"You drove it here from the rental place,” Lou said, as if he hadn't even heard Stormy's announcement. Stormy shook her head, sent Max a surreptitious thumbs-up and hurried back into the house.
"Of course I did,” Max admitted. "How do you think I know how hard it is to drive?"
"I think you're trying to twist my arm to get me up there."
"I can think of a lot of men whose arms wouldn't require any twisting at all,” she said.
"Then have one of them drive you."
"I don't want one of them. I want you." She let the double entendre hang there.
He pretended not to notice. It was damned infuriating. He responded to all her flirting that way, either pretending it sailed over his head—when she knew damn well it hadn't by the flash of fire it sometimes evoked in his eyes—or by changing the subject. She was beginning to think he didn't take her efforts at all seriously.
"I'm going fishing for the weekend,” he said. "Leaving from here, in fact. Got my bag all packed in the car, and a friend with a big boat waiting for me at the pier."
"God forbid I interfere with that,” she said.
"You'll do fine on your own, Maxie. You're the most capable woman I know."
She drew a breath, sighed. "Fine. Just fine. Will you at least hang around until I get the beast backed out of the driveway? You can pretend you're a traffic cop again."
"Aah, the good old days" He looked toward the house. "You gonna wait for Stormy?"
"She's driving her car up. And she knows the way." She dug in her jeans pocket for the key, then climbed up into the van and cranked the engine. Through the windshield, she saw Stormy step out of the house and close the door. She sent her friend a secret smile. Stormy frowned, looking worried.
Max shifted the van into Reverse and looked in the side mirrors. She saw Lou standing in the road, making hand motions at her, probably to tell her to back out. She popped the clutch. The van bucked and then stalled.
She started it again, and this time backed up a little before the bucking and heaving began. She kept that up—start, stop, start, stop, jerk, cough, sputter, start until a car came along the road and Lou changed his hands to a "stop" position. Then and only then did she back up smoothly and quickly, over the mailbox, aiming dead into the path of the oncoming car.
A horn blasted. Tires squealed. Stormy shrieked, and Lou shouted.
Max stalled the van again and got out, leaving it sitting there, with its ass-end poking out into the road. The car had skidded to a stop five feet short of the van, and the driver, a neighbor she recognized, got out, looking scared half to death.
"Sorry about that, Mr. Robbins,” Max called, sending the man a sheepish wave and walking behind the van. Lou and Stormy joined her there. She looked sadly at the crushed mailbox and shook her head. "Okay, this isn't so bad,” she said. "I'll just pull in and start over." She looked ahead at the driveway, where Stormy's car was parked. "Um, you might want to move that."
Mr. Robbins was muttering, shaking his head and stomping back to his car. He got in, pulled a K-turn and drove away. Stormy went to move her car.
Lou said, “Didn’t you hear me tell you to stop?"
"I did. I just hit the wrong pedal. I'll do better this time, promise." She went to the driver's door, reached up and put her foot on the step.
Lou's hands closed around her waist, picked her up off the step and set her back down on the driveway. She had to forcibly resist the urge to moan in pleasure, because she loved his hands on her. Anywhere, anytime. She really hadn't tried hard enough with him, she thought. Flirting was flirting. But men could be awfully bad at picking up hints. Maybe she should have set him down and told him flat out. She visualized it in her mind. Her looking him in the eyes and saying,” Lou, I want you. I want you in my life and in my bed and in every other way that matters. What do you say?"
He probably wouldn't say anything, she thought. He would probably go speechless with shock. No, she really hadn't tried hard enough. And now it was pretty much too late—unless her hastily devised plan worked the way she intended.
She just blinked up at Lou, her eyes wide with innocence and questions.
He sighed, lowered his head. "You win, Maxie. I'll drive."
Ye-e-es!
"Don't be silly, Lou. You don't have to do that"
"Yeah. I do."
"But your fishing trip…"
"Will wait for another time."
She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him. Lou put his hands on her waist after a moment, though instead of pulling her closer he seemed more interested in keeping her hips a safe distance from his. She didn't resist, because she needed to take things slowly and carefully this time. This was a second chance—she couldn't blow it.
Demurely, she said, “Thank you, Lou"
"I'm not staying, Max"
God, how did he manage to see right through her like that?
He took her arms from around his neck, held her wrists in his hands as if to keep some distance between them and looked her squarely in the eye. "I'll drive the van up there, help you unload, and then I'm coming right back. Understood?"
"Well of course it is." She nodded toward his car. "You can leave your car in the garage. I'll drive you back whenever you're ready. Better bring that weekend bag you have packed, though."
He blinked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. "Honey, I just told you, I'm not staying."
"I know that. But hell, Lou, it's an eight-hour drive. At the very least you're gonna want a shower and a change of clothes before you head back."
He watched her through narrow eyes. "I won't need the bag,” he said. "I'm not staying."
"All right, all right. Whatever you say."
She walked up the driveway, hauling open the garage door. "Hey, if you're driving, then we can use the tow bar and bring my car along, can't we?" she called, as if she'd just had a brilliant idea.
He looked at her car. "There's a tow bar?"
"Yeah, mounted underneath the van."
He nodded, went back to the van, got in and moved it out of its precarious position, parking it safely along the shoulder of the road, on the opposite side of her driveway from where he'd parked his car. He left room behind the van for Maxie's Bug. When he got out, he moved behind it to mess around with the tow bar.
Stormy came walking over to join Max in the garage. "He's coming with us, isn't he?" she asked.
Max smiled. "Well, he couldn't very well let me drive, once he saw how likely I was to get killed on the way. Could he?"
"That was pretty risky, Max. Suppose Mr. Robbins had smashed into you?"
"He had plenty of room to stop. I'm not stupid."
"No, no, you're far from stupid,” Stormy said, shaking her head.
Max tossed her a set of keys. "Do me a favor and pull my car out of the garage and around behind the van, so Lou can hook it to the tow bar?"
"Sure." Stormy got into Maxine's car and pulled it carefully out of the garage, past her own and into the road. Then she pulled it along the shoulder, behind the van.
Max went out to where Lou's car was parked and saw that the keys were still in the switch. She started it up and drove it into the now-empty spot in the garage. When she got out, she glanced into the back seat. There was a big satchel there, stuffed to bursting, along with a cooler of beer and plenty of fishing gear. She glanced outside.
Stormy and Lou were busy behind the van, hitching up Max's car.
Licking her lips, Maxine reached into the back seat and snatched the satchel. She took it into the driveway and tucked it into Stormy's car. "Quick and sly as a fox on a caffeine high,” she muttered. Then she went back to the garage to close it up. By the time she finished, Lou had her car ready to go. She waltzed out to the van and handed him his keys.
"Your Buick is in my garage, Lou. It'll be safe and sound there until you get back."
He looked at her suspiciously.
Stormy tapped him on the shoulder. "Don't lo
se me. I'll be right behind you guys, okay?"
"Okay." "Keep the cell phones turned on."
"Will do,” Maxie said, wondering why Stormy seemed nervous about the trip. "Honey, are you worried about something?"
Stormy denied it a little too quickly. "I have the directions and everything, I'm just worried I'll get lost. So don't drive too fast " She hurried to her car and started the engine. As far as Max could tell, she didn't even notice the extra bag behind the passenger seat. Not that she would say anything if she did. Storm was on her side in this.
In everything. She was Max's best friend—which was why Max knew her well enough to be worried about the drive. Storm was not herself, and hadn't been, not since the coma.
Max reached for Lou, deciding to take advantage of another opportunity for physical contact. "Help me into this thing?" she asked, standing next to the passenger door.
He pursed his lips, but she didn't care, because he put his hands on her again to do as she asked.
"I'm not staying, Maxie,” he said, one hand on the small of her back, the other bracing her forearm as she climbed into the truck.
"Quit saying that, Lou. I got it already."
Lou walked around to the driver's side and climbed in. Maxie fastened her seat belt, settled in for the long ride, and told herself she had the next eight hours to figure out how she was going to convince Lou to stay with her in Maine .
Failure was not an option she even bothered to consider.
* * *
Chapter 2
Stormy drove along behind the yellow van and told herself everything was going to be fine. She visualized a bright future, she and Max with their own private investigations agency: SIS. Supernatural Investigations Services—because that would be their specialty. Max had assured her, though, that they wouldn't turn down ordinary types of cases. The acronym "sis" was, Max said, as much in honor of her own newfound twin sister, Morgan, as it was in honor of her relationship with Stormy. The two were far more than best friends—always had been.
God, it would be just like the old days, just like when they'd been in their teens and snooping into things that didn't concern them. They'd been kids then, amateurs, usually digging for proof of one or another of Max's farfetched conspiracy theories and most often finding none.
Until that day when the "research lab" in White Plains had burned to the ground. Max had always insisted there was something more going on in that place than met the eye. And that time, for once, she'd been right.
The building had housed the headquarters of the DPI—the Division of Paranormal Investigations—a super-secret government agency dedicated to the study and elimination of vampires. The repercussions of what Max had learned while snooping through the debris that night almost six years ago were still reverberating through their lives. She had found proof of the existence of vampires. It still rattled Storm's brain when she tried to process everything that had happened since. But it had all been leading up to this. Max and Stormy, professional snoops now. Licensed professional snoops, specializing in things beyond what most considered "normal."
But it wasn't quite the same, was it? Back in the old days, there had been three of them. Stormy, Max and Jason. Gorgeous, chocolate-skinned, studious, conservative Jason Beck. He'd provided a counterbalance to Storm's fearlessness and Maxie's impulsiveness. But he'd moved away, never knowing what Max had found in the rubble that night. Hell, she hadn't even told Stormy until a few months ago.
Stormy often wondered what might have happened if she hadn't turned Jason down when he'd asked her out hack in college. Or if he'd stayed, instead of moving away, going to law school. She missed Jason.
Jason.
Pain. A red-hot blade plunged deep into her head. White light blinded her, and noise—radio static like a thousand stations fighting for a frequency—exploded inside her mind.
She pressed a hand to her head and jammed both feet on the brake pedal, since she could no longer see the road.
Jason.
The light in her mind took form, and she saw his familiar profile in her inner vision. Harder, more angular than she remembered him. Older. Brown eyes, shaved head, drop-dead handsome as he'd always been.
Facing him, also in profile, was another man's face. A chiseled face with full dark lips and deep brown luminescent eyes with paintbrush lashes and brows so full they nearly met. His hair was long, perfectly straight and raven-wing black. And he was as familiar to her as her own reflection in the mirror. And yet a total stranger.
Dragostea cea veche sopteste la ureche, a woman's voice, strange and exotic, whispered. And though the words were in some language she didn't know, Stormy realized that the voice she had heard was her own. Only… not.
It frightened her that she understood those words she had uttered. "Old love will not be forgotten,” she whispered.
The pain faded. The light dimmed. The noise went silent. She opened her eyes. Her car was sitting cock-eyed on the shoulder of the road in a cloud of dust. A glimpse behind showed black skid marks on the pavement. A look ahead told her the van had pulled over, as well. Max and Lou were getting out, running toward her.
Stormy closed her eyes. Yes, things were different now. She was different now. Had been, ever since she'd come out of the coma.
She hadn't stayed in that hospital bed the whole time. She'd left the hospital. She'd left her body. She'd gone somewhere…else.
And she couldn't shake the feeling that when she'd come back, she hadn't come alone. Something had hitched a ride. The owner of that voice that didn't even speak her own language, perhaps. She didn't live alone in her body anymore.
Max was tapping on the glass of the driver's side window, and Stormy rolled it down. "I'm okay,” she said.
"What happened? Stormy, you just went out of control for no reason! What is it?"
"Nothing. Really, I…I fell asleep. That's all."
Max wasn't buying it. She searched Stormy's face, then paused, and her eyes widened. "Stormy, your eyes!"
"What? What about them?" Stormy reached for the rearview mirror and stared into it. An ebony-eyed stranger stared back at her. But even as she looked, the color changed from ebony back to their normal vivid blue. She quelled the full body shiver that moved through her and turned back to Max again, schooling her expression to a picture of calm. "There's nothing wrong with my eyes, Max. Must have been the way the sun was hitting me,” she said.
Max squinted at her. "But…"
Lou put a hand on Maxine's shoulder. "There's a diner up ahead. Maybe we need to stop for a rest."
"Good idea,” Max said. She nodded to Stormy. "Shove over. I'm driving."
Stormy knew better than to argue. Max was worried. And she'd seen something. Hell, Stormy was surprised she'd been able to keep her strange symptoms to herself for as long as she had—keeping secrets from Mad Maxie was not easily done. She'd had a few episodes similar to this one: blacking out, seeing strange flashes, hearing incoherent murmurs. But never before had an image come clear, the way this one had, nor had any of the murmurs taken on the form of words, foreign or otherwise. Whatever it was, it was getting worse. But dammit, she couldn't tell anyone about this, not even Maxie. Not until she knew what it was—what it meant.
She flipped down the visor, looked in the makeup mirror there, and was relieved to see her own eyes looking back at her.
Maxine was pulling her car into motion. "So you gonna tell me what's up?"
"Honestly, Max, I don't know. I was tired, and I guess I nodded off."
"That's all?"
"That's all."
Max thinned her lips. Time to change the subject. "Hey, Max, you remember those flyers we had made up, announcing the new business?"
"Sure do."
"Did you send one to Jason Beck?"
Max frowned at her. "Yeah, I did. A business card, too. I sent them to everyone I could think of. Why?"
"I don't know. I've just been thinking about him lately." "Yeah?"
Storm no
dded, then pointed ahead. "There's the diner. Lou's pulling around back."
"Probably more room to park that tank back there. We'll pull around, too." She drove Stormy's car into the parking lot.
Subject successfully changed, Stormy thought slowly. She wanted to rub her head—it didn't hurt, exactly, just felt tender. Sensitive, or something. But she didn't dare. If she gave Max any sign she was in less-than-perfect health, Max would hover like a first-time mother.
"I really am starved,” she said. Max always saw an appetite as a sign of good health.
"Me, too." Max pulled Stormy's car to a stop next to the van.
"How's the ride going?" Stormy asked. "Any progress with Lou?"
"Hell, no. He put the radio on some country music channel to limit opportunities for conversation."
"You sure you don't want to ride the rest of the way with me?" She tapped her CD collection. "I have Disturbed."
"You are disturbed," Max told her with a wink. Then she frowned as she looked at Stormy again. "Despite that, I think I will ride with you for a while. Give you a break from driving for the next couple of hours."
"I was kidding, Max. You need to ride with Lou. Maybe he'll hit a bump and you'll wind up in his lap. You can't miss an opportunity like that."
"Hell, I'll have plenty of opportunities once we get him installed in the mansion."
"But I thought he wasn't staying,” Stormy said. "So does he,” Max replied. "But I stashed his bag in your car, just in case."
Stormy looked behind her seat and saw the black leather satchel that she hadn't put there or even noticed up until now. "How observant am I?" she asked. "Could have been a serial killer squatting back there for all I noticed."
"No room for a whole serial killer,” Max observed.
"Hey!" Lou tapped on the roof of the little car. "You two getting out or what?"
Grinning, Max opened her door and got out of the car.
Stormy did, too, but her legs felt oddly weak and her muscles, shaky. As if she'd worked out to the point of muscle fatigue. Only she hadn't.
Wings of the Night 08 Blue Twilight Page 2
