I followed her eyes and saw Liam standing by the register, scribbling his signature on a receipt. He grabbed his paper bag of backed goods and popped the top off his coffee cup to add bit of sugar. His eyes keep wandering back to Lola.
Lola flipped her perky red pony tail over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “He’s looking at me, isn’t he?”
I smiled. “He’s always looking at you.”
She chewed her lip. “I just don’t understand it. He goes around town looking all mopey when he’s the one who broke up with me—totally out of the blue.” She shook her head. “He said he didn’t want to hurt me, but look—I’d say I’m pretty hurt, don’t you?”
I wanted to grab her shoulders and tell her everything—that Liam did still love her, that he’d been by my cabin every day to test out my werewolf antidote experiments. I wanted to tell her about the look in his eyes each time we tried a potion that didn’t work. I wanted her to know that it was probably taking every bit of willpower Liam had to not scoop her up in his arms and give her everything a man could give a woman.
But I kept my mouth shut. She probably wouldn’t have believed me anyway—not after the amount of memory dust Ida Honeycutt had given her.
Lola shrugged her dainty shoulders. “I don’t understand men.” With a smile, she topped off my coffee. “But enough about my sad love life, how are things with you and Blake?”
“He’s been out of town and I’ve been busy with the lodge. And we’re not, like, actually a thing,” I said. Then in a whisper, I added, “We haven’t even kissed.”
She planted her hand on her hip. “Well, what’s that boy waiting for?”
“Beats me.” I took a long drink of coffee. What I didn’t tell Lola was that I’d been avoiding Blake for pretty much the same reason Liam was avoiding Amy. I didn’t want him to get hurt. I was a witch. He was just a man. It wasn’t responsible for me to be with someone like him.
“Men,” Amy said, loud enough that the whole cafe could hear. She sauntered off into the back.
Liam’s watched her go with an expression looked like a puppy who had gotten smacked with a newspaper.
Then he seemed to shake it off with smile that almost had me fooled. He stopped by my table on his way out. “She’s stilled pissed at me?”
“Obviously,” I said. “But that’s a good thing.”
He look a swig of his coffee. “How do you figure?”
“If she’s mad that means she still has feelings for you.”
“You’re saying every woman who is mad at me is actually in love with me?” He rubbed his chin. “Does that include you?”
“Uh, no. It doesn’t,” I said dryly.
“Now where is that truth serum when you need it?” He said with a shake of his head.
I patted his hand. “We’ll figure out the antidote. I promise.”
He turned his hand up and interlaced his fingers with mine. “I hate seeing her like that,” he said, eyes on the kitchen door where Lola had disappeared into.
“I know.”
“See you around.” His smile faded as he slid out of the booth and walked out the door.
I doused my pancakes with syrup and tried to not to think about Liam and Lola’s ill-fated love story. I wanted to badly to figure out that antidote for Liam. After he saved me life, I owned him that.
“You’ve gotta love small towns, don’t you?” A low sultry voice behind me said. “Everyone knows everyone else business.”
I stopped, mid-chew as a man with bright blue eyes, dark hair and a pale face sat down at my table right were Liam had been. He was startlingly handsome—straight up movie star looks, but he wasn’t the type to play the hero. There was something oddly repellant about him.
A little voice in my head screamed for me to stop looking into his eyes, and when I tried to look away, I realized it took every ounce of self-control I had to do that.
He was supernatural—he had to be. No one was that pretty—especially that particular sort of pretty. Blake was handsome. Liam was hot. This guy—with his glittering blue eyes, his long dark eyelashes and that devil-may-care smile—he was magnetic.
There was something familiar about this man, though. He had the same color eyes as Blake, except more exaggerated somehow, and similar bone structure. He could be Blake’s…
“Natalie, right?” the stranger said. He rested his arm on the back of the booth.
“Do I know you?”
“I was at your aunt’s funeral. You don’t remember me?” He asked. His lips turned down in a pout, but his eyes sparkled with humor like this was all some kind of inside joke that only he was privy to. “Natalie, that hurts me.”
“Who are you?”
“Someone who is very interested in knowing who you are.”
A shiver crawled up my spine, growing like a crack in a windshield. “I’m trying to enjoy my pancakes, so you should probably go.”
He leaned back and stuck his chin out. His eyes moved very slowly me like a caress. “Blake mentioned that you were a bit of firecracker—my words, not his.”
Fear quietly settled into my body, like snowflakes melting as they touched the ground. “You stay away from Blake.”
“That’s funny,” he said, showing a row of bright white teeth when he smiled. “He told me to stay away from you.”
I clutched my fork, wishing I’d had something more to protect myself with. “You’re doing a bad job of that,” I observed.
“Oh, I never agreed to that,” he flicked his pale hand absently. “And can you blame me? I’m a concerned older brother. I just wanted to get a look at the women who has my brother shaving on a regular basis—you know those creative types.” He leaned forward and spoke in a stage whisper. “You should see the amount of hair gel he uses now.”
Had he just said ‘brother’?
“Oh, you didn’t know,” he said, reading my silence as confusion. “I’m his brother, and your neighbor. So you’ll be seeing lot of me.”
“He didn’t tell me he had a brother.”
“He doesn’t like to talk about me, and he definitely didn’t want me meeting you.” The man’s mouth turned up in a suggestive smile as his eyes moved up and down my body, drinking me in. “And I can see why. He’s got good taste.” He licked his lips. “And I bet you’ve got good taste, too.”
I shivered. “Well, you are officially creeping me out, and that’s pretty hard to do these days.” I hurriedly closed up my laptop and started packing up. “So I’m going go.”
Suddenly his hand locked onto my arm. I stared down at it dumbfounded. How had he moved that fast?
The man leaved across table, bringing lips close to my ear. In whisper he said, “But you didn’t meet me,” he said. “I didn’t even tell you my name.” His blue eyes glinted. “I’m Dean. Nice to meet you, Natalie.”
“Let go of me,” I said in a low voice.
“I can let go of you, but you will stay still.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, sliding out the booth.
He moved with lightening speed, appeared in front of me, blowing my way. “So you are a witch,” he remarked.
“How did you know that?”
“Because you resisted me.”
“Wow. Arrogant much? You’re not that charming.” I tried to side-step him again, and there he was. I bumped right into him. I recoiled, disgusted by being so close to him.
His eyes narrowed. “If I was using charm on you, you’d know.” His lips inched closer to mine. “I was compelling you.”
I tried pushed him away, but with an unnatural speed, his hands were around my wrists. “What are you?” I asked, hoping the terror I was feeling wasn’t painted all over my face.
And then an image flashed in my mind—a psychic vision, intuition? I didn’t know. But in that instant, I’d seen this devastatingly handsome man with black eyes, white fangs, and his lips shining with dripping blood.
“Vampire,” I whispered.
“And you’re a Wilde
r witch.”
“Let go of me.”
“Relax. My intentions are pure. I came here to warn you and my thick-headed brother that something is coming your way, and you’re not going to like it very much”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Oh, no. I didn’t mean me. I’m a good vampire.”
“You’re all bad.”
He frowned, as if contemplated that. “True enough,” He said. “It’s all relative. Let me put it to you another way. The vampire who is on his way to your lodge—he’s not nearly as charming as I am, and unfortunately, rumor has it, he’s dead set on killing you. Don’t ask me why—I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him when you see him,” he said glibly.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” I said, jerking my arms away from him. I started to go, but then I changed my mind. “And you know what? I’m actually going to finish my breakfast. Alone. So you can leave, or I’ll make you sorry you ever messed with me.”
He backed up, hands raised in mock surrender. “I’m just trying to help, but if you don’t want my help—fine. No problem.” He walked to the door with the grace of a cat. “But don’t come crying to me when the oldest vampire in the South shows up on opening day. I’m sure he’ll be on his best behavior.”
He disappeared out the diner door, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. I looked at my pancakes wishing I’d gotten to enjoy them before Blake’s secret vampire brother made me lose my appetite. “It’s always something, isn’t it?” I stabbed the fork straight down into my short stack.
The End.
Author’s Note
Hi, I'm January Daphne, and I write about ghosts, witches, vampires and things that go bump in the night!
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Carolina Witch Page 17
