Animal Instinct

by Kate Davidson

  “Well, fuck that! You can come up with plenty of excuses for surviving. Weird shit happens every day. Hell, you can just say you weren’t in the house and when you found out about what happened you laid low because you thought someone was trying to kill you. I’d believe it.”

  “For now,” Liam said. She frowned, uncertain what he meant. “After ten or fifteen years, people will start to wonder why I’m not aging. And then I’ll move on. It’s what vampires have done for centuries to maintain a peaceful existence. We’re allowed a maximum of thirty years in one location before we have to relocate.”

  “Okay, I can see how that makes sense.” It didn’t make her happy but it did make sense. “But if some other vampires decide you have to stay dead you’ll have to leave. Isn’t that a bad idea? I mean, wouldn’t they want an old timer like you around while the Left Hand is running amock, burning down houses and hiring people to take shots at innocent citizens? And don’t try to fob me off with any Left Hand ghost story nonsense. I bought it the last time but he hadn’t tried to burn you to death then.”

  “You’re sure it’s him?” Liam asked, sounding almost amused.

  “Liam.” Her generally soft voice had gone hard, brooking no argument.

  He let out a sigh. “I agree with you. He’s the most obvious suspect. We don’t have enough information but there’s no doubt he’s targeting me and mine. When I know more than that, so will you, agreed?”

  Jackie considered the offer for a long moment before she nodded. “You had better,” she warned him.

  He smiled at her fierce expression. Liam couldn’t imagine being without this surprisingly fierce human woman. He took her hand in his and stared down at her rough fingertips. “Where do you imagine you’ll be in ten or fifteen years, Jacquelyn?”

  She stiffened. They were talking about that thing she had never wanted to talk about because it was so depressingly inevitable. She would age and he would not. In ten or fifteen years she would be in her late forties or early fifties. Sarah would be in college. Her dogs would be dead. “I’d rather not talk about that just now if it’s all right with you.”

  He looked at her steadily before nodding. “Think about it, then. My life nearly ended and there are many things I would have regretted not doing. If your life ended now, what would you regret?”

  To keep herself from answering, Jackie leaned forward and kissed him. She poured all her uncertainties into that kiss. She didn’t know how she would make a relationship work with a vampire. She didn’t know nearly enough about who set his house on fire. She didn’t know how she could be so aware of him that even he wondered at it.

  She was only certain about two things. First, if her life ended now, she would regret having never told Liam that she loved him.

  Second, she would regret never talking to Danny.

  How screwed up was that?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  THERE WAS A BLACK hole in Jackie’s office. Whenever she let something small get out of her sight she could never find it again until the black hole decided to spit it up in a completely random location. The black hole didn’t care if she needed to find Danny Wallace’s business card before she lost her nerve. The black hole was happily munching on the missing card along with the socks, paperclips, hair bands and pens she had carelessly set down within its reach.

  Two days had passed since she had her talk with Liam. He had told her he would be in hiding for an undetermined amount of time. It all depended on what a bunch of old vampires whom she’d never met decided. Plus, the Left Hand had gone to a lot of trouble to kill him and he thought it might be best if whomever he was believed they’d succeeded for a little while. It irritated her that they knew so little about their enemy when he seemed to have all sorts of information about their lives. The helplessness didn’t sit well with her.

  She pulled out one of the drawers in her desk and dumped out the contents. Jackie glared at the pile of bills, spur straps, hand wipes and pennies on the floor as though it had somehow wronged her. Of course it wasn’t the junk she wanted to be glaring at but the Irish vampire who deserved her glares was currently unavailable.

  “Hey, Jackie, what’s all the noise about?” Sofie asked, tentatively stepping into the office. She glanced at the mess on the floor with confusion. “Spring cleaning?”

  “I can’t find a goddamn business card,” she muttered.

  “Did you check your wallet? You usually put cards in there.” Jackie froze. Then, slowly and deliberately, she sat down at her desk, placed her head on the surface and proceeded to smack her forehead against it. “Um… not helpful?”

  A cackle of laughter burst from Jackie’s lips. “Plenty helpful, Sofie. I’m just going insane.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Jackie laughed again at how unconcerned her friend sounded. “Liam is God knows where and just before he goes he decides I should think about the things I would regret not doing in my life. I should have fucking slapped him, not kissed him.”

  Sofie very carefully approached the emotional woman until she was standing beside her chair. She had sensed something had been bothering Jackie since she had informed her that Liam was still alive. She had seemed nervous and agitated. There had clearly been a lot going on in her head. “Why would he decide that?”

  “We were about to have the talk about my mortality being a less than desirable state and perhaps I should consider upgrading,” Jackie said. If not for the slight waver in her voice Sofie wouldn’t know just how shaken she was.

  “Wait, you mean he wants to turn you?”

  “It seemed like that was the direction the conversation was headed,” she said.

  Sofie couldn’t help what happened next. She felt too warm and fuzzy inside to keep her thoughts locked up. “That’s so romantic!”

  “Romantic?” Jackie collapsed against the back of her chair and proceeded to stare at her as though she’d just said she would prefer a career as an astronaut. “Are you nuts? What could possibly be romantic about having to make an impossibly huge sacrifice just to give a relationship a chance to go somewhere? It’s stupid, not romantic. Deranged, not romantic. Completely ridiculous, not - ”

  “I get it,” Sofie interrupted, delicately patting her friend’s shoulder. “You don’t want to be a vampire. That’s okay.”

  “Damn right it’s okay. I shouldn’t have to give up being human just because I’m in love with a guy.”

  “You love him?” Her eyes widened at the news and she felt even warmer and fuzzier than before. “Oh, Jackie!” Jackie just shook her head.

  “I should never have let my feelings go that far. It’s not as if we could get married and grow old together. He already looks younger than me. In ten years it’ll look ridiculous.”

  “You’ve never cared about what people thought of you,” Sofie reminded her.

  “That’s not even my biggest problem. I know I would regret not telling Liam how I feel if I lost the chance. But that isn’t the only thing I would regret.” Jackie picked her wallet out of her bag then extracted the business card she’d been looking for from inside. “I need to give Daniel Wallace a call.”

  “What?” Sofie felt as though someone had slapped her. She thought she was talking Jackie down from a panic attack about Liam. The issue of Danny had sprung out of nowhere. “How did you even get that?”

  “Dad,” she said, studying the numbers on the card. In less than a minute she could be talking to the boy she’d been so in love with all those years ago. It was a surreal thought.

  “Jackie, don’t call him. It won’t help anything. It definitely won’t help your relationship with Liam,” Sofie argued.

  “He deserves to know that it wasn’t him I was running from,” Jackie said. “And Liam isn’t here.”

  “Calling up an old lover isn’t smart, okay? You’re in love with someone else and you won’t feel good about yourself if you forget that and get lost in some old romance that’s doomed to fail.�
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  “It’s not doomed to fail because it’s not going to start.”

  “Any woman would get weak in the knees at the thought of the one perfect guy who got away. But he’s not perfect for you anymore. You’re not the same girl,” Sofie said.

  Jackie snorted. “I’m not weak in the knees. If anything I’m a thoroughly disillusioned mess who just wants to get her life together by tying up a few loose ends.” She picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulder and marched out the door. “I’ll be back to work the horses later.”

  “Jackie, please wait! Could you think about this for a minute? Please, don’t screw up your life,” Sofie called out plaintively. Jackie kept walking.

  Sometimes it was hard for her to believe the shit that life threw at her. It must have been some type of karmic retribution. Maybe her last incarnation had been Hitler or something and now she was being punished. That could really be the only explanation. Why else would she find herself in love with a vampire who might very shortly have to vanish from her life forever? It was time to straighten up her past. Being with her father had gone a long way to helping her do that but now she needed to call up the other man who’d had a profound effect on her.

  Sitting in her truck, which had been returned to her courtesy of Jack, she carefully dialed number after number with an almost painful slowness. Butterflies were dancing in her stomach and her nerves were just about shot. Maybe she should put this off. Maybe right now wasn’t the best time for an emotional reunion. Honestly, couldn’t she go without someone calling her a faithless bitch? She didn’t know that he’d say that but the chances were good. She wouldn’t achieve anything with this except remembering just how simple and happy her life would have been. Now she could barely remember what simple was. It sure as hell sounded nice. And was it really wrong to find the man who would have given it to her?

  The phone began dialing and she realized she’d pressed the call button. She nervously put her phone against her ear. Christ, she was an idiot. What the hell would she say on the phone? What if he didn’t answer? What sort of message was she going to leave? Hi, this is the girl you were going to marry who ran off without a word. How’ve you been?

  “Hello?” Oh, shit, he’d picked up!

  “Hi!” she squeaked. Jackie winced at the high pitch of her voice. That was not the voice of a confident grown woman. That was the voice of a nervous teen. She was regressing to high school already and they hadn’t even been on the phone thirty seconds yet. “Uh, I mean, hello. Is this Daniel Wallace?”

  “Yes, it is.” His voice was a little deeper than she remembered but just as good. There was a sweetness in hearing him again after all that time that made her heart skip a beat. And maybe, just maybe, her knees were a little weak as well.

  “This is Jackie Chase. Charles MacDougal gave me your card,” she added, hoping that would make this seem less random.

  “Oh, Charles! You must be a friend then,” he concluded. That was how it worked in his world. Uncomplicated connections that made his life so much simpler, hadn’t she been like that once?

  “Er, in a way.” She didn’t know how to do this. She couldn’t blurt out who she was over the phone. She needed some sort of story. “He mentioned you were starting up your business here and you might need a place to board your horses. I own a ranch and my barn has plenty of space. Maybe we could meet up for lunch to discuss it?” Okay, that had sounded good. Reasonable and not stalker-like or freaky in the slightest.

  “That would be brilliant. I’ve had some trouble finding accommodations that wouldn’t be out of my clients’ price range and up to my standards.” She grinned.

  “Well, you wouldn’t have that problem with me. I have pretty high standards myself,” she admitted.

  “If those standards apply to Mexican food, I know just the place for us to meet.”

  And just like that she was going to lunch with the man whose child she’d once carried.

  Jackie managed to keep herself calm as she drove by practicing her breathing exercises. She watched her speed carefully, parked with extra caution and kept her eyes on her feet when she walked since it felt like they were wobbling a little. Blue muckers stared up at her and she noticed the dust that clung to their surface. She should have changed into normal shoes.

  The cheerful Mexican restaurant’s sign declared the little hole in wall to be Taco Land. In any other circumstances she would find the place charming with its few chairs out front and the practically claustrophobic dimensions inside. These weren’t the right circumstances, though. She began to worry. She shouldn’t have met him in a public place. He was going to be so thrown off when he saw her and making him deal with that in public was so unfair. What the hell was wrong with her? What kind of sick, twisted, cold-hearted -

  “Jackie Chase?”

  She froze. That was Danny’s voice. And it was coming from behind her. With a gulp and a prayer that she hadn’t made an enormous mistake, she turned around. “Danny?” she whispered before she could stop herself. He looked so different but, at the same time, exactly the same. His face was more defined, his body a little less gangly and… and… God, but he had gotten so handsome. The brown hair that refused to lie flat on his head was ruffled in a way that made him look adorable. His jeans hugged his hips just right and his fitted shirt let her know that his face wasn’t the only thing that had gotten more definition. His fingers were just as long, hands just as gorgeous although they had probably gotten rougher over the years with work. But it was his eyes that stunned her the most. Those beautiful, midnight brown eyes that peered into her heart and saw all that was there to see held her spellbound. Then he spoke.

  “Jane?” He recognized her. There was an expression of utter shock on his face. She cleared her throat.

  “Well, I used to be.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  JANE LOVED MORNINGS. VERY few things made her as happy as when her alarm rang at four, letting her know that it was time for her to slip out of the house and go work in the barn before she had to go to school. Teenagers in high school were so much more confusing than horses. She preferred to be with the large, silent beasts with their gentle eyes and simple demands.

  Everything was quiet when she was out this early. It was freezing, the sun a few hours away from rising. Only her flashlight cut through the mist. If her father’s barn were any further away from the house she would never have been brave enough to explore in the cold silence. It was unlikely her parents would have let her, either. Her nervousness about the quiet eased once she stepped beneath the barn’s room and heard the soft huffs of breath coming from the horses. It was a good-sized barn with two aisles and the many stalls were almost all occupied. Everything was spotless. Her father would permit nothing less, which was funny since he was so often uninterested in the neatness of his actual house.

  Usually Jane would just fill her time randomly in the mornings. She would groom a few horses if they were awake, get their breakfast ready or simply sit and clean. Saddles and bridles could always use a little cleaning. Today, however, she had something specific in mind. Her favorite mare had been diagnosed with colic yesterday and Jane wanted to see if she was all right. Logically, she knew Perdita, the beautiful black mare she’d loved since she was thirteen, would be perfectly fine. The vet had assured her father that he’d done all he could do and that the abdominal pain would sort itself out. They would just have to watch her overnight. Of course Jane had volunteered but, unfortunately, it was a school night. Her father had told her that one his employees would do the job just as well as she could. It hadn’t made her happy but she’d gone along with it.

  Colic could kill a horse. They’d done everything they were supposed to do but Jane didn’t feel any calmer about Perdita being sick. Something could still go wrong, especially if whoever had been watching overnight had fallen asleep and left Perdita to her fate. This thought panicked her. She nearly ran down the aisle to Perdita’s stall. Jane didn’t ev
en bother glancing at the cot set across from it where a tall, gangly boy was sitting comfortably. Her only concern was - ah, there! Perdita was standing in the far corner of her stall with her eyes half-closed and looking drowsy. But she was most definitely alive.

  “Hello, Perdy. Oh, you’re such a wonderful, lovely girl,” Jane said quietly but the silence made her words almost echo in the barn. Perdita’s eyes opened fully. “Good morning.” The mare let out a snort then meandered over to the door of her stall where Jane would be able to rub behind her ears. This made the teenager grin. Yes, horses were definitely easy to understand. “You’re feeling better aren’t you, girl?”

  “She’s stopped complaining so I’d say so,” an amused voice informed her. She jumped, startling Perdita and making her jerk her head back. Jane glared accusingly at the source of the voice. He looked about her age with brown hair that was sticking out in unexplainable ways and bottomless brown eyes. Freckles were printed on his milky skin, telling her he’d spent a fair amount of time in the sun. He was practically drowning in a lumpy brown sweater and blankets so she couldn’t see what his body was like, which was fine by her. He was cute but she’d been trying to train herself not to notice that kind of thing. She couldn’t date so there wasn’t much point.

  “You shouldn’t scare people like that,” she scolded him.

  He grinned at her. “Sorry. I thought you knew I was here and just decided ‘Perdy’ was better company.”

  Jane frowned. “I didn’t look to see if anyone was here. I was worried about her. Who are you, anyway? I’ve never seen you.”

  The boy just shrugged. “Lots of people don’t see stable hands.”

  “Don’t be silly. If you’d been here for very long I would have seen you by now. How long have you worked for my father?”

  This made the boy’s grin transform into a full-blown smile. “So you’re Jane! Mr. MacDougal warned me you might be dropping in early so I’d better be on my toes.” He stood up and brushed off his clothes as though this would do anything to take the wrinkles out of his brown sweater and gray sweatpants. The way the clothes hung on him made her see just how gangly his limbs had to be. He was just as ridiculously tall as she was, too. This made them both awkwardly thin and, if he was anything like Jane, a little clumsy. It was weird that they were so much alike. “I’m Danny,” he said, offering her his hand. She slipped her hand in his as she searched her mind for any mention of Danny. Then his fingers gently tightened around her and she realized how very long those fingers were. Her skin tingled. Clearing her throat, she hastily took her hand back. “I’ve only been here a week.”