, and she thumbed her nose at him.
“Scott…”
“Exactly, your puppy,” he said, pointing to her.
Marilyn took a breath and fidgeted on her feet. Now she was interested, of course, she was, and she hated herself for having a weak spot - family. “What about him?”
“He’s annoying, and I’m looking for somewhere to escape his annoyingness,” he said.
Marilyn had the natural instinct to slam the door in his face for trying to mess with her, and she would have if he hadn’t brought Scott into things. Family – ugh! “Fine,” she said, and reluctantly pushed the door all the way open. “Come in.”
Neal offered her an even more devilish grin, and she had to admit that it looked good on him. “That’s the second time you’ve invited me in; this is becoming a habit.” He walked by her and felt the whip of the wind as she slammed the door closed behind him.
“Third time’s a charm; I’ll turn you into a blood-sucking toad,” she bit out and scooted by him to head off the protests in the kitchen for when the vampire appeared, namely from her mother. “We have company,” she announced, walking in ahead of him.