“Believe what you want,” Vince said with a shrug. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
She stared at him a minute, as if making up her mind whether to believe him or not, and then frowned. “How did you get through the gate?”
Damn, he thought, she had him there. The wrought-iron gate was set in the high stone wall that surrounded the house. It could only be opened electronically, and it had been locked, so he’d vaulted over the wall, just like Superman.
“Well?” She tapped her foot on the floor, waiting to catch him in a lie.
“I ducked inside behind the big guy’s car. Who is he, anyway? Not your father?”
“He’s my bodyguard, and he’ll break you in half if he finds you here.”
“Then I hope you won’t call him.”
Cara laughed in spite of herself. “You’re despicable.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He was too close. Even though they weren’t touching, she was aware of the attraction that hummed between them. It was primal, sensual, and a little scary. He felt it, too. She could see it in his eyes, feel it in the tension that hummed between them, so thick it was almost palpable.
She should go back inside and lock the door. She should have him arrested for trespassing. She should call her father. She didn’t do any of those things and she wasn’t sure why, except that she was attracted to him in a way she didn’t understand. Beyond that, she was grateful to him for bringing a bit of excitement into her otherwise unexciting life. You only had to look at him to know he was the kind of man mothers warned their daughters about, thereby making them more appealing—and he was very appealing, with his long black hair and tight-fitting jeans.
“As long as you’re here, you might as well sit down,” she said, gesturing at one of the deck chairs.
“Thanks.”
He sat where she indicated, and she sat in the chair across from him. She wondered what her father would do if he came to check on her again and found her sitting out here with a stranger, then shrugged her worries aside. Her father had already checked on her once; he wasn’t likely to return at this time of the night.
Cara bit down on the inside corner of her bottom lip. Now that she had invited Vince to stay, she was at a loss for words. She was basically shy around strangers and had never been any good at making small talk.
Searching for a safe topic of conversation, she said, “Tell me about yourself. I don’t even know your last name.”
“It’s Cordova,” he said. “As for my life story, there’s not much to tell. I’m a mechanic. I own my own shop. I’ve got three brothers, a sister, and a bad-tempered cat.”
“A cat? Most guys don’t like cats.”
“I don’t like this one, either.”
“Then why do you have it?”
“Somebody ran it over. I found it in some bushes, half dead. I couldn’t just leave it there.” He didn’t tell her that the cat had turned up the night after he’d been made, or that, driven by an unholy hunger, he had licked the blood from the cat’s wounds. Surprisingly, the cat had recovered. “What about you?” he asked, glancing around. “It’s obvious that your folks are well-off. I guess that explains the bodyguard.”
She regarded him warily. What if Vince wasn’t the nice, easygoing guy he seemed to be? What if he was only showing interest in her because he knew her father was rich? What if he had come in hopes of kidnapping her and holding her for ransom? What if he was a robber, or a murderer, or worse? Maybe she did need a bodyguard!
“I think you’d better go,” she said, hating the sudden tremor in her voice. She told herself there was nothing to be afraid of. One scream would rouse the household and bring Di Giorgio and her father running.
“Did I say something wrong?” Vince asked, frowning.
“Why did you really come here?”
His gaze moved over her, as hot and tangible as a summer breeze. “Because I was afraid you might never come back to the club, and I’d never see you again.”
At his words, Cara’s heart skipped a beat.
“I know we’ve just met,” Vince said, “and you have no reason to believe me, or trust me, but…” He shook his head. “I just wanted to see you again.”
Right or wrong, foolish or not, she believed him.
Vince gained his feet. “I’m sorry if I was out of line. Go on back inside. I’ll leave and you’ll never see me again.”
She stared up at him, her heart pounding, and then she whispered, “Don’t go.”
Chapter 5
As soon as she uttered the words, Cara had second thoughts. What was she doing? Vince was a stranger to her. They had shared nothing more than a drink and a dance in a nightclub. She knew nothing about him save what he had told her, and for all she knew, everything he’d said could be a lie. How many times had her father and mother warned her to be careful of strangers?
She bit down on her lower lip. Maybe she was an idiot; maybe she was no better than those foolish girls who got into cars with guys they didn’t know and then wound up dead in a ditch with no one to blame but themselves.
She lifted her gaze to his. If eyes were the windows to the soul, then his soul was dark and haunted, and yet she had no sense of being in danger. He might be dangerous, she thought, but not to her. She had never been more certain of anything in her life.
“Cara.” His voice was thick with an emotion she couldn’t identify. “I think I’d better go.”
“Why?” She reached out, as if to stop him, then let her hand fall to her side.
“It’s late. You should get some rest.”
“You, too. You probably have to open your shop early in the morning.”
He didn’t answer, but merely grunted softly.
“Will you be at The Nocturne tomorrow night?” she asked.
A faint smile played over his lips. “I will if you will.”
“I’ll be there.” As if drawn by an invisible hand, she took a step toward him.
He moved toward her, his gaze burning into hers. “What time?”
“Nine-thirty.” They were only a breath apart now.
“Nine-thirty,” he repeated. “I’ll see you then.”
Heart pounding so loud she was sure he could hear it, she waited for him to kiss her.
Instead, he turned and walked away.
Cara stared after him as he went down the winding staircase, disappointed that he hadn’t kissed her good night. It wasn’t until he disappeared into the shadows that she wondered how he was going to get through the gate.
Vince ghosted through the darkness to where he had left his car. He noted in passing that the man, Anton, had gone. Anton. There was something about the man that rubbed Vince the wrong way. Of course, it might be nothing more than a bad case of good, old-fashioned jealousy, but he didn’t think so. There was something dark and sinister about the man.
Vince laughed. Dark and sinister. That was rich! There weren’t many things walking around that were darker or more sinister than what he himself had become.
Vince the vampire. Even now, almost a year later, he still couldn’t believe what had happened to him.
He slid behind the wheel of the Mustang and pulled away from the curb. Vampire. He supposed he had been like everyone else on the planet, assuming vampires were creatures of myth and legend, until the night he had the misfortune to pick up the wrong chick. He shook his head. She hadn’t looked like a vampire, he thought glumly, let alone one that was thousands of years old! She’d had the body of a siren and the face of an angel, and he’d been helpless to resist her.
He laughed softly, bitterly. As the old saying went, he had chased her until she caught him. They had been in the middle of the best sex he’d ever had when she’d sunk her fangs into his throat. That was his first hint that she wasn’t an ordinary female. The second had come when he tried to fight her off. She was just a little thing, hardly more than five feet tall, and couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds soaking wet,
but she’d held him down with one hand, and when he had gotten desperate and drove his fist into her face, she had laughed at him. Then she had drained him to the point of death and given him a choice—live or die.
Looking back, he wondered if he would have chosen death if she had told him just what being a vampire entailed. Not that it was all that bad. True, he could no longer eat brunch with his folks on Sundays, but his senses were so acute he could hear the flutter of a moth’s wings. He couldn’t go surfing early in the morning anymore, but he could bench-press a bus. And even though he couldn’t go outside during the day, he’d been surprised to discover that he wasn’t compelled to sleep when the sun was up. He wasn’t sure why. He had even doubted that he was a true vampire until he foolishly went outside one morning. That was a mistake he hadn’t made again. The sun had burned him like acid. He was weak during the day, and so he usually rested until early afternoon and did the brunt of his work after dark. Even drinking blood wasn’t as bad as he had expected it would be. Bad? Hah! It was like the nectar of the gods.
And there was no denying the thrill of the hunt. At first, he had been shocked and shamed by the kick he got out of it, but that hadn’t lasted long. There was nothing else like it, finding prey, smelling their fear, knowing that you held their life in your hands, that you could take only what you needed to survive or you could drain them to the point of death. He had done that only once, but he had never forgotten the ecstasy of drinking a human life, of absorbing the man’s essence, listening to the beat of his prey’s heart grow weaker as his own grew stronger. As exhilarating as it had been, he had never done it again, afraid that if he did, he would turn into the kind of ravening monster that vampires were reputed to be. It was hard enough to hang on to what remained of his humanity.
The only real downside to being a vampire had been moving away from his family. They had always been a close-knit bunch and he missed rough housing with his brothers and babysitting his nieces and nephews, but moving had seemed the easiest solution. He couldn’t tell his kin what he had become and couldn’t keep thinking up new excuses for why he didn’t show up for brunch or why he couldn’t eat dinner, or go to the park with his sister’s kids, or watch his nephew play Little League anymore. It had just been easier to sell his business, move away, and start a new life. He’d hated to leave Georgia, but he’d had to move far enough away that his parents couldn’t just hop in the car and drive over for a visit. It hadn’t been easy leaving his friends behind, either, or starting a new life, especially a life with a lifestyle he didn’t know anything about.
The other drawback to being Undead was finding things to do to pass the time late at night. He couldn’t work all the time, and once the movies, the bowling alley, and the bars closed, there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot to do except visit The Nocturne.
He parked the Mustang in the garage and lowered the iron security door. Cat was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. With a gravelly meow, the cat followed him upstairs. At one time, the room had been a large office, but Vince had converted it into a combination living room–bedroom. He no longer needed a kitchen, or much of anything else. He had furnished the place with a black leather sofa and chair, a coffee table, a couple of end tables, a home theater system with surround sound, and a stereo. He’d had the windows plastered over so he didn’t have to worry about the sun finding him. As long as he avoided its light, he was safe inside. On really sunny days, he closed the security door and just left the side entrance open. Satellite TV and a couple hundred DVDs provided entertainment in the wee hours of the morning.
He turned on the TV, and even though the volume was turned low, he could hear it perfectly.
Dropping down on the sofa, he stared at the screen; his thoughts turned inward as he idly scratched Cat’s ears. He had been an easygoing guy not too long ago. He’d had friends, played softball on the local team once a week, gone dirt biking with his buddies, had his share of women. He grinned inwardly. Maybe more than his share. Of course, all that had changed when he did.
He had left all his old friends behind because it was easier to move than try to explain the unexplainable. He didn’t really trust himself with women, though they seemed to gravitate toward him more than ever. Since becoming a vampire, he could have scored every night, but he had no interest in meaningless sex. Of course, it made satisfying his other hunger easier. Talk about a quickie! He smiled at the women who came on to him, mesmerized them, took what he needed to satisfy his hellish thirst, and sent them on their way, none the wiser.
But Cara was different. He didn’t want to drink from her…well, he did, but that wasn’t all he wanted. There was something about her that called to him. For all that she had money and lived with parents who seemed to love her, he sensed she was just as lonely as he was.
And she lived with vampires.
He mulled that over for a time, wondering if the vampires were her parents, and if so, how such a thing could be possible. He’d been told that the Undead couldn’t create life, but if they weren’t her parents, who were they?
Cara. She occupied his thoughts until the rising of the sun made his mind and body sluggish and he sought his bed for a few hours’ sleep.
He would see her later, after the sun went down.
Smiling, he closed his eyes and took his rest.
Cara woke the next morning with a smile on her face and a fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach. Tonight, she would see Vince. She giggled at the thought. Was this what it was like to be in love? She bounded out of bed and then, arms outstretched, she twirled around and around, then fell back on the bed again. She was going to see Vince in…she glanced at the clock and groaned. It was only ten-thirty! Eleven hours until she would see him. If she knew where he worked, she could stop in and surprise him, she thought, and then sighed. He might not like that. Some men didn’t like to be bothered at work, so it was probably just as well that she didn’t know where his shop was.
She took a quick shower, dressed, and went downstairs to fix breakfast. As usual, the house was quiet. The words “quiet as a tomb” whispered through the back of her mind. Frowning, she wondered where that thought had come from.
She read the paper while she ate a leisurely breakfast, then lingered over a cup of coffee. After putting her dishes in the dishwasher, she went upstairs to brush her teeth and put on her makeup.
Di Giorgio was waiting for her when she went out to the garage. He nodded at her, then got into his car and followed her to the library.
She had often wondered what her parents paid him to be her bodyguard. He rarely got a day off. It had to be the most boring job in the world, following her around, sitting in the library when she was at work, sitting outside her house on her days off. She doubted he had much of a social life. He certainly wasn’t married. After all, what woman would be content with a husband that was hardly ever home? She suddenly felt ashamed of herself. Di Giorgio had been her bodyguard since she was twelve years old and she didn’t know a thing about him except that he had come to the United States from Sicily when he was in his mid-twenties. She had always thought of him as a necessary evil, like going to the dentist.
She pulled into her parking space, waved at Di Giorgio as she got out of the car, and almost laughed out loud at the surprised look on his face. She vowed then and there to be nicer to him in the future.
She nodded at the other workers as she moved through the library. They were a nice bunch of ladies. Most of them were in their forties or fifties and they all mothered her. A couple of them flirted with Frank. They grilled her about his private life and asked her to give Frank their phone numbers. Cara found it amusing. Secretly, she wished that Frank would call Mary Garfield, but Frank didn’t seem interested in Mary or any of the other women.
Cara spent the better part of the afternoon returning books to the proper shelves. As the day wore on, she caught herself constantly looking at the clock.
“You must have a big date tonight,” Sarah Beth Colem
an remarked with a smile. Sarah Beth was Cara’s best friend. She was married to a police officer and pregnant with their first child.
“Why do you say that?”
“I’ve never known you to be a clock-watcher before. Have you met someone new?”
The ladies in the library were always asking her that, hoping she would find a “nice young man” and settle down.
“I have,” Cara said, unable to keep from smiling at the mere thought of him.
Sarah Beth took her by the hand and drew her deeper into the stacks. “What’s his name? What’s he like? When do I get to meet him?
Cara laughed. “I really don’t know anything about him. I just met him last night, but he seems wonderful. He’s so nice, and so handsome…”
“Sounds like love at first sight to me,” Sarah Beth said with a teasing grin.
“Was that how it was with you and Dean?”
Sarah Beth nodded. “Yes. I took one look at him and I knew he was the one.”
“I’m meeting Vince tonight after work. I can hardly wait.”
Sarah Beth gave her a quick hug. “I’ll expect a full report tomorrow.”
Around eight-thirty, things slowed down. Cara sat at her desk, idly drawing hearts and writing her name and Vince’s inside. It was such a high-school kind of thing to do, but she couldn’t seem to stop, couldn’t help noticing how well their names looked together. She drew a new heart and wrote Mr. and Mrs. Cordova inside.
Vince. She didn’t know anything about him except how he made her feel.
At five minutes to nine, she cleared her desk and grabbed her coat, told the ladies good night, and practically bolted out the door. Frank Di Giorgio wasn’t far behind.
It was nine-thirteen when she pulled up in front of The Nocturne. No doubt she would get a serious lecture from Di Giorgio about the dangers of speeding sometime in the near future, but she’d worry about that later.
Looking in the rearview mirror, she applied fresh lipstick, ran a brush through her hair, took a deep breath, and then got out of the car.
Amanda Ashley - [Children of the Night 02] Page 4