by Mairsile
Meanwhile, Nikki walked into the viewing room and found it empty. “Son of a bitch.” Dashing from room to room at the funeral home, her anger became less prevalent than her fear. Where is she? Oh, God. What if something happened to her? She charged out the entrance door and immediately looked up and down the street for her, inhaling deeply for her scent. When she saw her, her anger replaced her fear.
Lilah smiled mischievously and waved at Nikki. She looks pretty pissed… and shocked.
Nikki stormed angrily across the street, not even flinching when a car almost hit her.
Lilah gawked at her. “Is she crazy?”
“No, I’m not crazy, I’m angry,” Nikki stated as she walked up to her.
“What?” “How did she know what I was thinking?”
Nikki was too angry with her to cover her slip. “What if I couldn’t get to you? What if someone else got to you first?”
“Look, I didn’t run off, did I?” Lilah asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “I waited here to show you that I can be trusted, so stop being a jerk.” I need your help, dumbass. Her face was stone, but Lilah thought she saw a slight upturn of her lip.
“What are you up to, Ms. Dupree?”
Ms. Dupree? Yeah, she’s pretty mad. “Can I buy you a drink, Ms. Delgadillo?”
Her defiant stance, quirky smile and mischievous eyes charmed Nikki into agreeing, against her better judgement. She nodded, and Lilah strutted inside, unintentionally arousing Nikki with the sway of her derriere.
The popular restaurant was beginning to fill up quickly, and they had to wait at the bar for the next available table. They were lucky to get the last two stools as a line began to form at the front door. Nikki considered pulling one of Vince’s tricks and inspiring some patrons to give up their table, but she had already slipped up once, and she didn’t want to come up with a cover story. She wanted to know what Lilah was up to. She didn’t trust her in spite of her little hoax or perhaps because of it.
Lilah ordered a Lone Star and Nikki ordered a whiskey that she didn’t intend to drink so the brand didn’t matter. Lilah gazed at her, wondering why she wasn’t saying anything. Nikki glanced at her, and she quickly looked away. She swirled the whiskey around the ice in the tumbler, watching as Lilah took a drink of her beer.
Finally, after a couple of hits from her beer, Lilah was tired of the silence. “Nikki, as a bodyguard, would you give your life for the protectee?”
Nikki answered without hesitation, “Yes, without a doubt.”
“And what would you do if the protectee were uncooperative?”
“You mean like you are?” Nikki asked brashly.
Lilah’s face was troubled as she set her beer on the bar. Tell her the truth. All she can do is say no… and hate me. She swiveled on the barstool to look her in the eyes. “She was my friend, Nikki. My best friend. And I feel like her death was my fault. Just like my mother’s death.”
“I understand your grief, Lilah, although I don’t believe either deaths were your fault. But…” I just want to keep you safe.
“Damn it, don’t start that again. It’s not up to you to decide my life for me. I have questions that I intend to find answers for.” Lilah swallowed the tears that threaten to fall and compartmentalized her emotions. “Like why was she in that field when she was supposed to be meeting me? How did she get there? How many were there? Did they drug her? Did they rape her before they… before they killed her? How did they kill her? There wasn’t a scratch on her that I could see.”
“And what will you do with the answers once you have them?” Nikki asked without being condescending. She was truly curious.
“Besides seeing the murderer hung from the tallest tree?”
“Yeah, besides that.”
“I will be able to explain to Rebecca why she was killed instead of me, and hopefully, keep someone else, like my father, from being killed also.”
Nikki could feel her pain, could tell that she really believed what she was saying. “Lovely Lilah Rose,” she said without thinking. “Rebecca’s death was not your fault. If they had wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now.”
“What did you just call me?” Lovely Lilah Rose. Why does that sound familiar?
“I apologize if I was being too forward,” and estúpido, “I just needed to get your attention.”
But Lilah couldn’t let it go. “How do you know my middle name?”
“I’m your bodyguard. I’m paid to know everything about you,” Nikki replied.
“I don’t think that’s very fair,” she complained.
“What do you mean? It’s standard operating procedure in my line of work.”
“I’m sure it is, but I don’t know a damn thing about the woman who professes to have my life in her hands.”
Nikki smiled at her. “Ask me anything. I’m an open book.”
“What’s your favorite color?” Lilah asked.
She looked at her with a wry smile. “That’s kind of personal, but, okay, don’t tell anyone because it’s not consider macho for a bodyguard, but violet is my favorite color.”
A curious smile played at the corner of her lips. “Hey, that’s my favorite color, too.”
Nikki maintained her pleasant smile as she thought, and that’s exactly why it’s my favorite color.
Lilah contemplated for a moment, raising an eyebrow as she ran her tongue over her dry lips causing Nikki to purse her lips to keep her fangs from showing. Finally, she looked at her and asked, “Why do you prefer to work at night?”
“I’ve always worked at night. I guess I’m just nocturnal like that,” Nikki replied.
“What does your husband think about that? I mean, does he work at night also?”
Nikki’s eyelashes flickered. My husband? She’s fishing because she doesn’t know. Hmm, could she be interested in me? God, I hope so. “First of all it would be my wife, and nope, I don’t have one. I never married. What about you? How is it a gorgeous…, uh, I mean a smart, tenacious, hard worker like you, never hooked a man?”
Lilah blushed at the compliment. Oh, she thinks I’m gorgeous. Oh… she thinks I’m straight. “First of all, it would be my wife, and no, I just never had time to get bogged down in a relationship.”
A wistful look washed over Nikki’s face as she wished she could tell her that she was in love. With her.
“What? Why the look? It’s not like I loved and lost, or anything,” Lilah said pensively.
Vince suddenly burst through the door and rushed over to them. “I need to talk to you, al più presto,” he said.
“Are you insane?” Nikki asked.
“I might be, yes. But I still need to talk to you,” Vince quipped.
Lilah stared at Vince, something about him triggered her memory. “I saw you back at the ranch. You were the one holding me when Nikki attacked Jocko.”
“Oh, uh…” Vince wasn’t usually at a loss for words, but this was not his show; it was Nikki’s.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. He’s my annoying little brother, and he was only trying to help out,” Nikki explained.
“Nicely done, older sister by one freaking month,” Vince said mentally. “Yes, and I also apologize, Ms. Dupree. We thought you were in mortal danger and only sought to place our bodies in front of the aforementioned uh… peril, to uh… save you.”
“Is that so?” Lilah grilled, not believing a word he said. “And do you have a name to go along with that hogwash?”
“I am your humble servant, Vinceslao Tomassetti, but you can call me Vince.”
“You’re Italian, and she’s Hispanic. You’re cute with your curly blond hair and blue eyes, and she’s… um…” Handsome, strong, alluring. “She has brown eyes and brown hair.” Lilah looked from one to the other, then back again. The bartender dropped a glass and the sound of it shattering on the floor caused a flashback that took Lilah by surprise. “Oh my God. I remember you now. You two were at the bar in South Padre Island.” She pointed at Vince. “You w
ere hitting on us, and you,” she pointed her finger at Nikki next, “you were acting all weird and then just suddenly left.”
Nikki looked at Vince, who looked at Lilah.
“Uh, fancy meeting you here?” He shrugged.
“Okay, guys. What’s really going on?”
“Why do you think something’s going on, Lilah?” Nikki asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because my bodyguard is hiding something, and her brother suddenly comes running in saying he needed her ASAP,” Lilah answered.
“I didn’t even know you then; what would I have been hiding?” Nikki challenged.
“There’s something about you. I can’t put my finger on it, but trust me, I’ll figure it out.”
“Okay, we’ll confess,” Vince teased. “We’re really 180-year-old vampires and we want to drink you blood, mwaa-haa-haa.”
Lilah didn’t see Nikki’s shocked, almost frightened look when she retorted, “Oh, hardy-har-har. You must be the jokester in the family.”
Vince winked at her. “What gave me away?”
Lilah snorted and covered her mouth with her hand.
“Wait.” Vince put his hand up. “You speak Italian?”
Nodding, Lilah replied, “Enough to know that you needed him ASAP. Is anything wrong?”
Just as Vince was about to make up another story, the television in the corner over the bar flashed a picture of a man’s driver’s license with the words; Murder in Corpus Christi, scrolling across the top of the screen.
“Oh my God!” Lilah cried when she recognized the man in the picture. It was Jocko Terrance, her amorous cowboy lover. She jumped off the stool and moved closer to the TV. “Turn it up,” she demanded of the bartender.
Vince looked at Nikki. “That’s what I was trying to tell you, sis. The cowboy didn’t make it to Alaska. Someone, an immortal, killed him at the airport.”
While Lilah was occupied with the newscast, Nikki whispered to Vince, “Russians?”
Vince nodded and carried on the conversation with his thoughts. “It looks like it. This time, they not only drained him, but they hung him from the rafters where people rent cars. They wanted him to be seen.”
The news channel reported that Jocko had a plane ticket for Barrow, Alaska; the coldest city in Alaska, located 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The station reported it as a possible suicide, although the police had not declared it as the cause of death yet.
“What the hell was he going there for?” Lilah asked out loud, not expecting an answer. After the station went to commercial, Lilah looked back at Nikki and Vince, and then ran crying from the restaurant.
“Lilah?” Nikki called after her.
Both of them followed her as she walked across the street and into the small park beside the funeral home. No one said a word as all three of them sat down on a park bench.
“Is she all right?” Vince asked silently.
Nikki shrugged. She really wasn’t sure. She wondered how much more Lilah could take before she broke. She could take the pain away, but that would only leave Lilah empty inside with no memories of those she had loved. She already regretted the consequences she had caused when she erased her memories of her. She couldn’t foresee what that would do to her, and now she must accept the responsibility that she had drastically changed because of it. Erasing the pain of her mother, her best friend and the cowboy’s deaths would irrevocably change who she was now and Nikki wasn’t sure if it would be worth it. In all her years of life, she had loved and lost many times, but never had she experienced such a deep love, nor such a perplexing dilemma, as she did with Delilah Rose Dupree.
While Nikki was preoccupied with her thoughts, and Lilah was crying soft tears into the handkerchief Vince had given her, Vince simply picked up Nikki’s arm and placed it on Lilah’s shoulder. Natural instinct took care of the rest. Nikki pulled her closer and Lilah allowed it, laying her head on Nikki’s shoulder and wiping her tears away with the handkerchief. Neither of them saw Vince leave.
Nikki inhaled deeply, absorbing her scent, the feel of her closeness, the smell of the yellow rose shampoo she used on her hair. All of it familiar, all of it new again. “Were you in love with him, Lilah?”
Lilah choked back her tears. “No. Not in love, but he was a good friend to me.” She sat up and turned away, blowing her nose. When she turned back to Nikki, her shoulders were set and her face determined. “Don’t think just because you offered me a shoulder to cry on that I am backing away from finding out what’s going on. I know Jocko would never kill himself; he was much too arrogant for that. I also think that whoever murdered him are the same people who murdered Rebecca. And I think that I will be next if they don’t get whatever the hell it is they want.”
“Then let me take you away from here. Anywhere you want to go. We can leave tonight.”
“And my father? Dorothea? What about the mare that’s about to foal? And my next semester of college?” Her face changed from quizzical to conviction. “What about justice for Rebecca and Jocko?”
“And what about your life?” Nikki asked testily. “You matter, too.”
“No, not if I’m the cause of all this. I don’t matter in the least.”
“Bullshit!” Nikki shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders and kissing her roughly.
She moaned under Nikki’s hungry lips, confused, but aroused by her sensual electricity. Her tears transformed into need and she clung to Nikki as if she were afraid she would pull away, but it was the sudden throbbing in the back of her head that made her pull back first. Lilah’s blood pressure was pounding, as her subconscious tried to tell her that she knew the touch of her lips, had felt the spark of her tongue before.
“Oh, my head,” she groaned, sitting back against the bench.
“Are you all right?” Nikki asked. She sensed her heart racing and thought it was from the arousal she smelled on her.
“All of a sudden I’ve got a pounding headache. That was some kiss.”
“Damn it, I’m sorry,” Nikki exclaimed.
“For the kiss? Don’t be.”
Nikki observed her as she rubbed the back of her neck, trying to relieve the headache. No, for the pounding headache. Kissing you must have set off a fight inside your mind to remember, and that is my fault. Damn it, I can’t keep doing this to you. “Uh, Lilah. There’s something I need to tell you.”
“All I want to hear right now is that you have some aspirin in your pocket.”
Nikki shook her head, disappointed and relieved at the same time. “Maybe we’d better get you home. It’s been a very emotional day for you.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Lilah said, looking at the digital clock on her cell phone, feeling suddenly tired. It was almost eleven o’clock. She just wanted to go home, take a quick shower and climb into bed.
Driving out of the city into the dark countryside, Lilah dozed with her head against the truck window as Nikki struggled to keep her thoughts focused on what needed to be done. Lilah had been right about one thing. The Russians were coming for her and she was at a loss on how to protect her when she fought her at every turn. It was her stubbornness that Nikki found endearing and irritating at the same time. She glanced at Lilah, smiling at her soft snore.
By the time they arrived back at the ranch, it was after midnight, but the lights were still on in the house and over at the barn. Nikki sniffed the air for trouble, alarmed when she sensed multiple immortals. “Wait here,” she demanded.
“Why? I need to check on the mare,” Lilah responded, stretching her stiff body awake.
“Do as I say, damn it.”
“Calm down, Niko,” Vince thought instinctively, as he shrugged into his shirt as he ran to meet Nikki halfway. The moment he had sensed Nikki’s return, he tore out of his sire’s living room, grabbed his pants and ran up the stairs. “After that cowhand was killed, our sire sent the cavalry. These are all our boys… oh and a couple of girls, too. Six extra immortals on hand to protect your girl.”<
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Nikki relaxed. “Has Mr. Dupree been advised?”
“Yes, he knows they’re here, but he’ll feel a lot better once he knows Lilah is back.”
“I imagine so. Let him know she’s back,” Nikki said, glancing toward the truck and realizing that Lilah wasn’t in it. “Damn that woman!”
The barn smelled of wood, newly cut hay, dirt, and manure, and that combination was a smell that Lilah loved. “How’s our mother-to-be doing?” she asked, walking over to the birthing stall in the back of the barn.
The birthing stall was three times larger than the rest, with three times the amount of hay on the floor as usual. Three-quarter-inch, interlocking foaling mats covered the floor, and on a rack just outside the stall were all the supplies needed to help a mare give birth should she need help. Rubber boots, shoulder-length rubber gloves, tail wraps, nylon pull straps and handles, and on the bench beneath the rack, towels were neatly folded next to a large box of trash bags and a small bucket of apples. Bales of wheat straw were stacked in the corners, as Lilah insisted that the stall be mucked out daily. All the supplies except the hay and horse treats might be needed. Each mare was given her privacy to deliver when she saw fit, and usually the mare would wait until she was alone before allowing the birth to begin.
“I was just going to call you. I think she’s about to go into labor,” Jed replied.
A few days ago, Felicity, who was named by Beulah da Polenta, had been showing signs that the birth was close. The muscles over the pelvic bone had relaxed and sagged away from the horse’s tail. Lilah had assigned Jed Collins, a longtime employee, to watch over the horse and call her when the mare was close. Not that it was necessary, Lilah checked on the mare every day.