“I told Tommy not to go for you. But my darn cell phone doesn’t get a signal out here. We couldn’t call anyone and Tommy got scared.”
“Understandable. You don’t look too good.”
“I look worse than I feel. The cramps aren’t as bad as they were.”
Not bad, but certainly not good. That became evident when she stiffened and tried unsuccessfully to bite back a groan.
“Oh, no! Here we go again.”
Delilah grabbed a clean wash cloth and shoved it under the cold water tap. When the worst of the spasm had passed, she knelt beside the young mother and bathed her face.
“Tommy said you thought you drank some bad milk.”
“It didn’t taste bad going down. I could tell it was off about five minutes after it hit my stomach, though.” She gave a wan smile. “I’ve been in the bathroom ever since.”
“Not the best way to spend Christmas Eve.”
“Tell me about it.”
The smile slipped, and tears brimmed in her eyes.
“This is the kids’ first Christmas since my husband and I split. I rented the cabin from a friend at work. I thought the change of scene would, you know, make it easier on them. Instead I go and scare them half to death.”
Sniffling, she dragged the back of a hand across her nose.
“My poor babies. Emma is sure Santa won’t find her up here and Tommy is all bent out of shape because there’s no TV to play Nintendo on. Now this!”
“Hey, you couldn’t help what happened.” Delilah scrounged around in the cabinets for a fresh roll of toilet paper. “And the best Christmas present you can give your kids is to kick this thing. What’s your name?”
“Sharon Hawkins. That’s Emma in the other room.”
“Hi, Sharon. I’m Delilah.” She shoved the roll at the weepy woman. “Here. Blow.”
That produced a watery chuckle. “You sound like me doing my mom thing. Do you have kids?”
“No.”
Nor would she, with her body suspended in perpetual half life. Her hair didn’t grow, her toenails never needed clipping and she hadn’t had a period in more than a hundred years.
“You’ve got time,” Sharon consoled before blowing into the wadded tissue.
More than she knew, Delilah thought ruefully. She wiped the woman’s face with the damp washrag again and vowed to get her to the hospital as soon as Brett and the boy arrived to take care of Emma.
“ABOUT TIME,” she muttered when Brett finally crowded into the bathroom.
“Yeah, well, some of us have to stick to terra firma. Tommy, why don’t you look after your sister while I talk to your mom.”
The boy left with obvious reluctance and Delilah scram bled out of the way so he could hunker down.
“Sharon, this is Brett. Brett, Sharon.”
Embarrassed, the young mother shoved back her sweat-dampened hair. “I’m sorry Tommy ran over to get you. I told him not to.”
“No problem.” His blue eyes raked her face. “How are you feeling?”
“Better now. Honestly. I got the worst of it out of my system. Several times.”
He laid a hand on her forehead. “No fever. Did you take any medications?”
He’d asked Delilah the same thing, she re called. Was it only last night? It seemed so much longer.
Of course, that might have something to do with the fact she’d whoozed around in the night sky.
And tumbled down in front of his cruiser.
And ridden him like a wild woman.
And almost chewed off her arm to escape.
“I always carry a pharmacy with me for the kids,” Sharon said, jerking Delilah back to the present. “When the cramps started, I popped some Pepto-Bismol.”
“We need to make sure you didn’t dehydrate,” Brett advised. “Think you can keep some water down?”
She looked doubtful but nodded. “I’ll try.”
He rose to rinse out a pink-coated glass and fill it with tap water. When he crouched down again, Delilah chewed on her lower lip.
“Wouldn’t an IV be better?” She met his eyes. “I could get her to a hospital real fast.”
“I don’t need an IV,” Sharon objected. “I’m feeling better. Really.”
They had no difficulty translating the distraught mother’s quick protest. She didn’t want to leave her kids on Christmas Eve.
“Let’s see how this works,” Brett said calmly. “Just a few sips at a time,” he warned as he held the glass to her lips. “You don’t want to throw it back up.”
THE WATER STAYED down. Two glasses, drunk very slowly.
Between sips, Delilah helped Sharon change into a clean night shirt and crawl into bed. As soon as she sank onto the pillows, she called for her children.
Emma rushed in with her blanket clutched like a life pre server against her chest. “Mommy?”
“I’m right here, baby.”
The girl started to scramble up on the bed, but Sharon stopped her with a wobbly smile.
“Better not, Em. Mommy’s tummy is still a little shaky.”
Tommy caught his sister’s arm and earned a protesting squeal when he yanked her back. He’d shed his bright yellow ski jacket but still wore a look of worry.
“You gonna be okay, Mom?”
“I am, thanks to you and these kind people.” She reached out to grip the boy’s hand. “Not much of a Christmas Eve for you and Em, is it?”
“We don’t care,” he said fiercely, “as long as you get better.”
“I will. I promise. I think I’ll rest a little bit, though. Why don’t you read ‘’Twas the Night before Christmas’ to Em. Or…”
She lifted a pleading gaze to the two adults.
“Maybe you could read to her, Brett, and Delilah could help Tommy pop another batch of cookies in the oven for Santa. The first batch burned while I was, uh, otherwise occupied.”
Delilah had never baked cookies in either of her lives. When she was alive, her mama had always employed kitchen help. After she died, there was no point.
“I’m better at reading,” she told Emma with a wink. “We’ll let the boys do the baking.”
Moments later she had curled up on the sofa with a large picture book and the little girl snuggled against her side. The book was well-worn and obviously a favorite. Its front cover opened easily to a page displaying a Victorian-era living room with a humpbacked sofa in deep crimson, fringed lamp shades and what looked like a twenty-foot-tall Christmas tree. The scene was so eerily familiar that Delilah had to clear her throat twice before she could begin reading.
“‘’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house…’”
Behind her, Brett and Tommy thumped around in the kitchen. It soon came alive with the smell of cookie dough, nuts and cinnamon. As the tantalizing scents drifted across the room and Emma sucked contentedly on her thumb, Delilah paused in her reading.
For a moment, just a moment, she indulged in wishful thinking. This was what her life might have been like. A little girl nestled against her breast. A husband and son performing mundane chores together.
No! She wouldn’t go there. It never did any good.
Turning the page, she read on. “‘Away to the window I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.’”
Emma’s head drooped. Her thumb slipped out of her mouth. When she twitched like a sleepy puppy, Delilah eased her body horizontally onto the sofa and covered her with a throw before going into the bedroom to check on Sharon.
“Emma’s out like a light. Here, you need a little more water.”
“How’s the cookie making going?”
“Fine. Think you could handle some tea and dry toast?”
“Yes. And, Delilah?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome.”
After preparing the tea and toast, Delilah carried Emma into the other bedroom and tucked her into the lower bunk. Tomm
y was still worried about his mom and held out until well past midnight. He only climbed into the upper bunk when Sharon insisted he call it a night.
Once she was sure he’d fallen asleep, the young mother swung out of bed and pulled on her fleecy robe. When she emerged from the bedroom, Delilah and Brett were cleaning up the kitchen.
“Sharon! What are you doing?”
“The kids’ presents are in the car trunk. I have to finish wrapping them and put them under the tree.”
“Brett and I can do that.”
“You’ve done so much already, and I don’t want to ruin your Christmas Eve. You must have presents to wrap, too.”
“I don’t. How about you, Brett?”
She tossed the question off lightly, expecting an equally light response. He’d already told her he wasn’t into the whole Christmas scene. He’d also mentioned that he didn’t have any family.
“I haven’t wrapped a present in five years.”
Shrugging, he turned to snag his jacket from the chair, but not before Delilah caught a glimpse of bleak emptiness in his eyes. It was gone when he turned back.
“Toss me the keys, Sharon. I’ll get the stuff out of your car.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THEY LEFT A mountain of wrapped presents and a still-shaky but very grateful Sharon some hours later.
Brett insisted she keep his cell phone for the duration of her stay at the cabin, because his got service in this remote area and hers didn’t. She insisted they come back for Christmas dinner later that afternoon.
“Please. Let me thank you for all you’ve done for me and the kids.”
Brett slid a look in Delilah’s direction before shaking his head. “Thanks, but you’re not going to be up for company or cooking.”
“The turkey’s already in the fridge, defrosting, and I baked corn bread for dressing before I drank that damned soy milk. All I have to do is chop a little celery and onion, then pop everything in the oven.”
Delilah would have given all she possessed to sit down at a table with Brett and the Hawkinses in broad daylight. She’d never regretted her half life more.
“Sorry, Sharon, I need to leave early in the morning.”
Like, within the next hour. She had to get to Houston before dawn or she’d end up sleeping through another day on a bathroom floor.
Not that she’d mind. If it weren’t for Sebastian and his grab for power, she might seriously consider spending several more days curled up in Brett’s bathroom…and several more nights in his bed.
Sharon accepted her excuse with obvious disappointment. “Well, have a safe trip to wherever you’re going. And Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.”
The night had grown frigid, with the promise of more snow heavy on the air. Delilah didn’t feel the bite, but Brett had to hitch up his collar and hunch his shoulders inside his down-filled hunter’s jacket.
She walked with him, her keen vision picking out straggling branches and potential obstacles well ahead. She debated for some time whether to ask him about the lost look she’d glimpsed in his eyes. She’d shared the intimate details of her existence with him, but Brett didn’t exactly invite questions about his. The lights of the cabin loomed a short distance ahead when she decided to take the plunge.
“You said you hadn’t wrapped a Christmas present in five years. Am I getting too personal if I ask what happened to turn you off the holidays?”
He didn’t answer for so long she thought he intended to ignore the question. Then he took her elbow to guide her over a rough patch of ground. His breath steamed on the night air, brushing against her cheek like a warm caress, but his reply chilled her to the bone.
“You remember the escaped murderer I told you about earlier?”
“Yes.”
“We dubbed him the Christmas Killer because he liked to strike this time of year. He bragged that all those shoppers coming out of the malls in the dark made for easy prey. My fiancée was one of them.”
“Oh, no!”
“It was Christmas Eve. Five years ago. Cindy called to tell me she was going to hit the mall.”
The grip on her elbow tightened. Brett stared straight ahead, but she knew he wasn’t seeing the welcoming glow of the cabin lights.
“I told her to wait, that I’d go with her when I finished my shift. Then I got hung up working a four-car pileup. So she went alone.”
Delilah had existed for more than a century with what-ifs and if-onlys. She knew all too well how bitterly corrosive they could be. Aching for Brett, she accompanied him into the cabin. Once inside, he crossed to the stone fire place and knelt to add logs to the smoldering embers.
“I’ve been with the highway patrol for eleven years. I’ve seen people die in a relatively minor fender bender, others walk away from a vehicle so mangled you couldn’t tell the front end from the rear.”
He draped an arm over his bent leg and stared into the flames licking at the fresh logs, searching for answers she knew he’d never find.
“I under stand that life—and death—are pretty much a crap shoot,” he said slowly. “It’s one thing to accept that in the abstract, though. Another when it happens to someone you love.”
“Or to you.”
The low murmur jerked Brett out of his personal hell. Muttering a curse, he pushed to his feet.
“I’m sorry, Delilah. I didn’t mean to wallow around in remorse and regrets. It’s just… This time of year…”
He hated that it still got to him. Hated, too, that Cindy’s face faded a little more with each passing Christmas. He tried to hang on to her, fought like hell to keep her in his heart. But all he had left were fading memories.
“I know,” Delilah said softly, as if reading his mind. “It’s hard to let go of the past, isn’t it?”
She laid her palm against his cheek. Her skin was as cool and smooth as polished marble, her eyes dark wells of understanding.
“You’ll forget, Brett. With time. The hurt will go, too.”
The hurt maybe. The guilt and regret would stay with him the rest of his days. But this woman could block them. For a few hours, anyway.
Turning his lips into her palm, he murmured a quiet plea against the cool skin. “Stay with me, Delilah. Just for tonight. Help me forget.”
“Are you…” Her voice caught. “Are you sure you know what you’re asking for?”
“Very sure.” He brought his head around and smiled. “A Christmas kiss.”
She couldn’t leave him like this, haunted by the ghosts of Christmas past. Going up on tiptoe, she brushed her lips across his. Once. Twice.
THEY MADE LOVE in front of the hearth, stretched out atop the sofa cushions Brett dragged down to make a nest.
The dancing flames warmed Delilah’s skin and brought out the fire in her hair. The curtain of shimmering red framed her face as she stroked her hands over his shoulders, his chest, his belly. When she followed each stroke with a kiss, her cool lips hollowed Brett’s stomach and heated his blood.
Her hands and mouth and slender, sinuous body pushed everything else to a distant corner of his mind. For that hour, that slice out of time, all he knew, all he wanted to know was Delilah.
She fit under him so perfectly. Her pelvis cradled his hips, her calves hooked around his and her body welcomed him with un re strained eagerness. He filled her, driving deeper and harder with every thrust. She reciprocated by filling the empty spaces inside him.
But not as she had last night. Or this morning. The pleasure she gave him was every bit as intense. Yet he wasn’t consumed by the same mindless, animal hunger. With every move, every thrust of her hips against his, one thought hammered at his mind.
This was Delilah. Exotic, ethereal Delilah. She gave everything she had, along with a gift he hadn’t expected.
“You didn’t block it,” he said when they lay depleted side by side on the cushions. “I’m not going to forget this time, am I?”
“I sincerely hope not.” Roll
ing onto her side, she propped her chin in one hand. “I wanted you to remember tonight, Brett. I certainly will.”
“For a while.”
He wrapped a silky strand around one finger and tried to ease the inevitability of their parting with a joke.
“Another two, three hundred years and medical science will have made unbelievable strides. I won’t stand a chance when compared to those hot, twenty-third-century studs.”
“I won’t argue the advances in medicine, but I doubt it will produce anything to compare with you, Officer Cutie.”
“Stay with me, Delilah.”
The plea came from deep inside him. He didn’t under stand how this woman had worked her way into his heart so swiftly and so completely, but she had.
“Tonight. Tomorrow. Next year. Forever.”
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“Because of this meeting of the clans? Why is it so damn important?”
“We’re…we’re in the middle of a monster power play. Sebastian, my clan leader, already controls most of northern Mexico and the southwestern U.S. But he wants more. More territory, more wealth, more power. I bring the support of the Colorado band. Sebastian needs me at this gathering to back his claim over those of his rival.”
“So you’re—what? Some kind of a super-delegate?”
Her mouth curved, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I wish it could all come down to a vote.”
Passages from some of the gorier websites Brett had called up earlier this afternoon leaped into his head. He couldn’t suppress sudden, blood-curdling visions of rival vampires tearing out each other’s throats or dousing their enemies with flaming oil.
“So don’t go. Don’t put yourself in the middle of it.”
She rested her chin on his chest and sighed. “The problem isn’t just Sebastian. It’s us, Brett. My ‘forever’ isn’t the same as yours.”
“I’ll grow old and die, and you won’t. Is that what you’re saying?”
She nodded, digging the tip of her chin into his chest. “I had to watch that happen to everyone I loved. My parents. The lieu tenant I was betrothed to. My friends. It tore me apart. Every time.”
Christmas With a Vampire Page 5
