Uncross My Heart

by Jennifer Colgan

  Cool it. Get a grip.

  The sound of his rhythmic breathing reached her through the door. She chanced opening it a crack to peer at him. He was asleep already, one arm flung across his eyes as if shielding himself from something.

  He’d taken off her father’s sweatshirt. It now lay folded neatly on the arm of the sofa. His naked chest rose and fell, and his muscles still looked rock solid even in sleep.

  Gorgeous.

  What am I going to do with you, Julian Devlin?

  Zoe shut the door to the bedroom and locked it again. The real question was, what was he going to do with her?

  Chapter Five

  Julian awoke to the faint aroma of bacon, eggs and toast. Despite his late-night meal, his stomach grumbled at the thought of food. He wondered, as he rolled to his feet, how humans managed to get anything done when they had to eat so often.

  His muscles protested the sudden movement and, beneath Zoe’s hastily applied bandage, his back itched. He sighed. While he slept, he’d forgotten that he was human again. In his dreams, he’d been chasing the scent of blood, eager to feel a human pulse slow beneath his lips.

  He’d awakened starving for…something.

  “Good morning.” Zoe appeared then, fully dressed in a chunky sweater and faded jeans, balancing two plates on one arm and carrying a sloshing pitcher of orange juice. “Are you hungry?”

  He was. So hungry—for the skimpy little outfit she’d been wearing a few hours ago.

  Bright sunlight streamed through the living room windows, illuminating the pile of cotton-candy-colored throw pillows he’d banished from the couch before he went to sleep. He stared at the shimmering dust motes captured in the beams and made a point of skirting around the brilliant shafts to join her on the other side of the living room. How long had it been since he’d felt sun on his skin? Always a creature of the night, even before he’d been turned, it still seemed natural to avoid the daylight.

  “Hmm? Eggs?” She set the plates on the coffee table.

  “What time is it?” he asked as he surveyed the feast.

  “It’s past ten. No offense, but you sleep like the dead.”

  He laughed and filled his lungs with the wonderful scent of the breakfast she’d made for him. Being alive did have its perks, he supposed.

  “I’ll be right back.” She ducked through the door that he assumed led to the kitchen and returned with silverware, napkins and glasses for the juice along with an opaque cellophane bag bearing the logo of a local chain store. “I got you something to wear.” She handed him the bag.

  “You’ve been out already?”

  She nodded. “It’s not much. A couple of plain T-shirts and a flannel button-down that sort of goes with your pants. I figured your wardrobe probably went kablooie with the rest of your stuff.”

  He looked in the bag. He hadn’t worn polyester blends in…well, ever, but the clothes would do. They looked soft and smelled new. “Thank you. Again.”

  She held his gaze for a moment. “It kills you to say that, doesn’t it?”

  “You have no idea.” His voice shook a little with the admission. “I’m not used to someone doing something for me unless they’re on my payroll.”

  “Hmm.” Her nod was curt, and a flicker of something lit her eyes. Sympathy? Did she pity him?

  Anger flared briefly. This was what Lambert had reduced him to, taking handouts as though he were a stray dog.

  “You can pay me back. Don’t think of it as charity. It’s a favor. That’s all. Now you do one for me.”

  He could think of several things he’d be happy to do for her. “Why do I get the feeling I won’t like what you have in mind?”

  She smiled and handed him a glass of juice. “I know your type. You don’t like to rely on anyone but yourself.”

  “I relied on Enoch Lambert, and this is where it got me. Now I know I’m better off on my own.”

  Her gaze traveled to the sweatshirt he’d left on the arm of the couch. “My dad was like that. Mr. Self-Sufficient.”

  “Was? And what changed him?”

  Those sparkling eyes of hers clouded for an instant. “Nothing. He never changed. Right up until the day he passed away, he never admitted he needed someone to lean on. Drove my mother crazy. There was so much we would have done for him if he’d let us.” She swiped at her eyes, and then the brilliant smile returned. “My step-dad is the total opposite. He’s very needy. A wonderful man. Generous to a fault, but my mother can’t leave him alone for a minute. He practically needs a committee to get dressed in the morning.”

  Julian watched her. All that emotion flowing beneath the surface of her sunny exterior made him nervous. She was like a live electrical wire crackling with life. If he touched her, would all that energy surge into his body and fry his nerve endings with an overload of sensation?

  “Is there a lesson here somewhere?” he asked, hoping his irreverent tone would convey the message that he had no intention of baring any part of his soul to her in the manner she just had.

  “No lesson. I just wanted you to understand that I know how to handle your type, mister. So don’t try to snow me with all that independence crap.”

  Julian transferred his gaze to the food. The crisp strips of bacon called to him. “So what’s the favor?”

  “First, eat while I make a phone call. Then I want you to come with me to the police station and tell them what happened at your house. Do you have insurance? I’m sure the company can put you up somewhere. We can get you settled in a hotel room, maybe get you some cash to buy a few more essentials, and you can start working on getting yourself back on your feet.”

  Julian picked up a slice of bacon and sniffed experimentally before taking a bite. “Zoe, I appreciate your belief that all this…” he gestured with the bacon, “…mess my life has become, can be fixed with a few simple phone calls. What I need before anything else is something an insurance company can’t do for me. I need to reverse Enoch Lambert’s spell. Once I become a vampire again, I’ll destroy him the same way he sought to destroy me, otherwise he’ll only try again and again to get what he wants.”

  “And what exactly is it that he wants?” Her tone was skeptical.

  “I imagine he wants what he feels should have belonged to him. He was next in line to assume the responsibilities of the vampire who sired me. A falling out between them shifted the balance of power, and I became the successor. Over the years, we forged an uneasy truce that grew into what I thought, however foolishly, was a worthwhile alliance. Enoch led me to believe he accepted our roles in the vampire world. I was wrong.” The admission stung. He’d been careless, believing in the altruism of another vampire. He should have known his own kind better than that. “Once I have my revenge, then I’ll worry about rebuilding my home and replacing all the material things I’ve lost.”

  Disappointment took the place of that hopeful sparkle in her eyes. “Is revenge really going to solve all your problems?”

  He finished the bacon and started on the eggs. They were magnificent. “No. Right now, my only problem is that I’m not a vampire, and I need to be. Once that’s solved, everything else will be fun and games.”

  There was definitely an evil gleam in Julian’s eyes when he spoke about getting revenge against this Lambert fellow. Zoe didn’t like it one bit, but she had to grudgingly admit she understood it. Whatever Julian had lost, he believed Lambert was to blame and had to be made to pay.

  It scared her more than a little, but she refused to be put off so easily. She’d find a way to help Julian get what he needed—what he really needed, which, sadly, probably involved some serious psychiatric help.

  Why did the best looking ones always have fatal flaws? It wasn’t fair.

  While her guest ate his breakfast, and part of hers, she made the phone call she’d been dreading. Her mother answered on the first ring. “Are you all right?” Not even a hello.

  “Yes, Mom. I know caller ID takes the guess-work out of answering the p
hone, but you could at least pretend you didn’t know it was me.”

  “There was an explosion in your neighborhood. It was on the news.”

  “Not my neighborhood. It was like ten blocks from here.”

  “Oh, right. Your neighborhood is much safer. I forgot.”

  “Mom.”

  “Never mind. They’re looking for the man who lived there. Handsome. Looks like a movie star if you ask me, one of the Irish ones…Liam or Willem something. The one who plays all the bad guys.”

  “Did they say what caused the explosion?” Zoe asked, her gaze on Julian as he downed a second glass of juice. How did a man with a physique like that manage to pack away food so fast? Gorgeous and a great metabolism too. It just wasn’t fair.

  “Well, they think it was a bomb. Can you imagine? I think it’s some kind of insurance scam. It was a nice house, worth a fortune, I bet.”

  Zoe sighed. If that were the case, wouldn’t Julian be eager to make a claim? “Right, Mom…”

  “You sound distracted. Is everything all right, sweetheart?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.” Time to break one of her Rules for Hassle Free Living and admit to her mother her existence was less than perfect. Here goes. “I had a break-in at the shop yesterday—” She held the phone away from her ear, and Julian looked up when her mother’s voice exploded from the receiver.

  “Oh my God! I knew this would happen. Running that pawn shop, you’re bound to get criminals coming in—”

  “It’s not a pawn shop, Mom. I sell wedding dresses, baby clothes and vintage jewelry, not stolen TVs.”

  “Were you hurt? Gregory, they robbed Zoe’s store!”

  Zoe heard her stepfather’s voice in the background, and she braced herself for a double-barreled attack of worrying. This was Bryan’s fault. He’d guilted her into calling her parents. “We’ll be right over—”

  “No, Mom. I’m fine. I wasn’t there and in fact, I don’t think anything was even stolen. Someone just broke in and ran away when the alarm went off. Probably just kids. It’s really nothing to worry about.” Nor should you concern yourself with the half-naked ex-vampire who slept on my couch last night.

  “Vandals. Do you see the kind of element that hangs around down there?”

  “Down there” being twenty miles south of where her parents lived in idyllic suburbia where crime consisted of leaving one’s Christmas lights up past Valentine’s Day.

  “I’m fine, Mom.” How many times could she say it before her mother noticed the annoyance in her tone? “You don’t need to come here. I just wanted to let you know what happened so you didn’t freak out if you heard it from someone else.”

  “Like who?” Oh God. Pop went another can of worms.

  “Nobody, I’m just saying—”

  Her mother’s voice turned wary. “You’re not keeping something from me, are you? We don’t do that in this family anymore.”

  Zoe’s shoulders sagged. Not the Dad card. Her mother hadn’t played the Dad card in years. “I know, Mom. I’m not…keeping anything from you. Now I have to go. I’m helping out a friend today, and I’m running late.”

  Zoe pinched the bridge of her nose. From across the room, Julian was staring at her as if she were insane. Her mother actually sniffled. “If you’re sure you’re all right.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Dinner is at seven next Sunday for Gregory’s birthday. We’ll see you then, won’t we?”

  “Yes, of course. Bye, Mom. I love you.”

  “I love you too, sweetheart.”

  Zoe hung up and studied the insides of her eyelids for a moment or two, searching for the happy place that would make her forget the little white lie she’d just told. She was all right, after all. Perfectly fine and not in need of any parental assistance.

  Divine intervention, however, might have been nice. When she opened her eyes, Julian was lowering the hem of one of his new T-shirts over the rippling muscles of his abdomen. The fit of the pre-shrunk cotton was just tight enough to be mouthwatering.

  When he leveled those dark brown eyes at her, she felt distinctly lightheaded.

  “I think I know someone who might be able to help me,” he said. “She lives in Ocean City.”

  “She?” Of course it made sense there would be a woman in his life. Why did that surprise her?

  “Yes. She. Her name is Hester Oakes, and she knows a bit about magick.”

  Zoe held the cordless out to him. “It’s on me, if you want to give her a call.”

  “I doubt she can help me over the phone, and it would take too long to explain exactly what happened to me. I need to see her in person.” He swung around and gave a skeptical glance out the windows. Zoe followed his cautious movements as he circled the puddles of sunlight on the living room floor. Good lord, he was crazier than she thought.

  “You’re not going to burst into flames, you know.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about. I heard your mother say my face is all over the news. As a human, I don’t have any means to elude the authorities.”

  Ocean City was three hours away in weekend traffic, but what choice did Julian have? He might not be safe on a bus, and Zoe didn’t have enough cash for that long of a cab ride.

  She covered her growing apprehension with a wide smile. “You’ve got me. Let’s go.”

  The gypsy girl drove like a maniac. Her little car, a faded blue Hyundai with www.dollars&sense.com emblazoned across the trunk in magnetic letters—and he was worried about being inconspicuous in public!—careened through Sunday traffic like a greased pinball. The picture of composure, Zoe wrenched the wheel from left to right, making hairpin turns like Mario Andretti and easing into a line of fast-moving cars on the highway with barely a centimeter to spare between bumpers.

  Had he been a vampire, he might not have cared, but as much as Julian despised his human existence, he had no desire to die at the moment. Clutching the handle conveniently located above the passenger-side window, he debated opening the latch and diving for freedom toward the grassy knoll that bordered the fast lane. Broken bones would heal, eventually.

  “Pull over,” he demanded when traffic slowed for what appeared to be a minor fender-bender up ahead.

  “What for? You’re not car sick are you?” She shot him a wary look.

  “Now why would you think that?”

  “Because for the last mile you’ve been hanging your head out the window and panting like a dog.”

  “I’m not panting. I’m mouthing an SOS to passing motorists.”

  “Oh please. I’m a good driver.”

  “Said Rainman.”

  “Ah! That’s low.” She tossed her windblown hair and weaved across two lanes to avoid rubberneckers.

  “Please pull over and let me drive.”

  “Men are all alike. It’s a control thing.”

  “No, in this case it’s fear of dying before my hundred and thirtieth birthday. Up ahead, there’s room on the shoulder.”

  She glared at him. “All right. Fine.” The car lurched toward the shoulder and shuddered to a halt.

  Zoe climbed out of the driver’s seat and rounded the front bumper, her steely gaze never leaving his. He glanced through the dusty windshield at the brilliant sky and the crowded highway and opted to climb over the gear shift.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered, flopping into the seat he’d vacated while he struggled to fit his long legs under the steering wheel. “You could have just gotten out.”

  “I’m fine,” he said with a grunt. “Really.”

  Once Julian had adjusted the seat to accommodate his six-foot frame and fiddled with the mirrors, they were in business. He eased back into traffic, wishing he’d taken his chances with his own Lexus LS rather than this rattling tin can on wheels.

  “So you’re a hundred and thirty years old,” she mused after a few minutes.

  “Next month.”

  “So that means you were born in…?”

  Ah. A tes
t. She still obviously thought he was a nut case. “Eighteen seventy-eight.”

  She nodded, apparently impressed with his math skills. “So what were things like back in eighteen seventy-eight?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I was an infant then. The eighteen nineties were rather capricious, as I recall.”

  “Did you always live in this area?”

  “My family had settled in Boston. I came here to work in a cannery when I was nineteen.”

  “Never married?”

  Odd question. It flustered him. His pre-vampire love life had been less than noteworthy. “No. At the time, I didn’t make enough money to support a wife. You know, women weren’t expected to work back then.”

  “Ah, the good old days.”

  “And after I was turned, I never felt the need for a mate.” He’d almost said desire, but that would have been false. The transformation had, in fact, heightened his desires for the opposite sex quite a bit. Finding a woman willing to indulge his newfound needs back then had often been a challenge.

  Fortunately, things had changed quite a bit in the intervening decades.

  “How old were you when you became a vampire?”

  “Twenty-eight.” He rarely talked about it. Never had cause to. Other vampires didn’t care about his past, only his power and his influence in the present day. Power and influence that sank deeper into Lambert’s control with each passing moment.

  “Did you want to be a vampire, or was it against your will?”

  Another startling question. Discovering his mentor Anton Brae was undead had shocked and frightened him at first, but over time, the idea of cheating death had grown on him. “I chose it. When my sire offered me immortality, it seemed like a pretty good deal.”

  She didn’t seem convinced. After a skeptical sidelong glance, she asked, “Did it hurt?”

  “Not as much as one might think. Exsanguination leaves the victim sleepy and weak, but the pain of the bite lasts only for a moment. I’d be happy to demonstrate for you when I’m turned back.”

  She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “I was just making conversation.”

  “You’re fishing. You’re trying to draw me out and trip me up so I’ll realize I’m insane and let you drop me off at the nearest mental institution.”