So she set out, and it did hurt. Every step brought pain, and she supposed that was all the proof she needed that she wasn’t dead and this wasn’t the afterlife. Yet it did not erase from her mind the knowledge that there was something otherworldly going on here. Something about him, or this island.
Or both.
It really did hurt to walk. Maybe he’d been right, she thought, once she’d traipsed a few dozen yards into the palms. She did seem to be limping a bit more with every step. Still, she pressed on, walking very slowly along a well-worn footpath that twisted and writhed through the forest. And even as she traversed the trail, night began to give birth to the day. The sky paled slightly, and in the space of a heartbeat the hush around her was filled with bird calls as the forest came to raucous life.
She smiled at their songs, their cries, their screeches, and wished she could identify them by their voices. Maybe if she were here long enough she could make a study of them.
But, of course, she wouldn’t be here long at all. Diego had made that much perfectly clear, hadn’t he?
Such a beautiful place to live, she thought. And then another thought followed on its heels. Such a beautiful place to die.
She knew she should have felt at peace with that thought. Just as she had come to a peaceful acceptance of her own demise while she’d been at sea. Gradually she’d understood that this was just part of the journey. She’d accepted her own end, had started looking forward to seeing what was on the other side.
Of course, that had been when she’d still thought he would be waiting for her there. Her Spanish angel, Diego.
Now she no longer felt peaceful about it at all. In fact, thinking about her life ending filled her with an uncomfortable sense of foreboding. Of unease. Of near panic. What the hell had happened to her serenity?
She emerged from the tree line onto an expanse of white sand that sloped ever so gently to the sea. Waves rolled in, broke and thinned until they were little more than froth on the sand, and then the sea sucked them back again. Over and over. A hypnotic, healing energy wafted over her, as if generated by the movements of those waves.
Live in the moment, she reminded herself. Make the very most of every single moment. Just like you’ve been doing for the past two months. Just be in the moment, and don’t think too much about the future.
Yes. That felt marginally better.
She sank down onto the sand, drawing her knees to her chest and gazing outward toward the horizon. And she saw the blazing hint of fire that touched the sky at the very end of the sea—for just an instant, until it became a glowing curve. Then the edge of the giant dinner-plate sun, rising as if from the depths of the ocean itself.
It was beautiful here, she thought, smiling. She really didn’t think she was going to want to leave.
Diego had slept with his bedroom door locked, something he hadn’t felt the need to do since he’d hosted the only other houseguest ever to visit Serenity Island. He didn’t need another woman poking around, uncovering his secrets. Perhaps exposing them this time, and his haven with them. There was too much at stake. And he knew, from cruel experience, that once she had what she wanted her apparent enchantment with his home and his island—not to mention with him—would evaporate. Because it wasn’t real. He gathered up fresh clothing and took it with him into the bathroom, where he indulged in his nightly ritual of a piping hot shower. It felt delicious against his supersensitive skin. Vampires felt everything more powerfully than humans did. Pleasure. Pain, too.
If anything, he thought as he stood beneath the steaming spray, Anna was even more beautiful than Cassandra had been. Her essence, her aura, was like a soft golden glow. The impression she gave was of a pure spirit, good to her core. But tender, too. Vulnerable. Easily frightened. Of course, that could just be what she wanted him to believe. She might be very good at disguising her true motives. Blocking her thoughts. It wasn’t impossible. Some mortals could do it. Cassandra could.
Maybe Anna was…
She wasn’t in the house.
He realized it as he basked in the shower’s pulsing flow. There was no sense of his wounded houseguest whatsoever.
He cranked off the shower knobs, stopping the flow of the solar-heated water, and stood there dripping, cocking his head to one side, feeling for her. Then he frowned. Her essence was there, but distant. Near the beach, he thought.
Stepping out of the shower stall, he toweled off, dressed in khaki trousers and a short-sleeved yellow shirt, then headed down the stairs and outside. His hair was still wet, and he was barefoot. But then, he was nearly always barefoot. He walked, gathering his hair in a band behind his head. The shirt still hung unbuttoned, but it was a warm night, and he loved the air on his skin. Often he didn’t wear any clothes at all. Why bother? He was entirely alone here, aside from the animals he so loved.
As he emerged onto the beach, he saw her curled on one side, sleeping in the sand. Close beside her Charlie, a familiar iguana, stood in the stand, poised and motionlessly staring at her face. As if waiting for her to wake up.
Certain she’d been there for a while, Diego knelt beside her, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Anna. Wake up, now.”
She smiled in her sleep, twisting a little, rubbing her cheek over her shoulder. “Hmm?”
“Wake up now,” he repeated, trying not to notice how irresistibly attracted he was to her in this state. Or any state, he corrected. “Come on.”
Her beautiful eyes opened, like jewels shining on him with a power that surprised him. And then, as she noticed the animal so near her face, her smile become full blown. “Well, hello there, little guy.” She met the reptile’s steady gaze, and her own was nonthreatening. Almost beaming with love. Lifting a hand, she tentatively stroked one crooked finger over Charlie’s neck.
The iguana leaned into her touch the way an affectionate cat might do. So much for loyalty, Diego thought.
“I think he likes you,” he said, and then he sighed. “Anna, meet Charlie. He’s an Acklins iguana, and he’s quite upset that he’s not looking his best right now. Those browns and greens, though quite lovely, brighten up to oranges and yellows during the hottest parts of the day, or so I’ve read.”
The lizard gave a slow, contented blink, then turning, skittered away into the undergrowth, his very gait a comedy of its own.
Anna laughed. “Do you name all the animals who live here?”
“Only the ones I get to know well,” he said.
She was still smiling. It was hard to believe she might be up to no good, conniving or plotting to use him. Hard to believe there was anything other than sweetness in her, when she smiled at him like that.
“I can’t believe I fell asleep.” She pushed her hands through her auburn curls, that were more beautiful tousled than neat, he thought.
“How long have you been out here?”
She blinked, her gaze sliding from his to the sea, the horizon, the night sky. “All day,” she said, sounding only slightly surprised. “I watched the sunrise.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t burn to a crisp,” he told her. Then he tipped his head up, noticing the thick fronds of the palm above her. “This tree must like you as much as Charlie did. She protected you.”
“She?” Her eyes followed his, and she examined the graceful tree, the way its trunk bent over and its fronds draped low, giving her shade for almost the entire day. “It does look rather feminine at that.”
“You must be starving.”
“I am.” She extended a hand. “Help me up?”
Diego clasped her hand and pulled her onto her feet with him; then, turning, he began walking her back along the footpath toward the house. “Aside from hunger, how do you feel?”
She shot him a quick look. “I’m very sore. Way more than I realized. I hurt all over.” She slowed her pace, added a pronounced limp. “I thought I was strong enough to walk down to the beach and back, but…you were right. I think my body took a far worse beating out there on the roc
ks than I knew.”
He sensed that she was being less than perfectly honest and delved into her mind, just a little. He felt her pain, the stiffness, the aches. They were bad, yes. But she was pouring it on a bit more than she would normally do, and he heard, clearly, her rationale. Don’t act like you’re doing too well, dummy, or he’ll be hauling you back to the mainland before the night is out. Besides, you’re not doing all that well.
Just as he’d suspected. She was playing it up so she could stay here longer. And that certainly lent credence to his suspicion that she had come out here knowing already what he was and what he could do for her. She had come out here to trick him into sharing the Dark Gift with her.
When all she had to do was ask.
Or maybe…maybe he was wrong. Hell, how could he know for sure?
“Did you enjoy the sunrise, at least?” he asked, to keep her talking. Because the more he conversed with her, the more of herself she revealed. Soon he would see all her secrets.
She stopped walking to beam up at him. “It was most beautiful one I’ve ever seen, Diego.” She met his eyes as she said it, then looked beyond him, shaking her head. “This entire place—it’s like your own personal Eden.”
“That’s exactly how I think of it.”
She smiled. “I’m very grateful to you for putting up with my presence for a little while. It’s awfully generous of you to share this special place with a stranger. Although…” She stopped there, gnawing her lower lip in a way that made him want to taste it.
“Although?” he prompted.
Tipping her head up, she stared into his eyes. “You don’t feel like a stranger to me at all.”
Like a magnet, she pulled him nearer. Not physically, but with those eyes. They tugged, and he felt his head begin to lower, his eyelids begin to fall. But he caught himself, blinking free of the spell she’d cast and straightening up again.
She lowered her head quickly, almost as if embarrassed. “I don’t suppose that makes any sense to you, does it?”
“It doesn’t matter if it makes sense to me. And it’s not as if this is the first time you’ve mentioned it. It’s your feeling, and you have a right to it.” He set off toward the house again, step by step, though she seemed to want to take it very slowly.
“It’s just that…well, it goes back to the worst day of my life, or what I thought at the time was the worst. About two months ago.” She looked over at him as they walked.
He wasn’t touching her anymore, but it was all he could do not to. He wanted to slide an arm around her waist, to hold her against him. He wanted to help her, because he could feel the discomfort that walking brought, but also the pleasure she was taking in the stroll.
Touching her right then, he decided, would be a mistake. He met her eyes briefly, to let her know he was listening, even though he thought he knew what she was about to say.
“Actually, it goes back a lot further than that. I’d been seeing a face, hearing a voice, in my dreams since I was a teenager. I thought I was seeing my soul mate then. But later I decided he was someone else entirely.”
“He?”
“You.”
He lifted his brows, studying her.
“But back to that night, two months ago. I’d been feeling…tired. Lethargic. Sleeping more and more, and sometimes during the day, too.” She smiled. “Like you.”
He smiled back but didn’t interrupt.
“It seemed to keep getting worse, so I finally saw a doctor. And she told me…” She paused, as if needing to gather her strength to go on. “She told me I was dying.”
Then she looked at him again as if to gauge his reaction. But it didn’t seem appropriate to feign shock or surprise. “I’m sorry, Anna. That must have been extremely difficult for you to hear.”
“It was. I was…I was devastated, really. But then…then I wasn’t.”
He lifted his brows.
“I just had to process it all. My life was ending. And I think what I really regretted was that I’d never lived. I’d spent my life taking care of others—people who never even seemed all that appreciative of it. Mary—my doctor—she tried to tell me that, but I didn’t really get it, you know? Not down deep. Not until I wandered down to the harbor, where all the sailboats come in. I’ve always loved the sea, always wanted to buy a sailboat and just head out into the ocean alone. No worries. No cares.”
“And what’s kept you from doing that up to now?” he asked, honestly curious.
She shrugged. “My sister. Well, her kids, really. She’s an addict.”
“Heroin?”
“Prescriptions. Anything she can get her hands on, really. Vicodin, Percocet, Ativan, Oxy.” She shrugged. “I gave up trying to help her long ago. She has to want to help herself, and she just doesn’t. But she has two kids, and they needed me. So I was there for them. I mean, they lived with her, but I was the one making sure there was always food in the house, keeping the power from being shut off and the heat on. I was the one who bought all their school clothes, and went to all the open houses and parent-teacher conferences and holiday concerts. I was the one who kept Child Protective Services from declaring her unfit and taking them away from her for good.”
He nodded, and he knew she was underselling all she had done, minimizing it.
“The kids grew up and headed off to college. Now they both have jobs, they’re living on their own—not high on the hog or anything. But they support themselves, and over time they’ll do even better. So I stopped paying my sister’s bills.” She looked at him, as if waiting for his verdict on that. But he said nothing, and so she went on. “See, when I paid them before, it was for the kids’ sake, but now it would just make me an enabler. She’s not going to take care of herself unless she’s forced to. It’s the best thing I can do for her.”
“You don’t have to defend your actions to me, Anna. Not only am I not your judge, I agree with your decision completely. I doubt I’d have done as much as you have, in your position.”
She thinned her lips. “I love my sister.”
“That I will judge. You don’t love your sister. You love who she could be, maybe who she once was and who she could become again. But you don’t love who she is now. A negligent mother, an addict without the backbone to get herself clean. Who could love that? What is there to love in that?”
She lowered her head. He thought her eyes were growing moist. “When I refused to keep helping her, the kids disowned me. They won’t even speak to me anymore.”
“And how long did all of this happen before you were handed your…prognosis?” He’d been about to say “death sentence,” then decided it was too harsh.
“A few months.”
He nodded slowly.
“So, anyway, that’s where I was in my life that night, as I sat on the pier by the lighthouse, staring out at the ocean and crying and wishing someone would step in and tell me what to do. And that’s when I…had this…encounter.”
He lifted his brows but didn’t meet her eyes. “Encounter?”
“Vision, maybe? Maybe it all happened inside my head. But it was very clear, very vivid. Like it was real. I met…this man. The same man I’d been dreaming about all my life. He came to me, and he held me, and he told me it would be a sin not to live what was left of my life to the fullest, doing what I had always wanted to do most. He said that was our whole reason for being here in the first place.”
“Sounds like a very wise man.”
“It was you, Diego,” she said softly. She stopped walking, staring up at him. Forcing him to meet her steady, probing gaze. “I swear, it was you. How is that possible?”
He had to hold her eyes, but it was very difficult for him to lie to her when she was looking at him so intently. In fact, he didn’t think he could. But for the life of him, he couldn’t sense deception in her just now. He didn’t think she knew what he was, not in that moment.
“Is it possible,” he asked, “that you were feeling so low that the man you be
lieve you met that night seemed to…to save you? And that since I also saved you, though in a different way, your subconscious mind has created a connection that wasn’t there before?”
She blinked, and a tiny crease appeared right above the bridge of her nose. He had to restrain himself from bending to kiss it away. “I…hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“It’s just a notion,” he said. Then he paused, as a tawny-colored bat flew from a nearby palm, swooping and diving right over her head. She caught her breath, ducking at first, from sheer instinct, but then straightening and watching with awe.
“I’ve never seen a bat that color before.”
“That’s Buffy.”
She grinned so wide he almost laughed. “After the vampire slayer?” she asked.
He was stunned by those words and stared at her, his eyes no doubt wide with horror. “Vampire…slayer?”
“The television show. It was…well, obviously you’ve never seen it.”
He sighed, relief flooding him. “No. No television reception out here. Nor would I want there to be.”
She nodded. “So then why name the bat ‘Buffy’?”
“It’s her name. She’s a buffy flower bat. They supposedly only live in the Bahamas, but she’s living proof otherwise.”
She smiled, then lifted her eyes and her hand, wiggling her fingers. “Hey, Buffy.” She kept watching the bat’s antics. “She looks so carefree. Not a worry in the world.”
“What is there to worry about, after all?” he asked.
She tilted her head sideways, looking at him curiously. “Dying?”
“Humans are born dying,” he told her. “It’s as natural as the sun setting at night. Part of the cycle. It’s all fine. Everything’s fine.” He watched her taking that in, and then, when she seemed to have absorbed it, he went on. “What did you do, after that night when the…the vision told you it was all right to live as you wanted to?”
She met his eyes. “I did what I wanted to.” And then she smiled. “I put my house on the market, quit my job, wrote my will, planned my funeral—all the next day. And then I started looking for a sailboat. And you know, it was as if the day I learned I was dying, I finally started living.”
Vacation With a Vampire & Other Immortals Page 5