Love Of A Lifetime

by Murphy, Riley

  “Have faith. Do ya remember that first time? How you had to woo her with your confidence in knowing what was right? Make sure she knows that she can trust you to know what’s right. You do know what’s right, boy, don’t you?”

  Jack thought about Wooly’s parting advice as he went up to Gilby Hall to check on things there. His friend had cut to the heart of the matter. He had to stop worrying about how different she was and start concentrating on managing that difference. There’d be a turning point. There always was so he needed to be patient while he earned her trust. Thinking about trust, he frowned. He hadn’t liked the way Jesse Alt had hovered almost protectively around her when they arrived at the manor this morning. She didn’t seem to mind and this meant that she trusted that guy to some extent which really got under his skin. He didn’t even know the young reporter, but he wanted to bury him deeper than six feet. Given the slightest opportunity he probably would so it was best to keep his distance. Finley had plenty of shit to hate him over. He didn’t need to add more to the pile. So thinking, he slipped in the back way, determined not to run into any of her colleagues.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Damn, Payden, you move like a ghost,” Jack growled and turned on him. “Nothing’s wrong. At least I hope not. I came to see how things were going with the guests.”

  “Fine for now. How about—?”

  “Fine for now as well. She’s resting but I should get back. I just wanted to assure you in person. Tell the others.”

  “They’re asking—”

  He put his hand on Payden’s shoulder and said, “Yes, and now you have something to tell them. When there’s more I will let you know.”

  Jack gave Finley as much time as he dared. She needed rest, but he needed her, so when the stew was ready, he came in to wake her. “Mia lei?”

  Her eyes fluttered opened as she blinked and then stretched. “How long was I sleeping?”

  “A couple of hours. Do you feel better?” he asked and held out a large white robe.

  She nodded and once she was wrapped in the plush terry with the belt secured around her, she sighed, “What smells so good?”

  “Beef stew and biscuits.”

  “Sounds great, but I’d like to wash up before we eat.” She didn’t wait for him to point out the door that led to a huge en suite bath. Damn. How much was she recalling? How much should he tell her? And how much should he let her remember on her own?

  “I’ll be right back.”

  He put aside those worries while he turned his attention to getting their dinner set. Bringing in a drop-leaf table and two parsons chairs from the back hall, he set the furniture next to fire so they could dine in the bedroom close to the warmth. He was just wiping down the table with the side of his sleeve, when he heard her call, “Can I use this red toothbrush in the drawer?”

  “Sure,” He brushed the dust off his shirt and added, “But there’s a new one, unopened, in the second drawer down. And hurry up. Dinner is getting cold.” Stepping over to the fireplace he pulled the two bowls of stew off the mantle, and set them on the table, before he returned to collect the basket of fresh baked biscuits. Wooly, true to his word, hadn’t supplied knives. Hell, there was no butter either. He was scowling over this when the door creaked open and Finley came out, looking more rested and refreshed as she glanced questioningly at him. He didn’t say a word as he stepped to the opposite side of the table and held a chair out for her.

  “Why, thank you. And just when did you find the time to make this?”

  Jack was going to push her in so she was closer to the table, but then he remembered how mad she got when he scuffed the wood floors and decided at the last minute to pick the chair up with her in it and repositioned them both. “I didn’t. Wooly figured it was a good night for it.”

  “Oh.”

  Yeah, he probably plunked her down a little roughly. “Sorry about that.” He circled around the other side of the table and took his own seat. Then paused, mid-flick of opening his napkin, when he noticed her frown. “What’s the matter?”

  “Is Wooly a short chunky guy with a bald head and really bushy brows?”

  His heart pounded. “Yes, are you remembering things?”

  “I guess,” she shrugged and then unceremoniously dug in to her stew. Clearly, she was starved while he, on the other hand, had completely lost his appetite. “I mean, you said his name,” she explained between mouthfuls, “and a picture of him kind of materialized in my mind. Like a photograph. And I somehow knew where the bathroom was, too.”

  Jack nodded and attempted to eat. This was worse than he thought. Like a photo? Damn, some of that past she was going to recall could wind up looking like the breaking news segment on CNN.

  “Ha!”

  His head remained down but he watched her. And when he saw her smiling he couldn’t help himself. He really shouldn’t encourage her in this process and yet he did. “What? What’s so amusing?”

  “My boots.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She still continued to eat only paused long enough to say, “I named my new boots woolys. They’re actually mukluks,” she stopped scooping liquid to point at him with her spoon, “and I want them back, by the way. I don’t even own them. Right now MasterCard does.”

  “Credit? You shouldn’t charge things. Interest rates on that are probably three percent.”

  “Three percent?” She shook her head and snorted, “Good one.”

  He was completely stumped. Sitting back, he said, “I wasn’t joking.”

  “And neither was I.” She tilted her head to one side and searched his face as if she was coming to some conclusions. “I don’t know about your credit score, but with mine? You can add a zero to that three and that’s just about dead on my borrow rate.”

  Thirty percent? He was having a hard time comprehending how anyone could—

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that. You have no right to judge me. I needed those boots to get here and I needed that ski jacket, too.” She was just about to stick the spoon in her mouth but then pulled it back, adding, “Admittedly, I didn’t need the hand cream or those Daisy Duke shorts but in my defense they were seventy-five percent off and who could pass up a deal like that?”

  He leaned forward and reached across the table, using his napkin to wipe off a spot of stew on her chin. “Anyone who can’t afford it. So, you in this case.”

  “I pay my bills. Maybe not on time, but I get them covered before collection agencies get involved.”

  “Agencies? Mia lei.”

  “Don’t feel bad. It may not be a perfect system but it works for me.”

  He waited for her to put her spoon down and then said, “Just think for a moment, though. If you pay interest on those sale items, where are the savings in the end?”

  Her eyes narrowed and behind her compressed lips, she appeared to be cleaning her teeth with her tongue. The action didn’t fool him. She was getting riled. And the thought of that got him hot. Damn, he’d missed her.

  “Thank you, Jack. I don’t know what I would have done without that little mathematical insight. Why,” she mockingly batted her eyelashes at him, “a sensible and thrifty observation like that really makes me regret my decision to hold off finding a future Mr. Right to keep an eye on my bank account and tally my money for me.”

  Not the fireworks he was expecting, but intriguing nonetheless. “By your own accounting you have no money for said Mr. Right to keep an eye on.”

  Her mouth formed a wordless ‘O’ and he was sure he was going to be treated to her infamous temper so he was completely disappointed when she blew a breath out, heavy enough to ruffle her bangs, and deflated, “Yeah, you’re right.” She looked away and then looked back. “Hey, I like the shirt you’re wearing. It’s a sandbar away from the swashbuckler one you had on earlier.” She gave him the once over. “Yep, this one screams chiseled model walking on the beach in a Calvin Klein fragrance commercial, but that’s okay. At least you’
re off the high seas and on dry land.”

  She fucking winked at him and he couldn’t help scowling.

  “Oh, relax,” she waved him off as if he were one of her best buds. The thought of which made his scowl deepen. “I was only joking. If you want to be a walking cliché, that’s your choice. You see?” She plucked a biscuit out of the basket and broke it in half. “I’m not gonna judge you.” Then she completely ignored him when she searched the table, and then groaned, “Bummer. No butter?”

  He shook his head and pushed his bowl away. There was no way he could eat now.

  Instead he watched her chew on a piece of stew drenched biscuit before she swallowed and then mused, “I have a mental picture of this room, you know. And the image I’m seeing has way more furniture in it.” Now she critically surveyed the place. “I thought there was a couch and two wing backed chairs around here.” She indicated the area where they were sitting. “And a triple armoire over there, maybe?” She pointed to the long wall on the other side of the bed. “I think a desk too? And behind those heavy drapes lining that wall are a double set of French doors that lead outside, right? But where did...” She snapped around and looked at him. With more than just firelight illuminating the room, as he’d lit the gas lamps that strategically dotted the walls before he woke her, he could see her dawning confusion. “Where did all the furniture go?”

  What could he say? Spying her earnest expression, he inwardly sighed as the explanation of, I removed it so that you’d have nothing to escape to, hide behind, or put between us, popped into his head. He couldn’t tell her that, so he lied to her instead. “I happen to like the room better this way.”

  Finley took another dubious look around and then started eating again. As having food in her mouth prevented her from doing what she was tempted to do, and call him crazy. A room this big with nothing but a gigantic bed in it, looked—well, prison-ish came to mind. When that occurred to her, she frowned.

  He must have noticed because he threw down his napkin, and sighed, “Is there anything you want to ask me?”

  “Yes.” Finally. She still felt a little like Alice lost in Wonderland, but she was determined to give her gut instincts the benefit of the doubt here. She was also willing to concede that she felt more at home right now than she ever had anywhere else in her whole entire life. That decided there were still feelings about him that were unsettling. One minute she couldn’t breathe without him and the next she was ready to run away from him. “Why are there no marks?”

  “Marks?”

  “Yes, I saw you cut my foot, right there on the bottom,” she brought her leg up under the table and plopped her heel on his thigh. “And see?” She flexed and wiggled her toes. “There’s no mark. No holes here either,” she added, touching her throat.

  His somber eyes went from her foot to her neck before he stared at her. “You thought I would damage your beautiful skin?”

  By his incredulous tone, it was obvious that she’d offended him.

  “I, ah, guess.”

  He was getting angry all right. She could tell. His eyes darkened and his stubble-roughened cheek had that tic in the side of it again as he bit out, “I suppose you think that I’m going to melt in the light of day? Or turn to dust? That I leave no reflection in a mirror and I make a habit of taking advantage of poor and unsuspecting women in the middle of the night?”

  Well, this was awkward. She grimaced as his brows shot up in a silent ‘Umm?’ Pulling her foot off his lap, she stammered, “So, um, I probably shouldn’t bother asking you my other question?”

  He crossed his arms. Clearly he could hardly wait. “Which is?”

  “Am I a vampire now?”

  His eyes slowly narrowed. Taking a good thirty seconds to reach dangerous looking slits. “It’s clear, blue eyes, you haven’t been listening.” Did she image the volume of his voice lowering with each syllable? Nope, she hadn’t as he just reached the dreaded ‘hissing’ point. “I’m not even a vampire. I’m Vampine.”

  “Ohh-kay.” She threw up her hands in mock defeat. She could have sworn she’d heard him say he was one. Picking up her spoon, she made to start eating again, but was unable to hold herself back. “You did say you were one, though.”

  “You’re like a dog with a bone.”

  “Well, how can you expect me to understand all this when you’re purposely confusing me?”

  “I didn’t confuse you, blame that on Hollywood.”

  “Hollywood?”

  “Yes.” He sounded totally disgusted. “They’ve taken what little they’ve learned about my kind through the ages and bastardized it all to hell. I drink no one’s blood but yours and to answer your questions about that, my wounds upon you will never be visible, nor will they ever leave holes or scabs or scars. So, as far as turning you into a Vampine? The very idea is stunningly improbable. Just use your commonsense for a moment. If you believed that by simply biting a person and drawing out their blood, you could change their race, then why not give a black man a white man’s blood through transfusion? Using that logic, wouldn’t that make him white then, or vice versa? What about plastic surgery for a Chinese man?” Jack leaned forward over the table, warming up to a subject that he’d obviously given a lot of thought to. “Alter his eyes and he’s now Japanese? Ridiculous! So, no, mia lei, I can’t turn you into anything. Are you disappointed?”

  “Wh-what did you say?”

  Suddenly she couldn’t focus on him. What was happening to her? Her mind spun and an image surfaced. Feelings so awful and painful, they choked her. The pain. “It hurts,” she gasped and dropped her spoon to clatter against the porcelain bowl. Grabbing hold of the edge of the table with both hands, she tried to hang on as she fought through the wave of agony.

  “Finley.” He shot up so fast that he toppled the chair in his haste to reach for her.

  “Don’t touch me,” she whispered, leaning away from his outstretched arms as she breathed through the anguish to stand. She let go of the table and turned. She’d gotten no more than halfway across the room before she crumbled to the floor. Her world was falling apart. The walls of this huge room were closing in on her. She couldn’t stop the indelible heartache that quickly turned into a tight squeeze of physical soreness in her chest. Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of loss grew to suffocate her.

  “Mia lei?” She heard his worried voice sound from beside her and she lashed out at him by pushing his hands away. My God, why did she do this? How could she hate him so violently?

  “What did you do to us?” she cried, refusing to look at him as she stared with unseeing eyes at the floor. The truth was there in the wispy images that faded in her mind’s eye to smoke before they disappeared altogether. The snapshots may have been gone, but the feelings of disappointment and loathing remained.

  “Finley?” He came down on his haunches beside her and she finally looked at him. His beautiful face was dark with worry as he asked, “Tell me what you saw. I need to know.”

  “I…” She took a deep breath and collected herself as best she could while she tried to process all this. Against her better judgment, she accepted his proffered hand and let him pull her up. “I saw you and I fighting, but,” she looked at him as she remembered at least one vivid detail of their past, “Your name isn’t really Jack is it? It’s Jo-Quinn, or Quinn, right?”

  “Don’t call me that,” he swore. He looked like a man possessed as he whispered, “Don’t ever call me that again.”

  That command woke up something inside her. No, more like something sparked to life within her. A piece of herself that she’d been missing—was it her courage? She didn’t think so as she usually wasn’t one to shy away from conflict. She was, however, always diplomatic about how she handled strife, and yet here she was ready to be…?

  “Fuck you.” Undiplomatic as hell.

  “Hallelujah, you’re back.”

  He sounded so elated she knew she was going to disappoint him. Shaking her head until her hair was out of her
eyes, she announced, “Not for long, Jo-Quinn. As soon as I get my clothes, boots and jacket I’m out of here.”

  “No you’re not and I told you not to call me that.”

  “I’ll call you whatever I want and oh yeah, I‘m so out of here. Just watch me go.” She nearly tripped over the terry as she headed for the door so in an attempt to cover her awkwardness she spoke loud and firmly, “You can’t keep me here. I know where the study is and if you put my boots in the hall closet I know where that is too so you’re—”

  “I’m what?”

  In a flash he was there and had hold of her as he gathered the material of her robe at the lapels and bunched it in his fists while he slowly brought her up against him. One inch, two…six inches until her feet were hoisted off the floor. She would have screamed, but she was too shocked to make a noise and when that came to her she scowled as it occurred to her that the stupid self-defense instructor at the Y had let her down again. First with the unavailable props, and now with yelling out the word ‘fire’. What good was yelling fire when there was only you and your attacker to hear it? If she made it through this she was so getting her money back from that shyster. “Let me go!”

  “No.” His head came down until they were nose to nose. The sight of his dark and devilish features so close terrorized the hell out of her, as he rasped, “The name is Jack. Quinn died a long time ago.”

  Why was she tingling? What the hell was wrong with her that she’d be—yes, she was crushing on him. This wasn’t right. She tried struggling. She wiggled and pushed, but he remained immovable and the harder she huffed and sputtered, disgusted more with herself and her reaction to him than anything he was doing, the tighter he held her, so she caved. “Please.”

  “I’m not going to let you go.” That statement sounded more figurative than literal and it was game on. She barely had time to examine the implications when she felt him shift and widen his stance in an effort to hold her better. Not one to pass up an opportunity, especially when one was conveniently presented, she didn’t hesitate, nor did she think, she just did.