by Anna Lowe
A glance in the rearview mirror showed Ty, jaw set hard. There, Cody told himself, he’d done it again. Seemed no matter how hard he tried, he always managed to let someone down.
Including himself.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Heather had practically breezed through the school day. A glorious week with Cody—okay, a glorious week of nights…and mornings—with Cody, and she was glowing. She’d found a new kind of calm with him, despite all the uncertainty in her life. An inner calm that came from the sensation of two hearts beating just inches apart. A glass half-full kind of feeling she’d never had before.
Hell, her glass was more than half-full. It was overflowing, at least when it came to the physical. Cody had devoted a good quarter of an hour to her breasts on Wednesday night alone, until she’d woven her fingers in his dewy hair and guided him down to lap at her sex. She’d never trusted a man to do that before, but with Cody—well, there had been a lot of firsts. Ecstasy like she’d never known before this week hit her at the first flick of his tongue. When he popped his head up to check on her a minute later, his lips glistened with the taste of her, and she could swear the word that popped into her mind came from him. Mate.
Afterward, she nearly blurted it out. I love you, Cody. It seemed ridiculous, because how could anyone fall in love that fast? Clearly, she was just infatuated, right?
Something deep inside her laughed out loud at that one. They had fit enough emotion into the past two weeks to fill two years. No one had ever made her feel so complete. Just the quiet companionship of him sitting nearby when she went through the kids’ assignments in the evenings was the stuff of her dreams. But she didn’t dare say it, lest she break the magic spell. Instead, she tapped it into his skin, a kind of lover’s Morse code. Three slow taps: index finger, middle finger, ring finger. I. Love. You.
One night at a time, he’d chased her nightmares away and coaxed out the part of her she had thought long gone. By the third night, she’d stopped triple-checking her locks and peeking out the curtains. Stopped waking in the night, drenched with fear. She remembered what life was like before. Life could be good. Life could be beautiful.
The heady feeling he gave her carried over into her days. She felt taller, freer, as if she’d doubled her yoga time or swallowed a magic pill. She’d even started humming, for goodness’ sake! Like she was doing now, while the music played and the kids settled down for reading time.
Giggles brought her attention to the back of the room. Timmy had found something outside the window even more interesting than the adventures of Captain Underpants. Heather fixed him with a firm look and went back to her papers, secretly replaying Cody’s kisses, again and again.
Timmy snickered. “Cody’s got a new girlfriend.”
Her head snapped up, mortified that the kids had picked up on her and Cody. Had she somehow let on?
But no, that wasn’t it because eleven little heads were all swiveled to the window, looking up to the rise, where Cody stood locked in tight mouth-to-mouth with a curvy brunette half his size.
“Cody’s got a new girlfriend—again,” Timmy added, making everyone laugh.
Everyone but Heather, whose heart was free-falling through her chest. She could picture it, flip-flopping, desperately clawing for a hold.
“Cody’s got a girlfriend,” a singsong voice rang.
“Cody’s got a girlfriend,” the rest chimed in.
Cody’s got a girlfriend, Heather thought, sick to her soul.
# # #
Somehow, she made it through the day then beeped at every damn car on the highway all the way home. She parked abruptly, slammed her front door, and then collapsed in sobs on the couch. She’d read somewhere that the human body was 60% water, and now she knew, because most of it was flooding her face as she made inhuman noises, curled up in the tight ball. Cody’s got a girlfriend…
She’d retreated into a heap in bed by the time a knock sounded on the door. A knock she’d jumped in anticipation of every night, like one of Pavlov’s pathetic dogs. How naïve could she have been?
A second knock came, and all her sorrow, all her self-pity, formed a sharp arrow and took aim. She stomped to the door, flung it open. There he was, the scum!
Only he didn’t look like scum. He looked like Cody, sweet and sincere, but anguished, too. Maybe… Maybe she should hear him out. Maybe—
“Heather—” he started, but stopped when his phone sounded from his pocket. The new girlfriend? Heather’s face went hot. The man was a master of deception. She would not fall for him again!
“Wait—” Cody tried, but she beat him to the punch, gripping the door hard and slamming it in his face. Not a second chance kind of slam; a goodbye slam. She stood still, listening to the house shake.
A moment later, a timid knock. She opened the door to find a confused-looking Cody. Hurt, even. Well, she was the one who was hurt. Mortally wounded was more like it.
“Heather, I need to—”
She didn’t want to hear what he needed. She slammed the door again, and this time, she was shaking as much as the wood.
A third knock, and her blood boiled over. Enough of him! She threw the door open.
“Baby, I—”
Baby? She was no baby. And he was no man. He was a coward, a liar.
“Get lost!” she screamed, right in his face. “For good!” She followed up with a slam that almost took the door off its hinges.
They were through. She’d never thrill in the simple sound of approaching footsteps again, nor wake up feeling so fulfilled. She’d never feel that sense of completion in being with someone else.
Because there was no one else for her. Just him.
She leaned against the door, half hopeful for a fourth knock. She knew she wouldn’t have the strength to stand him up again; she loved him too much. But she was tired of letting other people rule her life. People who made her fear, people who made her love. The latter were nearly as bad as the former. So she would be strong. The old Heather would take charge of her life again and find some way to soldier on.
“Heather…”
His whisper carried through the door, accompanied by a light tap, then another, and a third. I. Love. You. Everything inside her heaved as she pushed her hands to her ears. Heather knew she was imagining it, wishing too hard for something that would never be.
Outside the door, his phone rang again. The girlfriend. God, how could she have been so gullible? There was a moment of silence followed by an echo in the floor—the faint tread of his step. Never mind that it sounded dull and dejected; she couldn’t allow herself to care.
She buried her head in her arms, trying to muffle the sound of Cody leaving her life.
For good.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Heather tried to settle down to grading papers to get her mind off Cody’s betrayal but couldn’t focus on anything but the pain. She should have known better. He was too smooth, too perfect. And far, far too experienced. A cowboy, a player. What did she expect?
Having already cried a reservoir of tears, she decided to try anger. Yes, that would do it. Anger was much more conducive to accomplishing anything. She forced herself to turn to work, powering up her laptop, only to watch it shut down. The battery was drained—a little like her—and she’d left the power cord at school. She slammed a hand down, making the table shudder. No way could she wait until Monday, not with six grade levels of literacy benchmarks to juggle.
Fine, damn it! She would just drive out to the ranch and pick it up.
On the way out the door, she cast a wary eye at the crescent moon, low in the sky. Never mind that she’d been discouraged from driving the ranch road at night. This was school business, right? She’d breeze in, grab the power cord, and breeze out. No one would even notice she was there.
She drove with the windows down, letting the cool night air scour her skin. There was so much space out there, so much earth and sky. So much regret, stretching to infinity.
A truck with its high beams on tailed her all the way. Couldn’t they just pass? Heather cursed it then cursed herself and then Cody. She cursed his sunny good looks, his tender touch. Cursed the little boy hidden in the man. He probably didn’t even want to be free, not when woman after woman willingly opened her legs and heart to him. He was probably off with that brunette right now, the new goddess on his altar. Heather was over in the discards pile, among so many weeping statuettes.
Eventually, the steady rumble of highway gave way to the rattle and grind of dirt road: the song of the ranch. Heather drove on until the car gave a sudden lurch. The wheel pulled left and the rhythm changed to roll, roll, thump.
A flat. God, could it get any worse? She banged a hand on the wheel. Dammit, if she could drive with a broken heart, the car could survive a flat. Let it suffer a little, too.
The car groaned along for a miserable mile before she let it roll to a stop. Any farther and she’d destroy the rim, if she hadn’t already.
“Just great.” She killed the engine and sat, fuming. She was in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with a flat, while crickets chirped cheerily outside her window. She heard something slither into the night and watched a tumbleweed somersault past, mocking her immobility.
Fine. She’d changed tires before; she could change a tire again. Calling for help was a lost cause. There was no reception on this stretch of road; everyone on the ranch complained about it. Anyway, who would she call? Cody? She snorted. Cody, could you peel yourself away from your new girlfriend for five minutes and help me with a flat? Pretty please? The only merit of that idea was the possibility of slamming a few more doors on him.
She stepped into the cool night air, leaving the headlights on. Shrugging off a shiver, she pulled her field hockey stick from the backseat. Never know when you might come across a rattlesnake, she figured. Plus, she could hit the tire with it, and possibly Cody, if he happened along. She hugged herself, eyeing her surroundings. Beyond the narrow strip of headlights was an abyss of darkness. Who knew what might be out there? Squeezing her stick tighter, Heather approached the tire and kicked at it. Nothing doing.
She was just popping the hatch for the spare when the whine of an engine registered in her ears. A truck had just crested the rise, coming from the highway.
She breathed a sigh of relief and tucked the stick behind her back. Holding it seemed silly now. With someone to help, she’d be on her way in no time.
With one hand, she blocked the glare of headlights, wondering why the driver didn’t put the things on low beam. The vehicle slowed then stopped. Some kind of fancy SUV, that much she could tell. Everyone on the ranch drove dusty pickups that were never as waxed and polished as this one. After a weighty pause in which the wind seemed to creep away and hide, the driver’s door opened. A tall, angular man stepped out, and cold instantly gripped her bones.
Suddenly Heather didn’t want help any more. She wanted to jump back in the car and drive away, flat or no flat. But it was too late.
“Good evening,” the man said, words slicing the night. He was stepping forward now, eyeing her. His long hair was black as fresh tar and just as shiny. He’d fit in at a trendy city bar but not out here in the desert. And instead of the scent that went with his look—the scent of a pricey cologne—the man carried the faintest odor of ammonia.
“Need a hand?” The voice matched the rest of him: slick, almost oily. Not to be trusted.
She gripped the stick behind her back and stammered a reply. “No thanks, I’ve got it.”
He circled around the front of her VW, barely glancing at the tire before taking up an attentive stance at the front bumper. Heather spun at the sound of a click behind her and watched the other doors open. The SUV disgorged three more men and rose on its axles, relieved of its burden. A faint vibration, a disturbance flooded the evening air, making her skin crawl. Two of the men were tall and slight, rough copies of the first. The fourth was a vision straight out of her nightmares. He moved with confidence and calm, his skin sickly pale in the black and white exposure of night. The man was evil, through and through.
She took a sharp breath.
“A pleasure to see you again, Heather.” Alon’s voice slid over her body and seemed to tuck in behind her, nudging her closer. She wanted to run, but her legs were rooted to the spot, already agreeing to star in tomorrow’s crime statistics. Because that’s the only place this encounter would end.
“I’ve been looking for you for quite some time.” The moonlight caught in his teeth, and she saw the glint of a fang.
Sick realization washed over her at his words. The man had hunted her all the way across the country, obsessed. She held back the scream building in her throat and sent out a silent SOS instead. As if anyone could hear. Bitter words reared up in her mind. Cody, could you just peel yourself away from your new girlfriend for five minutes and help me with a vampire?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Cody had never done that before—slid down a door in utter dejection, right down to the floor. It was like a new yoga move—the kind that harbored no hope. So many beautiful nights at Heather’s house, and now this.
He whispered her name into the doorframe, then tapped in the code—the one he’d been imagining meant I love you. He strained his ears for an answering tap, but nothing stirred inside. She’d slammed the door on her heart.
There. Yet another person bitterly disappointed in him—and this before she even found out what he really was.
It’s for the best, a hollow voice lectured as he gathered his limbs and stumbled back to the car. Duty called. Literally. Because Kyle was bombarding him with a third urgent call in the last five minutes. Cody cracked his jaw, hard. Maybe that would help: covering pain with pain.
He knew what he had to do—wrap up the case with Kyle and get back to his old routine on the ranch. Heather’s contract was due to run out soon, and then she’d be gone. He’d mate with Sabrina, produce a few pups. He would try to love them, even if he never loved her, and try not to think about what might have been.
Duty. So what if it killed him inside?
He checked his messages. New victim. Meet me. Mile 13, Copper Mine Road. Kyle.
The wind whipped through the open window of his truck, scolding him. Trying to focus on the case was impossible, though. A lifetime of driving wouldn’t put Heather out of his mind.
Copper Mine Road wasn’t far from Heather’s place. A blaze of lights shone at a lonely spot along that lonely road. The crime scene. Three patrol cars, as well as Kyle’s unmarked vehicle, were clustered around a compact car, parked well off the road. Cody parked but made no move to get out, struggling to remember why this was important.
Because a woman has been murdered. Because solving this case might finally win Dad’s respect. The second reason didn’t resonate with any of the wreckage inside him. The first, well, it was too late to help this woman, but the crime scene might yield some clue that would finally let them nail the vampires.
He got out of the car grudgingly, and it seemed like a long, long way down.
Kyle stepped up, face grim. “Another one. Happened last night, but only discovered now.”
Cody followed him, ducking under the crime scene tape to the car parked under a thorny copse of mesquite. The driver’s window was open, all doors ajar. The police officer standing watch over the vehicle was pale.
“Same profile,” Kyle said. “Female, late twenties. Multiple knife wounds.” Sucked dry, he added, for Cody’s ears alone.
Puncture wounds? he asked, feeling the itch of his claws. He could already smell the ashy hint of vampire.
Kyle shrugged. Her throat was slashed deep enough to cover up, same as the others.
The vampires had struck again and covered their tracks. From where Cody stood, he could see the woman’s torso, her torn and bloodstained clothes. He ducked in for a closer look and stopped cold.
It wasn’t Heather, couldn’t be Heather. That didn’t stop his heart from
flipping over, though. She looked enough like Heather for his stomach to clamp down, hard. The bun, the hair coloring, the general description all fit. “Jesus,” he whispered. Too close, the resemblance was too close. Cody whipped away from the scene. Then he froze and rotated slowly back, taking in the car: a rusty orange compact, just like Heather’s.
Cody backpedaled, stumbling for his truck. “Kyle, get in!” He jumped behind the wheel while Kyle stepped over, far too slowly. “Get in the fucking truck!” he yelled, gunning the engine. He took off as soon as Kyle had one foot in the door. By the time Kyle closed the door, they were going fifty and climbing.
“Uh, Code…?” Kyle started. His spiky hair echoed the surprise in his face.
Cody’s hands bit down on the wheel to stop the shaking. “She looks just like Heather.”
“Who’s Heather?”
Cody ignored that. “Last victim was close, too. And the car was the same. Orange import.”
Kyle was eyeing him closely, putting things together as Cody hit seventy, aiming for eighty, if the truck would let him. It was all he could do to keep his claws from ripping through his skin. Vampires were after Heather. He didn’t know why or how, only that he had to get to her now. He took a hand off the steering wheel to punch her number into his phone. The truck swerved, screaming over rumble strips before he jerked it back on course. He had to know she was okay. Even if she didn’t want to talk to him, he had to know. Had to get to her, right now. He’d pick her up bodily if he had to, take her to the ranch and keep her safe until he found the vampires and scattered their ashes all over the Southwest.
But the phone just rang and rang.
