She felt a flush burn her cheeks. “Yes,” she said, “everything.”
“Are you feeling any better?”
“A little,” she admitted, frowning. “But there’s something bothering me and I can’t quite put my finger on it. Something I should remember. It seems important…”
“I’m sure it will come to you, in time, if it’s important.”
“I guess so,” she said doubtfully.
“Would you like to go out for a while?” he asked.
She nodded, thinking some fresh air and a walk might do her some good.
“Have you had dinner?” he asked.
“No, I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat.”
“Not now.” The very thought of food make her sick to her stomach.
He didn’t argue.
After leaving the hotel, they walked in silence for a while. Shannah felt numb inside, as if a part of her had died in the crash. Maybe she should have died, she thought glumly. At least it would have been quickly over. The doctors didn’t know what was wrong with her. What if it took her months and months to die? She didn’t want to suffer for a long time, to lie in a hospital bed and slowly waste away.
“Hey,” Ronan said, “why so quiet?”
She shrugged. “I was just thinking about…” Her eyes narrowed and she turned to look at him. “On the plane, you promised me that whatever happened, you’d keep me safe.”
He shrugged. “What did you want me to say? I was trying to make you feel better.”
“But there was more…why can’t I remember?”
Taking her by the hand, he said, “Come on, let’s get a drink.”
They found a quiet night club on the next block. Shannah ordered a virgin strawberry daiquiri and Ronan ordered a glass of red wine.
He studied her over the rim of his glass, wondering what he would say if she suddenly remembered everything that had happened before the crash. He told himself there was nothing to worry about and yet he wasn’t so sure. No one else had ever recalled being hypnotized by him. Perhaps it was the result of the blood he had given her. Perhaps it had weakened his power over her and, at the same time, strengthened her will to resist his telepathic suggestions. If she remembered everything he had said on the plane before the crash and after, it would require a great deal of explanation.
Jim Hewitt looked up at the small television set that was located on a shelf in a corner of the bar.
“Hey, Overstreet,” he called, “look at this. Bartender, can you turn up the sound?”
“What’s going on?” Carl Overstreet looked up at the screen where a television reporter was standing in front of the smoldering wreckage of a plane.
“Remember when we followed Black and her publicist to the airport? Didn’t they leave on Flight 271?”
Overstreet snorted. “If he’s her publicist, I’m Jane Pauley.”
Hewitt jerked his chin toward the TV. “That’s Flight 271. Good thing we couldn’t get tickets.”
“Yeah,” Overstreet muttered, his eyes narrowing. “Good thing.”
Hewitt grunted. It hadn’t seemed like a good thing at the time. Once Eva Black had boarded the plane, she had been lost to them, at least temporarily. Now it looked like she was gone for good, and with her their only link to her companion.
“Do you think he was killed?” Overstreet asked.
Hewitt shrugged, his gaze intent on the screen. “I don’t know. Vampires are susceptible to fire, just like anyone else. Maybe more so.”
“Yeah, but…wait a minute,” Overstreet said. “Listen to this.”
“…. Miss Eva Black and her companion, Mr. Dark, were the sole survivors when the plane’s engine malfunctioned and crashed in this barren stretch of Iowa countryside. Neither Miss Black, a well-known author who resides in Northern California, nor her companion, Mr. Dark, were available for comment. In other news…”
Hewitt grinned. He’d bet his last dollar that Mr. Dark was none other than Ronan.
“What’s so funny?” Overstreet asked.
“Just thinking that this is our lucky day. So, what do you say, Carl, you up for another trip to sunny California?”
“Sure, I’ve got nothing else to do.” With a shrug, the reporter tossed off his drink. “But how do we find him when we get there?”
“As it happens, I know how to find him.”
Using the ticket the airlines had given her, Shannah booked a flight home for the next night. Ronan was able to get a seat on the same flight. He watched her carefully as they boarded the plane, but she did so without fear.
The flight was uneventful. When they arrived at the airport, Ronan hailed a cab.
Shannah sat beside him, silently staring out the window.
It was after midnight when they reached Ronan’s house. Shannah felt a sense of homecoming unlike anything she had ever felt before as she stepped across the threshold.
Funny, that this big old house that wasn’t even hers felt more like home than her own apartment.
She waited for Ronan to lock the door and switch on the lights. “Do you still want me to live here, with you?” she asked.
“Yes. Why? You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”
“No.”
Murmuring her name, he drew her into his arms. The plane crash had reminded him anew of how fragile human life was, how quickly it could be snuffed out. He wanted to spend every moment possible with the woman in his arms. He wanted her with him forever.
Shannah leaned against him, her head pillowed on his chest, her eyes closed. The sound of his heartbeat soothed her. His arms were strong around her, protective, comforting. She was safe here, with him. Nothing could hurt her while he was there…
Trust me, love, there’s nothing to fear. I won’t let anything hurt you.
The words echoed so loudly in her mind she looked up to see if he had spoken.
“Did you say something?”
“No, why?”
“I thought…never mind. It’s late,” she said, smothering a yawn. “I think I’ll go to bed.”
“All right.”
“Will you sit with me until I fall asleep?”
“If you wish.”
“Give me a few minutes, okay?”
Nodding, he watched her climb the stairs until she was out of sight, and then he began to pace the floor. Had he made a mistake in asking her to move in? It would be harder to keep his secret, harder to explain his continued absences during the day. And yet he could not abide the thought of letting her go. She was too fragile to live alone. He needed to have her nearby, where he could keep watch over her, where he could come to her aid should she need it. He was not entirely helpless during the day. If she needed him when he was at rest, he could, with a great deal of effort, rise to meet her needs, so long as she was inside the house.
He waited fifteen minutes and then he went up the stairs to her bedroom. She was already in bed, her hair spread around her shoulders in waves of black silk. She looked up at him through eyes shadowed with remorse and he wondered how long it would take her to get over feeling guilty because she had survived, and be grateful that she was still alive. He knew he could wipe the guilt from her memory, but he was reluctant to mess with her mind too often.
Wordlessly, he drew her into his arms, one hand stroking her back. “I’m glad you survived,” he murmured. “My existence wouldn’t be the same without you.”
“Your existence?”
“My life,” he amended easily.
“Do I really mean that much to you?”
“That much and more,” he said fervently. “Until you came into my life, I was lost and I didn’t even know it.”
“I think that’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“I want to make you happy, love. If there’s anything you want, you have only to name it. Do whatever you want in the house, buy whatever you wish, whatever you need.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
�
��Not really. I’m just being selfish.”
“It doesn’t sound selfish to me.”
“Ah, but it is, don’t you see? Making you happy makes me happy.”
She smiled up at him. “Maybe that’s why I was spared,” she remarked. “To spend my last few days making you happy.”
“Perhaps. Let’s not question fate, let’s just enjoy the time we have.”
“I love you, Ronan.”
“Shannah!”
“Do you love me?”
“More than you can imagine.”
With a sigh, she snuggled against him, her arms around his waist.
He held her until she fell asleep, held her until the hunger gnawing at his insides could no longer be ignored.
Brushing a kiss across her brow, he settled her under the covers, and then he went out into the night to search the drifting shadows for prey.
Chapter Seventeen
After five hundred and thirteen years as a vampire, it didn’t take Ronan long to find that which he sought, that which he needed. He fed quickly, neatly, and went on his way.
Five hundred and thirteen years. It didn’t seem possible that so many centuries had passed, or that he had changed in so many ways and yet remained ever the same.
He had been born in the summer of 1459 in a small town off the English coast, a town that no longer existed. He had grown up on a farm, the youngest child in a family of four girls and five boys. His brothers and sisters had all married and left home by the time he was seventeen and he alone had remained to help his father work the farm. At the age of twenty-four, he had married the girl on the neighboring farm. It hadn’t been a love match, though Verity had been a sweet girl, biddable and kind-hearted. Though he had married her to please his parents, he hadn’t been completely unhappy with his bride. She had been a pretty thing, with expressive brown eyes and a shy smile. Their marriage had been amicable if not exciting. In time, Verity had grown to love him and he had learned to care and appreciate her for the good woman she was. They had been married eight years and had long since given up any hope of having children when Verity told him she was pregnant. Seven months later, she had died in childbirth and the babe with her. He had mourned her death and the loss of his child, mourned the fact that he had never loved her.
He had immersed himself in work after the death of his wife and child. His mother and father had assured him that the grief would pass, that he would marry again. He never knew if they were right or wrong. Three years after Verity’s death, Rosalyn had come to town and changed his life forever.
She had been a wild, wanton woman, the perfect antidote for the lethargy that had plagued him. She had teased and flirted shamelessly, and one night under a dark moon she had taken him into the shadows beyond the town and seduced him. When he had offered to marry her, she laughed in his face.
“You are so young,” she had exclaimed. “And so tasty.” She had kissed him again, arousing him to fever pitch once more, and then she sank her fangs into his throat.
Though he was taller and broader and outweighed her by a good sixty pounds, he had been helpless to resist her. He had felt himself growing weak, weaker, knew he was on the brink of death. When she lifted her head and looked down at him, her lips had been stained with his blood.
“Why?” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper.
She shrugged, and then, to his astonishment, she slit her wrist with a fingernail. Drops of dark red bubbled from the wound. He recoiled when she offered him her arm.
“I have drained you to the point of death,” she said. “Now you must drink or die. The choice is yours.”
Feeling as though he might float away on the next breeze, he shook his head. “No.”
“Drink,” she coaxed. “Someday you will thank me.”
As he grew weaker, his fear of dying overcame his revulsion. With a low growl, he grabbed her arm.
“I’ll never thank you,” he vowed, “not if I live to be a hundred.”
She laughed softly as he pressed her wrist to his lips.
He drank like a man who had been denied nourishment for days, drank until she had jerked her wrist away. And then, to his amazement, she lifted him into her arms as if he weighed no more than a child, carried him deep into a cave, and then vanished from his sight. Confused and afraid of what had happened between them, he struggled to his feet. He had only taken a few steps when pain ripped through his body. Certain she had left him in the cave to die, he curled into a ball, moaning softly as the world around him went dark, sucking him down into the blackness of oblivion.
When he woke the following night, he was a newly made vampire with the whole of the world and eternity stretching before him. They were exciting times. Sir Francis Drake sailed around the world, John Smith founded Jamestown, Gutenberg invented a printing press with movable type, the Pilgrims came to America. And he came with them, a new vampire in a new world.
He had enjoyed his existence but never more so than now. After all these years, years that he owed to Rosalyn, he had fallen in love. And for that, he would ever be grateful.
Looking up at the starry sky, he murmured, “You were right, Rosalyn. Wherever you are, I thank you.”
And then he returned to the house that was now a home because Shannah was waiting for him there.
Chapter Eighteen
Shannah woke at dusk to find Ronan standing in front of her bedroom window, looking out. Sitting up, she admired the width of his shoulders, his tight buns, the snug fit of his jeans, the long line of his legs. He really was a perfect specimen, the kind of man that graced the covers of magazines like GQ and appeared on posters in clothing stores.
His soft chuckle filled the silence. “Do you like what you see?”
“How did you know I was looking?”
“I can feel your gaze on my back.” He turned to face her, his arms crossed over his chest. “And other places.”
“Oh.” She knew she was blushing but she couldn’t help it. Drat the man, she had blushed more since she met him than she had in her whole life.
“So,” he said, “now that you’re officially moved in, what would you think about keeping the same hours I do?”
“I don’t suppose you could write during the day?”
“No. I’m afraid I’m too old and set in my ways to change now.”
She could understand that, she supposed. After all, he was a successful author, and as such, he was entitled to his quirks.
“Shannah?”
“I’m willing to try.”
“You won’t mind sleeping during the day?”
“I don’t know. I guess not.” Truth be told, she had been going to bed later and getting up later since the first night she came here.
Sitting up, she stretched her arms over her head. Still, it would be odd, getting up when the sun went to bed, sleeping while the sun was up, but it would be worth it if it meant spending more time with Ronan.
“So, what hours do you keep, exactly?”
“I usually get up an hour or two before sundown and stay up until dawn.”
“You sleep all day?”
“Writing takes a lot out of me.” He grinned at her. “Of course, since you came along, I haven’t done a whole lot of writing.”
Shannah chewed on her thumbnail. His hours didn’t sound so bad, although she wasn’t sure she could sleep that long. Of course, she wouldn’t have to keep his exact hours.
“You don’t have to adjust your schedule to mine if you’d rather not,” he said. “We can go on as we are.”
“No, that’s okay. We can try it for a while and see how it works out,” she said. “Since we’ll be keeping the same hours, does that mean we’ll be eating our meals together now?”
Damn, why hadn’t he thought of that? He could always sit across from her and plant the idea in her mind that he had shared the meal with her. It would probably be the easiest solution.
“I usually only eat one meal a day,” he said.
“And
you like to eat alone,” she said. “I know.”
He nodded.
“Well, we’ll work something out,” she said brightly. “So, what hours do you write?”
“Until you came along, I usually wrote most of the night.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t want to interfere with your work…”
“Ah, but I want you to. Writing is a lonely business.”
“But you have to keep writing. Think of all those fans waiting for your next book! I’ll just read or watch TV when you’re working.” Of course, that wouldn’t give them much time together.
Crossing the floor, he took her by the hand and drew her out of bed and into his arms. “Good evening, love.”
She smiled up at him, then closed her eyes as he lowered his head and claimed a kiss.
Yes, she thought dreamily, she could get used to this.
“Why don’t you get dressed and have dinner,” he suggested, “and then, if you like, we can go out.”
“All right.”
“Where would you like to go?”
“The movies? I haven’t been in ages.”
“The movies it is.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I’ll even buy you a box of popcorn.”
They left for the theater at 6:30. It was odd, Ronan thought, sitting with a girl at the movies, holding hands like any other mortal couple. He tried to shut out the cacophony of beating hearts, the myriad odors that rose from the people around him, the smell of popcorn, soda, candy, nachos and cheese, the whispers and giggles, the scent of lust emanating from the teenage boy in the next row, his own growing desire for the woman beside him.
With so many distractions, it was little wonder that he paid scant attention to what was happening on the screen.
He was relieved when the movie was over. Outside, he drew in a deep breath. Due to his preternatural senses, he was ever aware of the hundreds of scents and sounds that surrounded him, but out here, in the open, they were less intense.
“I need to check my post office box,” he remarked as they walked across the street to the parking lot. “I haven’t picked up my mail in weeks.”
“I used to follow you there sometimes,” she confessed.
Dead Perfect Page 15