Though I had learned that the women (the vampire women, I reminded myself with a small sigh) in the Sullivan Hotel were lesbians, it didn’t mean that I could move from Kane to someone else, quick as you please.
My brain and heart were subdued, for a small moment, by an image of Tommie that flashed before my eyes. Tommie with her smug grin and confidant eyes and how she’d straddled that woman last night, licking her lips as she licked her neck…
I sat back in the passenger side seat as Gwen straightened, too, searching my eyes. Tommie was gorgeous, and she was sexy, but she wasn’t Kane. Yes, my body responded to Kane—I think anyone’s body would have responded to Kane. But my heart called to her, and somehow, impossibly, a deeper part of myself called to her, too.
And now that would never be.
“I’m sorry I’m a little maudlin today,” I told Gwen by way of apology. “I’m going to try to have a good time, but I…have a lot on my mind.”
Gwen’s mouth twisted into a frown. “I’m going to force you to have a good time,” she promised, picking up her key ring and starting Moochie’s engine. It grumbled to life, the van shuddering beneath us. “I want you to count your blessings,” said Gwen, then, as she began to roll the van out of the parking lot.
I snorted in spite of myself. I…really couldn’t think of anything to be grateful for. I hadn’t exactly had an incredible or amazing life before moving to Eternal Cove, but at least it had been my own. Now I was living in a hotel full of vampires, the vampire I was drawn to desperately had just had her dead ex-lover appear out of the blue…
What, really, did I have to be grateful for?
“It’s a beautiful day?” I tried, thought it came out a little grumbly as I stared out the window with a sigh. “Gwen, do I really have to—”
“What else?” asked my relentless best friend sternly.
“I’m grateful for you,” I muttered, but this came out with a little bit less of a grumble. Gwen shot me a sidelong smile and nodded, prompting me to continue.
“I really can’t think of anything else,” I told her, watching the brilliant trees roll past. It really was a beautiful day, but I was in no mood to enjoy anything.
“Can I tell you something?” asked Gwen in that conspirator’s little voice she’d had back in college when she’d try to set me up with the sexy female bartenders at one of the local dives. I sighed. I knew that tone.
“Yes?”
“When you came to me last night and told me that you were attracted to Kane…” She trailed off and put on her turn signal as she crawled to a stop before Eternal Cove’s first light. The trip down the hill had been shorter than I’d remembered it. “I really thought you were going to tell me you were attracted to Tommie…not Kane.”
I snorted with laughter before I realized she’d been serious. I was speechless then, flustered, as I tried to come up with a verbal reason of why absolutely, positively Tommie wasn’t right for me.
As if she’d want me anyway. I remembered the blonde last night, practically writhing beneath Tommie.
I probably wasn’t her type.
“I want a relationship,” I pointed out to Gwen, then. “I don’t want a one-night stand.”
“Why do you think Tommie’s not capable of a relationship?” Gwen snorted. The town of Eternal Cove spread out before us with its colorful, quaint shops and myriad of open parking spaces, even on a Saturday. She eased into an empty parking spot along the main street.
“Because I don’t think she is,” I said adamantly, shaking my head as I swung my purse up on my shoulder and hopped out of the passenger side, shutting the door firmly behind me.
“Rose, you’re kind of old fashioned,” said Gwen, then, trotting forward and putting an arm around my shoulder, gesturing with her other hand at the town. “And you’ve come to a sort of old fashioned place, which is great. But you want this sort of old fashioned love, with a woman coming along and sweeping you off your feet, the kind of love they put in storybooks. I’m not saying it can’t happen,” she interjected, holding up a finger when I began to protest, “but I don’t know if you’ll be satisfied with any woman.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she searched my eyes. “You told me, once, that you weren’t even satisfied with Anna.”
I remembered that conversation, even as the blush rose on my cheeks. Anna had been away for the weekend to visit her favorite aunt in the Bay, and Gwen had come over for a “weekend-long girl party,” which was really only an excuse to drink a lot and try to make home-made ice cream from a recipe she’d found on the internet. I’d had one too many mixed drinks, and then I was pouring out my problems to Gwen, because she’d always been the one I could tell anything to. And yes—I’d told her that I loved Anna, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Anna…but sometimes, in the dead of night, I’d wake up from a dream I couldn’t quite remember, glance over at my girlfriend who lay, sleeping and beautiful and breathing evenly, and think that being with her wasn’t quite right.
Gwen was searching my face as she stepped forward, as she placed her fingers on my shoulders and shook me a little with a small frown. “Rose, you can’t spend the rest of your life waiting for something perfect. ‘Perfect’ will never actually happen. Find a woman who makes you happy and settle down with her. Life’s short. Don’t spend it waiting for a storybook romance. There’s no such thing.”
I didn’t agree. I knew that, as I stared into her eyes, too, unflinchingly. She was right, of course. I did want perfect. I wanted the type of love that would make every morning, no matter what it was doing outside, beautiful. I wanted the type of love that grew with time, that never waned. I wanted the type of love that made my heart rush ten years from now, twenty years from now. I wanted the type of love that made my body turn when she entered the room, that made every cell in my being drawn to hers.
I’d always wanted that. And I wouldn’t stop wanting it.
And, if I was being perfectly truthful, there had been something in Kane…something that seemed like that sort of love was starting.
But I shook my head as Gwen stepped back, as we began to walk along the old, uneven sidewalk.
“Tommie told me you were cute this morning. She was in the kitchen, and we ran into each other,” said Gwen quickly when I glanced at her with wide eyes. “She wanted to know if you were taken. And I took the liberty to tell her you weren’t.”
I worked my jaw, biting at my lip hard enough to keep my mouth shut. I loved Gwen, heaven knew I loved her, but she’d always been a meddler in my love life. “But I’d just told you last night I was attracted to Kane—”
“Well, yes,” said Gwen, smiling innocently. “But it’s not like you’re in a relationship with her. And, if Melody has really come back…” She trailed off, gazed into a shop window. “Then you’re not going to be in a relationship with her.”
It was painful and honest, that truth. I gazed into the shop window, too. It was a vintage clothing shop, and the old mannequin in the window was sporting a beautiful aqua-colored dress with a wide yellow belt, a pair of yellow pumps discarded at the base of the mannequin, as if the woman wearing them had tossed them off and run off barefoot. My brain noticed those details, but my heart didn’t.
My heart was thinking about Kane. About her full, cold lips, her violent blue eyes. The tilt of her head as she stared at me across the room, her gaze so intense that it burned with cold fire, taking a pull from her cigarette, clasped in long, elegant fingers…
“It just doesn’t seem right, somehow,” I told Gwen softly, fingering my purse’s strap without thinking. “I don’t understand why Melody came back. Tommie told me yesterday that she was dead. I mean, that’s not something you really come back from. So what happened? Why is she back? And why did she come back at the exact wrong moment?” I swallowed back the tears that immediately threatened to erupt from my eyes. I took a deep, quivering breath, as Gwen and I began to walk down the sidewalk again. “It just doesn’t make any sense. There was something a
bout Kane…” I murmured.
Gwen walked beside me silently for a moment. She didn’t have a good explanation for the coming-back-from-the-dead thing any better than I did. So she steered the conversation away from it. “Well, we’re using today to forget about your troubles,” said Gwen, affectionately draping an arm around my shoulder again. “Welcome to Eternal Cove, honey!”
It really was a beautiful, quaint little town. There were old shops and buildings lining the main street that was filled with the scent of salt. The buildings were painted in bright colors, and though things were pretty shabby, they also seemed remarkably charming. The little book store we passed, a hand-written sign in the window proudly declaring that science-fiction was half off today, had the book store’s name hand-painted on a piece of driftwood that swung in the wind over the main door to the shop. The sign was hand-painted, like I remembered the sign welcoming us to Eternal Cove had been. It was little details like that that made me like the little town almost immediately.
Technically, I shouldn’t have liked it, I shouldn’t have relaxed my guard enough to like it, because I should have been deciding if I wanted to stay here or not. But I knew I shouldn’t bring up that consideration to Gwen. She’d done so much to get me to move here, to restart my life, and I knew she’d be hurt and more than a little displeased that I was considering uprooting myself yet again to return to a place that had nothing for me either.
Maybe Eternal Cove had more surprises in store for me, I thought that day, gazing into the shop windows, eventually chuckling (though only a little) at my best friend’s jokes as the lovely October sun swung lower in the sky.
But I really had no idea what surprises were yet to come.
---
“Are you sure you don’t want to head back to town, go bar crawling?” asked Gwen as she shut down Moochie’s motor, palming the beat-up blue van’s ring of keys and glancing sidelong at me in the dark. Her eyes were wide and imploring. “It’d only take a few minutes to go back down to town, and you could meet some of the people who live here—it’d be great, make new friends, have fun,” she offered.
I knew Gwen wanted, more than anything, to go out drinking, and though I’d been trying for the past couple of hours to get up the energy to visit a couple of bars and drink away all of my most recent sorrows (which would probably involve more alcohol than a body could take), it had been a very long day. I was even a little sunburned because the sun had been out in very full force for an October day, but that’s the problem with auburn-headed women: we burn easily.
What I really wanted was my slippers, a cup of tea, a good book and a plush chair after a probably revoltingly long bubble bath where all my fingers and toes pruned.
I was turning into an old woman.
“I’m bushed,” I told Gwen, shaking my head and offering an encouraging smile. “I had too much fun today!” I teased her with a grin. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t go have even more fun, I mean, isn’t that what Saturdays are for? Why don’t you leave Moochie here, walk back to town—it’s less than a mile or so, isn’t it? You can go to the bars—weren’t you saying that that one bar, you were friends with the bartender?”
“Free shots,” Gwen sighed wistfully, staring in her rearview mirror at the lights of the town rolling away below the parking lot of the Sullivan Hotel through the trees.
“You should totally go,” I told her resolutely, unlocking my seatbelt, and fishing around behind me for my one lone shopping bag, a paper bag containing a scarf I’d found at Eternal Cove’s little second hand shop. Winter was on its way, and the bright purple scarf would go well with my red winter coat. “You’ll have fun,” I told her firmly, “and I don’t want to be a wet blanket. I want you to go have fun—we had a really awesome day, and you deserve the cherry on top.”
Gwen pocketed her keys and nodded, opening up the driver’s side door. “You know, I think I’m going to do it,” she said, shoving her hands into her pockets, too with a grin. We both got out of the van, and Gwen locked the doors, pulling her jacket snugly around her shoulders. “Are you sure you don’t want me to head back with you?” she asked, wavering, jerking her thumb up at the impressive red stone structure. The Sullivan Hotel seemed to be glaring down at us in the half-full parking lot. More guests seemed to have checked in while we were gone that day. “We could get food from the kitchens, paint our toenails…” Gwen trailed off. She didn’t sound excited about these prospects at all.
“Go back to town,” I urged her, crossing my arms against the chill wind that blew off the ocean. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she said with a big smile, already walking away across the parking lot and toward the road. “It was a great day! We should do it again!” she called over her shoulder.
“Have fun!” I yelled back, and then I turned, staring up at the Sullivan Hotel.
I hadn’t exactly forgotten my troubles that day, but the innocence of shopping, of laughing in the coffee shop…it had made me misplace my worries, if only for a little while.
It had been…nice.
But now here they were again, all wrapped up in the nice, neat little package that was the Sullivan Hotel.
I sighed, hitching my purse strap up higher on my shoulder, and began to make my way toward the entrance to the hotel, with its shadowy columns and gargoyle-bedecked red marble planters that were sized just big enough to contain dead bodies. That had been my very first thought upon entering the Sullivan Hotel, and it wasn’t exactly forgotten now that I knew the hotel was full of vampires. I skirted the sprawling planters and ascended the few steps. The front lamp over the door was on, and a bright glow filled the porch as I made my way toward it.
A soft, sweet salt breeze angled its way in front of my nose, spiraling up from the ocean, and, for a moment, I had half a mind to make my way down the cliff path and take a night stroll on the beach. It would be very cold, but probably worth it—the moon was out, and it wasn’t full yet, but its gibbous bulk swung low in the sky, illuminating everything with a soft, heavenly light. It’d be so easy to put off facing my troubles for a few minutes more…
But I squared my shoulders, laid my hand on the antique doorknob, and opened the front door of the Sullivan Hotel.
There was no one in the front entryway, which was a sort of relief. I hadn’t exactly expected Tommie with another woman, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d seen her. The entryway itself with its lush, comfortable couches, was empty, but there was a woman I didn’t recognize behind the front desk. She had short brown hair, as short as a man’s, but she wore a soft, feminine blue dress that clung against her hips and flowed out around her knees. It was much too summery to be worn in such cold temperatures, but she looked perfectly comfortable, as she glanced up at me over the edge of the novel she held in her well-manicured hands. She wore a little makeup, and her glasses, perched on the bridge of her nose, looked designer.
“Are you Rose?” she asked me with an easy smile, shutting the book and setting it on the counter as she hopped off the stool.
“I am, yes,” I told her, returning the smile. I’d met a few vampires, and for some reason, this woman struck me as absolutely, positively human.
“I’m Clare, one of your new co-workers—it’s really great to meet you,” she gushed enthusiastically, and I thought she meant it. She pushed her glasses further up her nose and glanced down at a post-it note next to the guest book. “I was told to tell you that the minute you come in, Kane wants to see you—it’s kind of urgent. She’s been in her office all day, and she’s probably still there,” Clare said, gesturing down the hallway toward the stairs. “So…”
My heart leapt up into my throat, and I paused for a moment, my hands forming fists, the plastic from my shopping bag handle practically cutting into my palm. “Where is her office?” I asked her, trying to keep my voice carefully neutral. I think I failed at this, however, because Clare’s eyes widened, and she put her head to the side as she considered me.
<
br /> “You go down the hallway, up the stairs, and she’s on the second floor, first door on the right.” Clare rattled off the directions as if she’d had to tell them to a few people recently. Then she leaned forward over the desk a little, her palms flat against the antique wood, as she frowned. “Rose, are you all right? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine,” I lied automatically and straightened my shoulders. I had no idea what Kane wanted to say to me. That she wanted me to leave the hotel? That was the first thing that crossed my mind. That, after the awkwardness of kissing me and then having her lover come back from the grave, she didn’t want any distractions around. But if that’s what she wanted to tell me, maybe that was for the best.
Because being around Kane, around this impossible woman who drew me to her like a flame lures a moth…maybe this wasn’t so good for me, too.
I breathed out, nodded to Clare and tried smiling at her, but it came out as a sort-of grimace. I slowly began to walk along the corridor of paintings, across the red and black tiles, toward the far staircase.
I climbed each step like I was heading to my death. I didn’t want to leave the Sullivan Hotel. I did, but I didn’t. Part of me knew that it would probably be for the best if I left this place, left it and all of its vampires and secrets and beautiful women behind. But the other half of me cried out at the very thought.
I loved Kane. I knew that. I was falling in love with her, and I wanted to be near to her.
But did I? Did I, when I knew the consequences of it? That she would never be mine, that the both of us weren’t meant to be, that I could pine after Kane in these hallways and rooms for the rest of my life, wishing for something that was impossible, because she was somewhere in the same beautiful old building, with the woman she was meant to be with?
Meeting Eternity (The Sullivan Vampires, Volume 1 Page 14
