She took the steps two at a time and stopped at the top step, looking down at him, then flicking the bouquet of assorted flowers with a light finger. “I’m going to make a huge leap and guess those aren’t for me.”
He smiled, warm and inviting, the dimples at either side of his cheeks deepening. “Hell, no. I want to give them to someone who won’t wilt them with her evil eye.”
Nina laughed, strangely receptive to his teasing tone. “How did you know…” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Never mind, you hunted me by scent or some hound dog thing, right?”
His eyes twinkled with amusement. “I figured it’d been awhile since you’d seen Lou, and, well, she did like me. Just a feeling she might wonder where I was.”
“Either way, I appreciate you coming.”
He cocked his head in question. Raising his eyes to meet hers, they gleamed, devilish and carefree. “Again, who are you?”
Nina plunked down beside him, letting their thighs touch. She rested her hands on her legs and said, “Look, Lou likes you, and you’re right, she wanted you to come tonight, but I told her you had a last minute work thing. So that you showed up was nice. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Ah, well, then I guess it’s a good thing I got that work thing all cleared up in time, huh?”
A smile played on her lips. “Yeah, an übergood thing. Here’s the deal. I don’t want to fight with you, okay? Not tonight. Lou sounded kind of strange when we talked on the phone last night, and I sort of just want to focus on her for the moment.”
He placed a palm on her chest, right where her heart used to beat, and she fought not to squirm from the pleasure it brought. “Wow, sugar lips, you really once did have a heart.”
Rising, she snickered. “Yes, Vlad, where Lou is concerned I have a heart. She’s all I’ve got.”
Greg grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the door and ringing the bell. “I know that feeling well. I feel that very way about Svetlanna.”
Her stomach went all mushy at this side of him. Like in the movie theater, it spread a warmth throughout her that she couldn’t fight. “Good, then we have an understanding? I won’t accuse you of keeping me a vampire against my will tonight, and you get off my back about accepting my inner night dweller, ’K?”
Greg squeezed her hand, sending warm currents along her arm. “Done.”
Lou threw the door open, smiling at them. She’d gussied up, wearing her best burgundy polyester suit and leaving the curlers out of her hair. “C’mere,” she said the moment she saw Greg, cupping his face and pulling his head down for a kiss on his cheek.
Greg held out the flowers to her, and she sighed. “For me? You sweet boy. I thought you had some kind of work thing to attend to?”
Greg winked. “I’d clear anything up for you, Lou.”
Lou bear-hugged him again and chuckled.
“Er, Lou? Remember me—you know, blood relation?” Nina teased.
Lou’s husky chuckle greeted her ears. “Well, I might remember you, if you came around more.” She held up a hand to keep Nina from protesting. “I know, I know, you did call, and I can forgive you because you had your young man to tend to, but my pot roast missed you.”
Nina hugged Lou, enveloping her weathered frame in an embrace that filled her nose with Lou’s dime-store perfume. Lou shook a little, then set Nina away from her to look into her eyes. “How ya been, girl?”
“I’m good. Just busy is all. Sorry I haven’t been by,” Nina said, following her grandmother into the living room. Lou’s movements were slow, slower than usual tonight, Nina noted. The steps she took in her white, sensible shoes seemed labored.
But her focus changed when her eyes settled on the crucifixes littering every available space. Nina fought a groan, forgetting everything but the sting of the religious figurines. She rubbed her eyes, now watering and burning hot, with the heels of her hands.
Greg came up behind her, turning her to face him and lifting her chin with his lean fingers. His eyes held what she’d definitely label as concern.
Lou poked her head around Greg’s shoulder. “You two get comfortable. I’ll go check the pot roast.” Nina wanted to tell Lou to relax, she’d deal with dinner, but she could only think the words.
“Focus on me,” Greg whispered. “Count in your head while you do it. I know it’s hard, but try.”
Nina honed in on Greg’s face, forcing herself to keep her mind elsewhere. When she was finally able to speak, she joked, “You know, if you keep this up, I’m going to start believing you like me.”
His surprised chuckle filled her with a sense of calm, as he rubbed mindless circles over her spine. “I don’t even like you a little, Nina Blackman. You’re mean and scary—”
The crash of plates, abrupt and sharp, coming from the kitchen tore them apart, sending Greg sprinting to find out what had happened. Close on his heels was Nina, shoving him out of the way to find Lou, lying on the floor, pale and breathing shallowly. “Lou!” she yelled with alarm, dropping down on her knees and grabbing her grandmother’s hand. Her eyes watched in horror as Lou’s chest stopped rising and falling with a sudden, harsh gasp.
Nina grabbed frantically for her gnarled hand, wrapping her fingers around her wrist and finding no pulse. “She has no pulse!” she screamed, her terror so thick it rose to lodge in her throat.
Greg dropped down beside her, shoving the shards of Lou’s Corning Ware away and pressing his ear to her chest. The line of his mouth was grim when he reached for Nina.
She pulled away sharply, leaning over Lou and wailed. “No, no, no!” Bracketing Lou’s shoulders, Nina hauled her to her chest, putting her lips to her grandmother’s ear as she hung limply from her grasp. “You listen to me, Lou Blackman, there is no way you can leave me now! I need youuuuu. Oh, God, you have no idea how much I need you!” Her mind raced—call 911, give her mouth-to-mouth, start chest compressions?
And then it hit her, full on with the brutal force of a Louisville Slugger. Greg could save Lou.
He had the power.
Nina’s head whipped around, her frantic eyes meeting Greg’s. “Turn her,” Nina yelled with a plea in her voice. “Do it! You can save her, if you turn her. I know you can. I read it in a book. Turn her,” she roared, her voice shaky, and though no tears fell, Nina knew a river would flow from her eyes if she could still cry. Her incisors lengthened; the push of them from her gums surprised her in the midst of chaos.
Greg shook his head no.
It was absolute.
Definitive.
Greg’s words were tight, precise and oh, so final. “No, Nina. I can’t do that. I can’t. It’s not fair to Lou,” he said in a soft, but firm tone, his eyes set in stone.
Lou hung limply in her arms for what seemed an eternity. Nina’s panic, fear, and indescribable grief raced in waves. “Yes, yes you can! You have the ability to save her. Please, Greg. I’ll do whatever you want, I swear. I’ll join your crazy clan, be a good vampire, drink blood, learn to fly, make castles in fucking Hoboken if you want, but please, I’m begging you, please don’t let her die!” She heard her voice, beseeching, raspy, terrified, and she didn’t care. Lou couldn’t leave her now. Not now.
Seconds ticked by, precious seconds that could be devoted to saving Lou.
His face was so resolute, so eerily set, she cringed. “Nina, I need you to listen to me. Lou didn’t choose eternity. I can’t be a party to that. You hate this lifestyle. Imagine how Lou, someone who’s so religious, would feel. I won’t do it. Please, Nina, just come with me.” He held out a hand to her, his eyes searching hers, silently demanding her to let Lou go.
But Nina was beyond reasoning. Lou was the only real family she had. The one person who’d come through for her always. If she could save her, especially now when she felt so alone, then it had to be done.“Then I’ll do it,” she cried, tearing her gaze from Greg’s to look upon Lou’s ashen face.
She’d do it—even if she could just barely manage to say the word vam
pire without wanting to scream, even if she had no clue how to do it, she was going to try.
“Nina, stop!” he roared, grabbing at her with hands that pulled at her shoulders, keeping her from critical moments in saving Lou. “Stop! You don’t know how. If you do one wrong thing you could leave her far worse off than she is now. If you take too much blood, she’d be nothing more than a zombie.”
Her sob was wrenched from deep in her throat. “I don’t care! I have to try. I won’t let her go,” she wailed back, bending her head to place her incisors at Lou’s neck. How hard could it be? She’d just sink her teeth in, right? And then it would be okay. Lou’d be pissed as all get out, she’d curse Nina from here to a literal eternity, but she’d have her here—on Earth.
But Greg stopped her, prying Lou from her arms, gathering her to his big frame, his head bent, positioned at Lou’s neck.
And then the world stopped turning, all motion and sound blurred, and her frantic thoughts careened like a skidding pair of tires on an icy roadway.
Nina knew in her gut what Greg was going to do—for her.
His fangs gleamed in the glow of the kitchen light, the hiss as they emerged piercing her sensitive ears. He opened his mouth wide, his eyes hazing over, the energy he created sending an eerie vibe along Nina’s spine.
Her fists clenched, gouging crescent shapes she could no longer feel in her palms. Her eyes zeroed in on nothing but Greg’s dark head and Lou’s waiting flesh.
And suddenly, without rhyme or reason, Lou gasped. A long, shrill gust of air filling her lungs—one after the other they came, weak and labored, her chest heaving in an upward battle for breath.
“Call 911.” Greg’s order was an urgent yet collected demand. His body was tense, as he held Lou and stroked her forehead, murmuring words Nina couldn’t focus on. His features, a stark reminder of what he was—they were—returned to normal.
Nina popped up, racing for the phone, punching in the numbers, then dropping back on her haunches to grab Lou’s hand, clinging to it for all she was worth. “Just hang on, Lou. Please, just hang on,” she begged, her throat so taut she could hardly speak, her words watery and garbled.
Greg rose at the sound of the shrieking ambulance’s siren, rushing to the door to let the paramedics in.
Two men carrying a stretcher surrounded Lou, crowding Nina out. “Let them do their job, honey,” Greg said, ushering her to a corner of the kitchen, holding her in his embrace, lending quiet support. Nina shuddered, burying her face in his sculpted shoulder. Her eyes still burned, but not because of the crucifixes. They burned from unshed tears.
As the paramedics carried Lou away, tubes and gadgets attached to her, Greg put his hand at her back, kissing the top of her head. “Go with her, Nina.”
It was true that when disaster struck, crazy things popped into your head. Nina’s was a list of things she hadn’t done before she’d left home. “I haven’t fed Larry,” she stated simply, like that mattered when Lou hovered on the brink of death.
“I’ll feed him,” he offered, his eyes rimmed with sympathy, and so softly green it made her chest ache. “You go and call me the minute you hear something. Do you have my cell number?”
After all this time, Nina realized she didn’t. Mostly because she’d been too stubborn to ask for it. Nina shook her head, worry eating her from the inside out.
Greg held out his hand, the hand that had comforted Lou. The hand that had held hers in the theater. The hand that touched her and left a burning trail of fire in its wake. “Give me your cell,” he murmured.
Nina struggled to remember where it was, then traced the outside of the pocket of her jeans. She jammed a hand into it and handed it to him. Silently he put his number in, and when the paramedics asked if she was ready, he said low and husky, “Call me, Nina. I need to know she’s all right and that you are, too.”
Nina gulped. This Greg was so different than the Greg she sparred with on a regular basis. Their steady diet of battle was familiar to her. This Greg—even more different than the Greg in the movie theater—the one who was so obviously worried, not just about Lou, but about her, too, made her feel things she didn’t understand.
Nina gave him one last glance, a glance filled with gratefulness, an apology, and a hundred and one questions. “I will. Promise,” she whispered back, following the burly paramedic out the door and into the ambulance, where she sat beside Lou and prayed harder than she’d ever prayed before.
CHAPTER
13
A cardiac episode was what the doctors claimed Lou had had. Further tests would be done tomorrow, when she was rested and stronger, to clear up any other possible issues. Nina wasn’t sure she was satisfied with that answer. The doctors hadn’t seen Lou stop breathing.
She had, and as long as she lived, which just might be a lot longer than she’d planned, she’d never forget that moment. The mental image of a lifeless Lou sprawled over Greg’s arm was suspended in her mind’s eye, and she couldn’t get it out.
Nina sat beside Lou’s bed in the coldly painted, sterile hospital room. A white, institutional blanket rose and fell over Lou’s chest, and each breath she took was like euphoria to Nina. She couldn’t stop touching her to reassure herself over and over that Lou was still here.
The color had returned to her face, and her skin was now warm to the touch, according to the nurse anyway.
Nina could see the rapid improvement just by looking at her. She was afraid to leave, and as she thanked whatever—whoever—had saved Lou, she tried to digest what Greg had done.
He’d been prepared to save Lou—going against that strict moral code he claimed had a no-turn policy. Did that make him a liar or a saint? If what she’d let herself believe all this time was true, then Lou would just have been another notch on his wings. But the niggle in her gut said differently—despite the fact that it appeared he wanted her nowhere near Lisanne. Okay, so maybe she’d clung to the belief that Greg wanted to keep her a vampire for his own evil reasons too long—guilty as charged. Yet believing he’d do something so utterly selfless meant she had to reevaluate where they stood with each other.
As if Lou’d read her mind, her voice, riddled with shaky breaths, startled Nina. “I like your young man. Apologize to him for me, will you?”
Nina smiled, gulping her relief, running her hands over Lou’s arms to reassure herself she was still there. “For what, Lou?”
“I invited him to dinner and look how well that turned out.” She squeezed Nina’s hand with trembling, aging fingers.
Nina laughed softly, her eyes once more burning. “How do you feel?”
“Tired, child. I think it might be time to take that retirement they’re always bugging me about at the plant.”
Lou’s job at a paper mill was all she had, and offering to give it up was monumental for a die-hard blue collar who believed in hard work, God, and meat and potatoes. “I think you need to slow down period, Gram, and if I have anything to say about it, you will, and I’d better not find out you’ve been smoking again.” Nina’s warning was stern.
“Nope, haven’t touched one in months. That patch really worked.”
Nina caressed her forehead, pushing the wisps of stray, wiry hair from it. “Good, ’cause I don’t think I could take that kind of scare again. So knock that crap off, okay?”
Lou’s smile was slow. “Your young man helped an old, pathetic woman, I assume?”
Her brows knitted together in question. “What makes you say that?”
“I can’t say for sure. I remember hearing him—not his words so much as a lot of yelling, but you were there, so I wasn’t surprised, and then he had those big arms around me. I can see why you like him so much.” Lou wiggled her eyebrows, closing her eyes once more with a weary sigh.
“No one said I like him that much.”
“Yes, you do, Nina. Don’t be so stubborn. It’s nice that you like him, seeing as you’re not always so likeable.”
She chuckled wryly, pul
ling the covers higher over Lou’s chest. “Gee, thanks, Lou.”
“I only speak the truth, girl. You’re like a porcupine, sticking your quills out when anybody gets too close. But he’s unusual, that Greg. You mark my words, he won’t put up with your crap.”
No. Shit. “No kidding,” she mumbled.
“You go home now, honey. Poor old Lou is plum worn out.”
“I’m not leaving you. I’ll stay right here.” And fry when the sunlight comes pouring into the windows, come morning. Now that was a dilemma.
Lou twirled a lock of Nina’s dark hair around her finger and tugged. “You have a job, Nina. A new one at that. So go on now and come see me tomorrow. I’ll put on my lipstick for ya,” she said, yawning and taking another deep breath.
The nurse came in just then to check Lou’s pulse. Efficient hands held fast to Lou’s wrist, and hawk-like eyes timed each beat to her watch.
“She’s still okay, right?”
The nurse nodded, checking her watch once more, then laying Lou’s wrist gently beside her. “We’ll know more tomorrow, but for now her pulse is strong, and her heart beats like a twenty-year-old’s.”
Lou cackled, keeping her eyes closed. “If only my ass was like a twenty-year-old’s.”
The nurse patted Nina’s shoulder, her soft voice soothing and low. “I think it’d be okay for you to go home now, Ms. Blackman. You look awfully pale. From the scare, I guess. But I promise we’ll call you immediately if anything changes. For now, everything is just fine.”
“Right as rain,” Lou chirped.
Dropping a kiss on Lou’s forehead, Nina knew she had to go. If daylight crept up on her, she’d be in a buttload of trouble and no good to her grandmother. As long as Lou was stable, she couldn’t take the chance she’d turn to bacon in front of her grandmother’s eyes. “Okay, Lou, but you behave. You’re under strict orders to never do that to me again, got it?”
“We all have to go sometime, girl.”
Do we? If people only knew.
Nina pressed a kiss to her hand. “Well, how ’bout you not be so dramatic next time, ’K?”
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