“Are you meant to be a cop like Aunty Piper?”
Del jerked at the small, high-pitched voice. A sword-carrying ninja and a grey-faced zombie stood next to him, their brows raised. Right. He’d been standing, staring blankly at the center’s noticeboard, instead of manning up and going into the hall.
“Hey, girls.”
The black-garbed ninja with pigtails, Ben’s daughter, Jade, scanned him up and down with a scornful expression straight from her father’s repertoire. The curly haired zombie beamed at him and elbowed her friend and soon-to-be stepsister.
“He’s Rick from The Walking Dead. He kills zombies.” Zoe demonstrated a few arms limply out, shuffling zombie steps. She cut him a keen glance. “And I’m a zombie. So, c’mon, Rick, a clean head-shot, right?”
Del’s lips tugged up in the corners. Zoe and Jade’s antics never failed to make him laugh.
He whipped his toy pistol from the holster strapped to his hips and drawled, “You are one…dead…walker.” The soft foam ball shot from his gun and nailed the nine-year-old zombie right in the forehead.
Zoe fake-staggered, groaned, and collapsed. Drummed her heels on the floor. Moaned some more. An Oscar-winning performance, if Del had ever seen one.
“Another shot to make sure she’s dead?” he asked a giggling Jade.
Jade’s pigtails bobbed. “Yep. Right in the kisser.”
“Hey!” Zoe’s head popped up.
Del shot her again.
Both girls collapsed in a tangle of giggles.
“Shooting innocent zombies? Shame on you, Del Westlake.”
Del turned, and the sight of Shaye looking so damn fine in her black lace and red gown, whiplashed through his system. His finger squeezed the trigger, and another little foam ball shot out, bouncing off the soft mounds of her incredibly framed tits. Pretty sure drool leaked out his mouth, Del froze.
Shaye’s eyes danced green fire. “Now you’re shooting at me?”
Giggles erupted behind him and a small hand tugged on his pants.
“You can’t kill a vampire with bullets,” said Zoe.
His head swiveled back to Shaye, and he took in her long dress with the lacy stuff flaring out of the elbows, the black ribbons criss-crossing her stomach right up to the low bodice of her dress, and her—come-to-think-of-it— powdered, unnaturally pale face and blood-red mouth. Peeling open her lips, she exposed realistic-looking fangs and poked out the tip of her tongue between them. She wiggled it with an unmistakable glance at the crotch of his tan pants, no doubt counting on the fact his body blocked the girls’ view of her actions.
Holyfuckingshit. Hot vampire chick does the sheriff then sucks him dry.
He swallowed—barely. “Oh. You’re a vampire.”
Jade tugged Zoe to her feet and towed her along to the double doors leading into the hall. “Aunty Shaye’s a vampire queen. So watch out, or she’ll bite you.”
Please God. Yes. Over and over.
Somehow he managed to smile politely at the girls before they disappeared. Then his gaze immediately switched back to Shaye, as if she really did have supernatural hypnotic powers. Something of his intentions must’ve shown on his face, because he stepped toward her, and she planted a palm on his sheriff shirt.
“Hold on there, Sheriff Woody.” Her eyes—covered in smoky grey and black stuff that made them look both huge and sultry—sparkled with humor.
“Sheriff Woody?” His brain blanked, too many neuron’s firing off at the same time—likely caused by how fucking amazing she looked. Then his fake sheriff pants pulled snug across his crotch. “Ahhh…”
He stroked his thumb along the delicate bones of her hand. “We could lock ourselves in the janitor’s supply room?”
She grinned, showing some fang. “Not when there are games to play with a bunch of sugar-hyped kids, and our friends expecting us to go in there any second.”
“Right.”
Okay, running into Shaye’s brother with a residual hard-on while managing a Halloween party did dampen Del’s lustful thoughts.
“So quit looking at me like I’m dessert,” she said.
“Every single man in Oban will look at you like you’re dessert in that outfit.”
Bloody hell…part of him wanted to drag her into the supply room anyway, and the other part wanted to cover her with his shirt so no other man could look at her.
And where, exactly, had this possessive streak come from?
Shaye flicked the cascade of curls she’d done her hair in over her shoulder. “Puh-lease. I grew up with most of the single men in Oban.” The palm on his chest turned into a poking finger. “Don’t even mention Kip.”
“Your non-date for the wedding?”
Shaye’s eyes narrowed. “He could be my date, if I wanted him to.”
Del shot her a cocky grin. “Maybe you’ve got a better option now.”
“Maybe I do.” She fisted her hands on her hips and angled her chin. “But for this evening, you have a party to run.”
Shaye swept away, the long skirt of her dress swirling up to reveal the black stockings covering her slender calves and a pair of come-fuck-me heels.
Del snatched off his hat and held the damn thing in front of his groin. He dredged up one of his most revolting experiences—his first part-time job as a high school senior. Working as a bubble-dancer, he’d taken out the trash, slipped in some slimy shit, and had fallen onto a stray cat’s disemboweled rat-dinner.
Yeah. That worked. Del adjusted the front of his pants and strode into the hall. If he could handle rat guts, then entertaining kids for a couple of hours would be a piece of cake.
***
Two hours later, the kids weren’t the only ones buzzing. Any event in the Island’s social calendar was reason enough for a celebration, and the locals arrived en masse. Although the event included no alcohol, since minors were present—Del lost count of how many ghosts, witches, and cowboys were attending—the adults still found a way to have fun. And in some cases, a little too much fun. Mrs. Taylor ordering him to “Arrest me, Sheriff Hottie,” by the enormous punchbowl of bright-red vampires’ blood proved the perfect example.
But he’d enjoyed himself more than he’d expected. Playing games he hadn’t played since he was a kid—and he killed it in the egg and spoon race—settled the rush of tension thrumming through him after a full day’s filming.
Del edged around West and Piper and headed for the hall’s kitchen facilities. Piper, dressed in a striped prisoner’s costume, snatched the last two cupcakes off the tray Del carried and shoved one at West.
“God, these are amazing.” She swiped a finger through the orange frosting and stuck it in her mouth.
Freshly made frosting, ‘cause you know, he and Shaye had wrecked the old batch.
“Go home, and tell my sister to go home too,” said Piper. “The rest of us can finish packing it away.”
West studied Del with one unpatched eye, tucking a plastic cutlass under an arm in order to peel off the casing on the cupcake. “Got bags under your eyes, bro. Late night with Shaye?”
Del kept his gaze steady. He’d overheard Shaye telling Piper and West how she’d supervised Del’s party catering so he didn’t screw it up. “Try baking five dozen cupcakes, five dozen cookies, and a shitload of other sugary crap after a dinner service.”
The eyebrow above West’s patch twitched up. “Uh huh.”
Shaye’s flowery perfume alerted him to her presence nearby.
“Did I hear you mention we can leave?” Lace brushed his bare elbow. “Ohthankgoodness. My feet are killing me.”
“Serves you right for wearing skanky heels to a kids’ party.” Piper jabbed a finger at her purple combat boots. “See these? They’re the reason I got ten times as many lollies in the lolly scramble than you did.”
“You trampled me to snatch up a Fruitie,” Shaye huffed. “And you know I love the lime ones.”
West wrapped his arm around Piper’s striped waist. “Nobody get
s in between my woman and a free-for-all battle for junk food.”
Piper leaned her head on West’s shoulder. “I think we should have a lolly scramble at our wedding.”
West grinned. “Anything you want, baby.”
“I’m out of here, then.” Del hefted the tray and glanced at Shaye. “You coming?”
“Absolutely. You can give me a piggy-back ride to Due South.”
Oh, he wouldn’t touch that one with a ten foot pole, not with West’s and Piper’s gazes zipping from each other to stare at Del and Shaye with unnerving speculation.
Del stacked the empty trays in the kitchen and got the hell out. Shaye waited for him in the foyer, skanky heals dangling off her fingers.
“Really? That bad?” He held the door open.
“I haven’t worn these for a long time. It’s like having little knives stabbing into the balls of my feet.”
She paused by the steps leading down to the sidewalk. Her hair gleamed in the light spilling out of the hall, a stark contrast to the shadows pooling around the concrete. A soft sea breeze whisked by, bringing with it the echoing shouts of the trick-or-treaters who’d left the party and now moved between houses.
Gripping the bannister with one hand, she slipped on her shoes with a wince.
“Why put them on again then?” Women. So weird sometimes.
She fired him an are you thick look and limped down the stairs. “Because I paid twenty bucks for these stockings, and I’m not going to wreck them walking to the hotel.”
Del jogged after her and caught her by the wrist. She stopped, and he moved in front, crouching slightly, hands braced on knees.
“Hop on then, queenie.”
“I was joking about the piggy-back ride.”
“Figured,” he said, keeping his gaze straight ahead. “But I’m not letting you hobble to Due South. Hop on.”
The soles of her shoes scuffed over the concrete. A moment later, her warm weight descended on him. Del straightened, grappling to find purchase with the yards of silky fabric in the way. He got a grip on her under the knees and hoisted her higher. She squeaked, arms going from loose around his shoulders to clenched around his throat, her breasts squished deliciously into his back.
He grinned and walked down the path to the sidewalk. Piggy backing was more fun than he remembered, especially since Shaye’s nipples had reacted to the cooler night air and jutted into him. Her chin rested on his shoulder, her breath puffing against his ear.
“Okay?”
She nodded, curls brushing against him and her hands loosening a little.
Finally alone with her, he experienced the burn of nerves in his gut. Her accusations the night before that he hadn’t told her about his engagement to Jessica had been eating away at him. He’d wanted to tell her for a while, but every time he’d tried to figure out how to bring up the subject, she’d smile at him, or do something sweet like leave a plate of cookies by his evening paperwork.
Now was as good a time as any. Sweat popped out on his forehead, but he’d no way of swiping it off. “I wanted to explain about Jessica. About how we came to be engaged…and what happened later.”
Her body tensed, and she returned to neck-strangling again. “Okay.”
Del wished he’d gone with his first instinct to sweep her up in his arms, so he could judge her expression. To hell with what any onlookers might think. But he hadn’t wanted rumors to affect her—after all, she had to continue living in this town with gossips like Mrs. Taylor.
“It’s not a pretty story, but it’s one I should’ve had the balls to tell you before we slept together,” he said softly.
She blew a puff of air out her nose. “Better late than never.”
Never would’ve been easier—never would’ve been preferable.
Before Shaye, he hadn’t given much of a shit about what people thought of him while he continued working his way up the culinary ladder. It didn’t matter if his line cooks tagged him as an asshole—so long as they, and management, respected his work. But sometime in the last three weeks, he’d started caring what Shaye thought of him, both professionally and personally.
Especially personally.
So, he needed to tell her about Jessica. But the idea of exposing his past to Shaye felt about as appealing as presenting a substandard three-course banquet to a food critic.
“On Jessica’s twenty-fifth birthday, we celebrated a little too hard, and I was trashed by the time we left her surprise party. Total blank until I woke the next morning with a pounding head and Jessica saying she’d called everyone to tell them the wonderful news.”
A mini princess and a taller accompanying ghost burst onto the sidewalk in front of them. Del jerked to a halt.
“Happy Halloween!” the children yelled, barreling past.
Shaye adjusted her grip on him and murmured in his ear. “You asked her to marry you?”
He continued down the gradually sloping road toward Due South. “Guess I must have. And since her daddy was Cosset’s owner and my employer…”
“You didn’t want to disillusion her.”
“No, and I did like her, a lot. I thought maybe marriage wouldn’t be so bad. She’d at least understand the dedication you needed to make head chef—the long hours, the drive to succeed in such a cut-throat business.”
“What happened?”
He’d known he’d fucked up only months afterward. He started drinking more, sleeping less, and the pressure of maintaining normalcy with Jessica’s dad breathing down his neck became too much. The full story about how badly he’d screwed everything up was something he still couldn’t stand to share, so he’d stick with the bare bones.
At the front of Due South, he crossed the road to the empty playground, and Shaye wriggled off. While she peeled off her heels, Del slumped on the bench seat overlooking the harbor. Shaye sat next to him, her hand settling on his thigh with gentle pressure. He squeezed her fingers and pretended the difficulty catching his breath was due to the unpleasant memories and not from the surge of tenderness sweeping through him at her small show of solidarity.
“Jessica got caught up in the whole wedding-planning thing. Eventually she couldn’t overlook my lack of enthusiasm about seating arrangements and notecards, and we ended up having massive fights. I broke it off a few weeks before…shit.” He hunched forward.
God, he felt like the world’s biggest asshole.
“A week before the wedding?” Shaye wriggled closer to him.
He shook his head. “No. A few weeks before she nearly drowned.”
Shaye remained silent then leaned on him. “I’m so sorry, Del. It’s a useless thing to say, but I am.”
Del sighed. “Jessica erupted after I told her we were through, but I think she was more embarrassed about calling off the wedding than the fact we didn’t love each other.” He scratched fingers down his jaw. “I kept my head down and continued to work my ass off, expecting her father to fire me at any second.”
“He didn’t?”
“Not then. She didn’t tell her parents we’d split, though some of her friends knew, and I suspect her mother did too. Maybe Jessica hoped we’d reconcile, I have no fucking idea. Anyway, about two weeks after we broke up, we arrived at the same party. Jessica came over to speak to me, and it was as if she’d turned the situation around in her head. As if she’d decided to end the relationship. ‘Course I was happy with that if it meant no more histrionics. I saw her later, draped over a couple of guys.” Del swallowed hard, staring at the line of white breakers hissing ashore.
The party in Santa Monica seemed light years away from the one he’d attended tonight. A few months ago, if asked which party he’d rather be at—one with booze and drugs, or one with cupcakes and giggling kids—he’d have picked the first. Now, with Shaye snuggled into his side, his head clear thanks to the sea breezes, and a belly comfortably filled with cupcakes and Mrs. T’s punch, the world of schmoozing and boozing had zero appeal.
“I was about
to leave, but once I saw Jessica with those guys, I couldn’t go without talking to her. I’d only had one beer, so I offered to drive her home. She made a graphic suggestion of where I could stick my ride. Her two new boyfriends would take her home later…much later.”
“She wouldn’t listen to you?”
He cut her a wry glance. “Jessica wouldn’t listen to anyone. She got what she wanted and did as she pleased. So I left, instead of making sure the boss’ daughter arrived back at her apartment safely.”
“You weren’t a couple.”
He’d been madder than hell and bent on getting back to his place to get righteously drunk. To make everything go away.
“Yeah.” He rolled his shoulders, bumping her a little bit away from him.
He couldn’t bear her sympathy for the worst bit of this sordid little tale. “So anyway, Wayne Tanner rang me at 5:00 a.m. looking for his daughter. You can imagine the shit flying after I told him I hadn’t seen her since the party. Before I could even explain we weren’t together anymore, he hung up. I went into work, and the head chef told me what he’d heard. Wayne finally tracked down Jessica. Nobody knew exactly what happened to her, only she’d likely gone skinny dipping since her clothes were found on the beach. She must’ve gotten into difficulty in the water. Whoever was with her got her to shore and called an ambulance, but they fucking left her naked in the sand for the paramedics to find.”
“Oh, Del.”
“She’s alive—though she suffered some neurological damage. I went straight to the ICU that morning, but not being family, I couldn’t see her. I talked to her parents in the waiting room. Of course, they blamed me for letting her go off at the party, and wouldn’t listen as I explained how Jessica refused my offer of a ride.” Del sucked in a lungful of salty air. It burned clear and cold, but not enough to quench the fire in his chest. “Under the circumstances, I don’t blame them for thinking I was a misogynistic asshole or Warren telling me to pack up my stuff and never set foot in Cosset again.”
“You did tell them you and Jessica weren’t a couple anymore?”
Ready To Burn (Due South Book 3) Page 22
