by C. C. Hunter
The question bounced around Miranda’s bruised conscience where she’d been kicking the question around herself for the last few weeks. She wanted to deny it.
“Close,” she offered in truth. Or at least what she’d thought was the truth until she’d started thinking about taking that first-time step with Shawn, the one she’d almost taken with Perry. Thinking and wondering why she’d felt so ready then, and not so ready now.
Tabitha’s shoulder came against Miranda’s. “If you need to talk. I’ll listen.”
“I know,” Miranda said. “But to talk about something you need to at least have a handle on how you feel. I’m handleless! Part of me still cares about Perry, and part of me hasn’t forgiven him. I loved him and he completely blindsided me by breaking it off.”
Tabitha’s brows narrowed. “Yeah, but you said he broke things off because he thought you deserved better.”
“It still hurt. And I would have taken him back when he admitted it to me, but he didn’t give me a chance before running out of my life again.”
“Well, when he came back and you were paying attention to Shawn, Perry probably thought you had made your mind up.”
“Shawn was in the hospital, I wasn’t seeing him as a girlfriend.”
“I’m not saying you did anything wrong, just that it sent the wrong message to Perry.”
Miranda took in a big gulp of air that tasted like guilt. “I hate it when people do that.”
“Do what?” Tabitha asked.
“Use logic. Kylie does it all the time.” Miranda exhaled. “I’m so screwed up.”
Tabitha gave Miranda’s shoulder another I’m-here-for-you bump. “Not screwed up, but you do need to shit or get off the pot.”
“How? I’m emotionally constipated.” She eyed her sister. “First you sounded like Kylie and now you’re beginning to sound like Della.”
Tabitha grinned. “Probably the word ‘shit.’ Shit seems to be an essential part of a vampire’s vocabulary. Anthony says it all the time.” She almost smiled. “Not that I mind. Everything he says in that French accent sounds like poetry.”
Tabitha dropped her head on Miranda’s shoulder. They sat there in the mostly-white room with nothing but white noise. Miranda’s mind went to Perry. She suspected her sister’s stayed on Anthony.
Tabitha’s phone dinged with a text. Her sister shifted and picked up her cell from the bedside table. After reading it, she let out a moan of frustration and her posture went from relaxed to rock hard. “I can’t fracking believe this!”
“Your mom?” Miranda asked, knowing Tabitha’s mom was the leading cause of her sister’s frustrations.
“No. It’s Anthony. He says they’re blaming him. And his English isn’t that good and he feels like he can’t defend himself.”
Miranda breathed in some of her sister’s frustration. “Burnett won’t let that happen.”
“Well, so far he’s not stopping it. They threatened to have him deported.”
“If he’s innocent, Burnett—”
“If?” Her voice echoed. “You think he did this? You think he has something to do with the house blowing up?”
“No,” Miranda said. “I meant that there has to be a logical reason why Della picked up his scent. Maybe you told him about the fortune-teller…”
“I didn’t.” The two words tripped off her lips in anger.
“Then maybe he followed us there and left before—”
“No.” Her sister’s eyes narrowed. “I told you, his scent was on me.”
Miranda hated conflict and never liked telling someone they were wrong, especially when it was someone she loved. Her heart crumpled up like used aluminum foil. She pushed the words off her lips with caution. “But it’s like Burnett said, vampires know the difference between a scent carried by someone and a scent of someone who’s been there.”
Tabitha’s mouth thinned, and her rose-colored lips turned white. “His scent was all over me.” The pain in her voice hung in the air. “Like all over me! We had sex before I came to pick you up.”
Miranda frowned, thinking that was way too fast, but she shelved that problem for later. “It’s still a—”
“Stop!” Tabitha sat up on the bed, straight up. “I can’t believe this. You’re going to put this on him, too. Here I am trying to support you in your romantic chaos and you accuse my boyfriend of being a drug addict and trying to blow us up.”
“I didn’t say…”
Tabitha shot off the bed and out of the room. Loud voices echoed behind the door. Miranda did the one-arm scramble out of bed to follow, but a black-suited FRU agent blocked her exit.
“No, you stay here!” His brown eyes, glowing with green, told Miranda he was a vampire.
Still posed in the doorway, he pulled out his phone. “The sister is going back to her room.” He paused. “You think I didn’t try? She threatened me with her pinky. Just get there. Agent James will have my balls if something happens to either one of these girls!”
Chapter Eight
Miranda shut the door, shot back inside, found her phone, and texted her sister.
Come back, pleeeeease! She paused, trying to think what to write, something that would bring her sister back. I don’t think Anthony did anything. Just come back and let’s figure it out!
She hit send and waited. Staring, praying that the three little dots would pop up on the screen.
They didn’t pop. “Don’t do this!” she muttered aloud and typed: You’re my sister. You can’t be mad at me!
Finally the three dots flickered on the screen. Miranda took air into her lungs, waiting … Words finally appeared.
Need to be alone. Anthony on his way here. Going down for another MRI scan. Later. Love you.
The last two words lifted the lumpy emotion from Miranda’s chest, then she read her own text, and a few lumps grew back. I don’t think Anthony did anything. Why did that read like a lie? She didn’t think … did she? No, she liked Anthony, but … why didn’t he just tell the FRU why he’d been to the witch’s house?
The only reason he wouldn’t tell would be if … if he had something to hide.
Doubt tugged at her mind.
What if her sister was falling in love with someone mixed up in … drugs? And she’d already had sex with him.
“No.” Miranda couldn’t think that. She had to support Tabitha in this. Had to. But Anthony had better start explaining things and quick. Burnett’s patience was only so long.
She dropped her phone on the bed and hurried into the bathroom. Reaching down to lower her panties, she discovered she wasn’t wearing any.
Awkward!
Bladder emptied, and not accustomed to hospital attire, she realized the lower tie had been swimming in the toilet.
She’d probably peed all over it, too. Remembering seeing another gown in the closet, she held the wet fabric away from her backside and dashed out. The cool air humming through the ceiling vent hit her bare butt.
She opened the cabinet and found some of the hospital’s finest lingerie—which was so far from fine. Before the cabinet door shut, she spotted her pink panties folded on top of her jeans. No reason to go around commando when you didn’t have to.
Then, not wanting to give anyone a peep show, and because the door didn’t lock, she yanked the curtain between the bed and the hospital room’s door. Eyes on the flimsy wall of privacy, she quickly reached back with her right hand, untied the top of her gown and let the whole thing drop to the floor.
Dressing in a hurry, one-handed, was no easy task. She stepped into her panties and slid them up her legs. Fitting her cast through the snapped arm holes proved to be an even bigger challenge.
On the third missed attempt she muttered, “Crap.”
“Uh … need some help?” The voice came from behind her.
Behind her! Where her ass had just been shining.
The screech climbed up her throat, but then the deep tenor of that voice rang some familiar bells.
With only one arm in the gown, the flimsy piece of cotton clutched to her chest, she swung around to face …
Perry. He sat in the chair backed to the wall.
The shock of someone being in the room gave way to the shock of him being in the room. A breath whispered from her lips, her lungs opened and pulled in air that tasted sweet, like birthday cake, like … broken promises.
No one else had made her laugh so much, love so much. Hurt so much.
She should so be over him, and yet here she was, not over anything, caught in his soft blue gaze, breathing sweet air, and remembering everything. She couldn’t look away. She felt trapped. But not at all eager to free herself.
He stood up, and took one step toward her as if to hug her, or just touch her.
She blinked and fought to rein in her runaway pulse.
Not easy when inch by inch she continued to take in the details, Perry details. There were differences from the boy nine months ago to the one who stood in front of her. He looked taller, not just one inch. Maybe two. And his arms and shoulders were far more broad and muscular than they’d been. He looked … older. But more than just older. He looked grown up. The peach fuzz on his cheeks was now a blond five o’clock shadow. His jawline looked a little more chiseled. His eyes, a little more worldly. His hair, the color of morning sunshine, had darkened to a bolder hue of gold.
He needed a haircut.
Or maybe he didn’t.
She’d always liked his hair a little long, how it felt slipping through her fingers.
The strands part curly, part straight, hung past his ears, flipping up on the ends. The tips of her fingers tingled with the need to touch. Her gaze whispered past his facial features down to his body, which looked bulkier. Lifting her gaze, she realized he’d been doing the same thing. Taking inventory of her. Did he see changes in her?
Her hair longer. Her breasts a bit larger. Her heart a lot more broken.
Did he even regret leaving her?
She drew in a sobering breath that still tasted sweet, Perry sweet. She cleared her throat.
Guilt flashed in his eyes and reminded her of the complete inappropriateness of this situation.
“What are … How…?” Careful not to expose herself any more than she already had, she slipped her cast in the arm hole and finally managed to push a full sentence from her lips. “What are you doing here?”
“I came in while you were … in the bathroom. And then you came out and … you didn’t see me.”
“And you just sat there, didn’t say anything, and let me take my clothes off!”
“I … was going to say something, but then you … I saw … and I couldn’t talk.” His eyes brightened, the corners tightened, and she waited, almost certain he was about to …
His lips quivered and then finally gave way to a smile, part nervous, part shameless bad boy.
That’s all it took to set the butterflies chasing rainbows in her stomach.
He tried to pull the smile back, but didn’t succeed. Then he gave up. A noise, a pulled back chuckle, escaped his mouth. “It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before.”
She pressed her palm against her fluttering abdomen. His words were like brushstrokes that painted memories in her head.
Memories of them skinny-dipping. She remembered that night—and not just now but a thousand times—always late, right before she gave in to the sleep, right when her guard was down, her heart vulnerable.
He’d dared her to do it. Come on. I’m going to. And he did it. Under the silver shadows of the moon he took his clothes off … slowly. Not a touch of embarrassment filled his eyes, and she’d been just as comfortable removing hers. They had stood there in front of each other and just stared. What should have been awkward and uncomfortable was sweet, special, and so right.
The water had been just cold enough. His skin just warm enough. She remembered in painful detail how close they’d come to going all the way.
Less than three weeks later, he broke up with her and left for Paris. Left her to pick up the pieces of her heart. Left her to try to figure out how something could feel so right and have been so wrong.
“That was a long time ago.” The words left her mouth dry, her chest open, her heart cracked.
“Nine months, two weeks, and three days. I could tell you the exact hours if you told me the time.” Honesty gave his words a deeper tone, and something almost sad flashed in his eyes. The mirror image of what she had seen in his baby blues echoed inside her chest.
How many times had she regretted that night? Not because of how far they went, but because they hadn’t gone any further. Kylie and Della kept talking about the first time and how it needed to be special. She’d never experienced special like that since.
Crazy as it seemed, while they hadn’t had sex, it felt as if they’d somehow made love.
“I’ll never forget it,” he said.
Neither will I? Pride, that ugly emotion she wished she didn’t have, kept her from saying it. But how could she not be a little smug? He’d been her everything. Her reason she got up every day. Her reason to laugh. Then he’d become her reason to cry.
He shuffled his feet amidst the obvious tension. “Are you hurting?” He motioned to her arm.
Yeah. And you caused it. “I’m fine.” She paused. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought you called me.”
She glanced at her phone. “No, I … I didn’t.”
He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Not on the phone, but … in your head.”
“What?” she asked.
“You know, telepathically.”
“No. I can’t.” Suddenly not wanting to think, she started talking. “Well, I could but it would take hours working on a spell, and even then clairvoyant spells usually need to be blessed by a mystic Wiccan.”
“A what?”
“A mystic. They’re powerful in different ways. Telepathically talented. But they aren’t tied to the Wicca Council. There aren’t a lot of them around.”
He lifted his other shoulder this time. “Then maybe it was like dreamscaping. You know, like Kylie can do.”
“Witches can’t dreamscape.”
“Well, all I know is that I … saw you and you were crying and lying on the grass, bleeding. And you called my name. Then later I had another image of you on a stretcher. And since—”
“That’s odd.” Especially when she …
“What’s odd?” he asked.
“I … heard. Well, I thought I heard you talking to me a couple times. But I was injured.”
“Then you must have contacted me?”
“No, like I said, I can’t do that.” Realizing she was still not completely dressed, she reached back to attempt to tie the gown strings. Unfortunately, one-handed it was impossible.
“Well, I’m less likely to be able to do it, so it had to be you.”
She bit down on her lip. “Maybe it was just … a fluke?” She reached back again.
“Odd that it happened to both of us.” He took a step closer. “Let me help you.”
She offered him her signature eye roll. “I think you’ve seen enough.”
He grinned. “Not really. But I was going to tie it facing you so I wouldn’t … see anything else.”
“Oh.” Her face flushed.
He moved in close, close enough that his natural scent—a little musky, a little like wind—filled her airways. Her skin tingled as if just his scent could heighten her awareness of being a girl. A girl close to a boy. Close to a boy who made her heart sing and cry at the same time.
He reached around her neck to find the two strings. His fingertips touched the curve of her neck and her first instinct was to lean into him. To bury her face on that soft spot of his shoulder, to beg him to hold her, to pretend that he’d never left. That he hadn’t taken her heart with him.
She closed her eyes. Her sinuses stung.
“One down. One to go.” His voice sounded as jittery as she fel
t.
He lowered his hands down, reached around her waist to get the other ties. As he searched for the strings, his palms brushed against her lower back. Each soft touch sent another chill slow dancing up her spine.
His soft breath came against her neck. His chest came against her breasts. She became aware of every inch of her body and where it came to his.
“Done.” He pulled his arms from around her and inched back. Not far, they were almost as close as two people could be without touching. And yet it felt as if they still were … touching.
Swallowing a lump of raw nerves down her throat, she glanced up. She had a thousand things she should ask him, but she couldn’t think of one.
She forced herself to step back. Finally able to breathe, the air still birthday-cake sweet, she formed one of the questions. “What kind of trouble are you in?”
His brows tightened. “What do you mean?”
“Burnett sent Della and Kylie to check on you.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, but she could swear she heard a hint of a mistruth in his voice. “I ran into them, halfway here. Everything’s okay.”
“I thought you were with your parents?” She moved over to her bed and pulled herself up.
“I am.”
“Then why were Burnett and Holiday worried?”
His hesitation told her she hadn’t imagined his white lie. The corners of his eyes tightened with a barely-there frown.
“I … stumbled on something happening that Burnett needed to know about. And as soon as I figure it out, I’ll hand it over to him.”
“What kind of something?”
He didn’t answer.
“Is it illegal?”
He nodded.
“Is it dangerous?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“You sure?” She didn’t ask if it involved his parents. She knew. It was the look, the lost-little-boy look he got whenever he talked about them. The dull pain in his eyes said what he wouldn’t. He was hurting. Even more now than before.
Hadn’t they hurt him enough already? Anger swelled inside her. She almost reached to hug him.