UNCONTROLLED BURN

by Nina Pierce

  Reese swallowed hard. Nason had surprised Josh at the back of the tavern the night of the fire. He’d taken him down with the wooden stake he’d used on himself and dragged him into the kitchen, removed his gear and headed downstairs to finish off Reese.

  Only, it had been Reese who’d come out of it alive—not Nason.

  When he’d come into the kitchen and found Josh’s burned and lifeless body, Reese had replayed Glenn’s death. Fortunately, the physical damage hadn’t been as severe and, unlike Glenn, Josh had survived.

  “You ever think about why Alex and the other vamps turned to the professor?” Reese asked.

  “Immortality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when you’re missing the people you love.” Josh looked over and forced a sad smile. “But you know that.” He cleared his throat. “I might not want to be human, but I sure as hell can’t sit around and wonder what the hell happened to the woman I love. I figure if I’m out kicking some rogue vampire ass it will keep the grief, the anger and the emptiness at bay.”

  Reese couldn’t bear the pain in Josh’s eyes and he steered the direction to something easier. “A little less talk and more work might help.” Reese pointed to the pile of bolts and the other drill beside him. “It’s been a bitch working on the construction alone.”

  “Somehow, Colton, I don’t think you really wanted our human friends nosing around while you modernized the wine cellar downstairs. I’m sure they wouldn’t think much of your recipe.” Josh went to work attaching the other end of the sign.

  “But can’t you just see Timmon’s smart mouth hanging to the floor at the site of the vat full of blood?” Reese laughed. “Speaking of blood, another load of pigs arrived at the farm yesterday.”

  Josh looked at him thoughtfully. “It’s not hard being there?”

  “Nah. Feels right. Like I’m continuing the work Glenn started.” Reese shrugged. “Besides, I’ve been enjoying experimenting with the blood wine mixture. I figure the new mix should yield a hundred bottles every couple of days. Ten times what Glenn used to get. The tribunal’s looking to set up several more wineries.” Reese set the last bolt. “By the end of the year every vamp in California will be able to live off Alex’s blood wine.”

  They gathered the tools and jumped to the ground. Standing in the wash of the angled spotlights on the roof, they stood a moment and admired their work. “You think Glenn would’ve approved?” Reese asked quietly.

  “Flanagan’s Tavern,” Josh said, reading the sign. “Yeah. He’d approve.”

  “You fools going to stand out there all night? There’s plenty more work inside.”

  Reese stared at his wife standing in the open door. The lights from the new dining room silhouetted Alex’s beautiful figure.

  “Pull out the whips, why don’t you?” Josh joked.

  “You’d enjoy it too much, Burkett, and I’d never get you two to finish anything.”

  Reese jumped over the three stairs onto the porch and kissed her sweet lips. “You actually tell him about the flogger?” he whispered.

  Alex swatted his arm and nuzzled his ear. “He was kidding, you idiot.”

  “Enough.” Josh joined them on the porch. “Haven’t you figured out that’s the kind of stuff that got you in this condition in the first place, Alex?”

  Reese splayed a hand over her protruding belly. If Josh weren’t there, he’d fill his hands with her swollen breasts. “Shh, don’t tell her that. She still hasn’t figured it out.” He swept Alex into his arms. “I was hoping to get lucky tonight.” He had no idea the prospect of being a father would make him so happy. Both of them suspected she’d been just human enough to conceive. They had no idea if the smoke from the fire or her transformation back to vampire the night of the fire had affected the fetus. Only time would answer that question.

  Whatever the outcome—they’d handle it all with love.

  The End

  Please Enjoy this Excerpt from

  Nina’s Contemporary Romantic Suspense

  In His Eyes

  Chapter One

  Margaret Callaghan hid her heartache behind dark sunglasses and the Starbuck’s double-double mocha latte she carried like a shield. The steaming coffee hadn’t helped dislodge the hot coal of despair burning her throat or soothe the quiver of her bottom lip. Mercifully, the front receptionist’s desk of Summit Rehabilitation and Wellness Clinic was empty at this hour of the morning, giving her hope that she just might be able to reach her office and pull herself together before anyone could question her misery.

  It just wouldn’t do to have the staff witness the owner’s life spiraling out of control. Maggie had worked hard over the past three months to keep the whole sordid mess of her impending divorce out of the workplace. Today, the task felt nearly insurmountable.

  Sorrow burned the back of her eyes. The heart she thought had hardened months ago shattered into tiny pieces of agony at the thought of spending so many days away from her kids. Maggie knew she was making the right decision, and damn her husband if she’d spend another minute lamenting over a man who could treat her love so callously. Every journey began with one step, and today—she’d taken hers.

  With her head down, Maggie quickened her pace, breathing a sigh of relief when she got through the workout room, with its gauntlet of elliptical trainers, stationary bikes and treadmills, without encountering any of the early morning regulars. Only the treatment room and six therapists stood between her and the sanctuary of her office.

  “Oh, good morning, Maggie.” Keith, her lead therapist, came out of his office.

  Maggie nearly ran him over in her haste to escape the scrutiny of her staff.

  “I’m glad I caught you. Do you have a minute to talk about the new guy starting on Wednesday?”

  “Just give me a few.”

  He bent and studied her face. “Hey, you all right?”

  She gulped from the cup she held in front of her wounded heart. “Just peachy. Just had a hard morning with the kids—”

  “Good morning.” Karen Wilson’s words lilted out in a sing-song melody of happiness as she sidled up next to them. The fresh scent of the autumn morning clung to her bright red jacket. “I left pastries at the front desk when I came in. TGIF, right?”

  Nine years ago, she’d started at the clinic as lead therapist and instantly become friends with this animated woman. Five years later, little Margaret Morgan Callaghan from the trailer park had signed the papers making her the sole proprietor of Summit Wellness and Rehab Clinic, and Karen had become her personal secretary and indispensable right hand. Over the last year, while Maggie’s fourteen-year marriage disintegrated, Karen had expanded into the role of confidante, cheerleader and crusader.

  Her friend’s gaze skittered from Maggie to Keith and back again, recognizing the barely-controlled hurt and bitterness tearing Maggie apart.

  “Keith, mind if I steal Boss Lady for a little bit?” Karen asked. “We’ve got end of the month figures to go over.” Not waiting for an answer, Karen pulled Maggie toward her office. “Should only take an hour or so,” Karen called over her shoulder.

  The door to her office closed with a definitive click and Maggie sank into the leather chair behind her antique desk, too emotionally drained to move another muscle.

  When she’d first come to the clinic, she’d held a Master’s degree in both Physical Therapy and Business Administration, which she’d completed while raising two rambunctious boys. At the time, her husband’s reasons for not being with her at the lawyer’s office when she’d signed the ownership papers had seemed perfectly reasonable. Maggie had happily accepted the flowers and champagne he’d brought home late that night without questions and gushed over the oak desk he’d had delivered to her office the following week.

  With their marriage circling the drain, the desk was now just another reminder of how she’d been blinded by her husband’s hollow gestures and transparent excuses over the years.

  Karen pulled a box of tissues from the bookcase
and set them within her reach on the polished oak and sank into the chair across from her. “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse.” Maggie flung the sunglasses on the desk and pinched the bridge of her nose, allowing her barely-controlled anger to swell and push away the hurt. “Alex wanted me to suffer, and he used our children as his weapon of choice. He stood at the door with the three of them in their pajamas, all of them looking at me like I’m the bad guy in all this.” Grabbing a couple of tissues, she dabbed her eyes, hoping her eyeliner would survive the morning in better shape than her heart.

  “We both know your husband’s an asshole.” Karen said. Up until a year ago her assistant had thought Alex Callaghan walked on water.

  “Unfortunately, my kids don’t think so. Hannah clung to him this morning and buried her face in his shoulder. She wouldn’t even look at me when I kissed her good-bye.” The emotional pendulum swung without warning, pulling Maggie’s fragile psyche along with it. Tears welled in her eyes. “I love them so much. They love their father. I just don’t know how to separate myself from that man without them getting caught in the crossfire.”

  “She’s four. She has no idea her father’s been boffing some bimbo. All she sees is her mommy leaving to go on a week’s vacation.”

  “Yeah, some vacation. A week at a beach cottage—alone.” The last word tasted bitter and cold on her tongue. “Luke completely fell apart while I was packing last night. I couldn’t make him understand that it was just a week. I’m sure it feels like forever to a ten-year-old. He was nearly inconsolable until I agreed to call them every night and come over for dinner at least once next week. Even then, I had to hold him until he fell asleep.”

  Karen reached across the desk and squeezed her hand. “Hang tight. You can do this.”

  The contact restored the strength she’d momentarily forgotten and Maggie straightened her spine. “You’re right of course. It’s the right decision, I know. I’m just so angry that Alex’s selfishness is going to put my kids through hell.” Maggie said. “If he no longer wanted me or this marriage, we could’ve found a better solution. He didn’t have to sleep with someone to get me to file for divorce and find another living arrangement.”

  Last week, they’d signed a nine-month winter lease on a small cottage near their home. This school year, she and Alex would rotate weeks between the house in the suburbs and the quaint beach cottage, and she’d transition her children into the single-parent lifestyle without them having to leave the security of their home. Dragging her children through the fires of divorce hell didn’t sit well with her, but living with Alex had become too painful. Having two residences while the judicial system slowly rendered her marriage vows null and void seemed like the only solution.

  “In true Alex fashion, he doesn’t think I’ll go through with this, because he’s not listening to a word I’m saying,” Maggie said. “It’s not just about his infidelity. It’s all the years he’s looked right through me to his own selfish needs. Like everything else that matters to me, Alex believes ignoring the situation will make it disappear.” Maggie closed her eyes and inhaled a shaky breath, working to settle the emotions churning the acid in her stomach. “It’s worked so far for him in our marriage, why wouldn’t he?” She met Karen’s empathetic gaze and shrugged. “Alex has no idea how serious I am about this divorce. I refuse to live another day with a man who makes me feel so alone.”

  Karen sat back in her chair, steepling her fingers in front of cherry-red lips. “I still don’t understand why your lawyer didn’t just make him move out so you didn’t have to do this one week home and one week away thing. Seems to me the courts would want the mother to be home with her children.”

  “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” She gulped her coffee, pleased when her hand didn’t tremble with the resentment pulsing through her veins. “I don’t have any proof of his affair. And since Alex continues to deny it, I’ve given up even talking about it. The divorce papers I filed simply say irretrievable breakdown of the marriage. No fault. No blame. Since he hasn’t technically done anything, there’s no reason for him to leave.”

  “Are you shitting me? That scumbag deserves to have his balls removed using a rusty scalpel—without anesthesia.”

  “You volunteering?”

  “And rob you of that honor? Not on your life, Boss Lady.”

  Karen’s laughter soothed the edges of Maggie’s frazzled emotions. There was nothing like a good friend to hold you up when the foundation of your life was crumbling.

  The day passed in a blur of busy work and quiet despair. Maggie stayed at the clinic well past her last patient, well past the time her physical therapists packed up and left. It was only when she realized Karen refused to leave her that she finally managed to gather up reports and accounting spreadsheets and shove them into her briefcase. Karen had tripped all over herself apologizing for having weekend travel plans she couldn’t change.

  It wasn’t her best friend’s fault that by thirty-five Maggie had knotted her life firmly around her three children and a man who’d taken her for granted for so long she couldn’t remember what it felt like to be appreciated and wanted. There was alone—and then there was lonely. Her husband had made her feel both.

  There had been too many nights where it had been just her and the kids. Too many days at home on the weekends without another adult to help with responsibilities of parenting. How many times in their marriage had her husband not been there for her? She’d stopped counting a long time ago. It hurt less that way.

  Now Maggie was driving mindlessly along the back roads of southern Maine toward a home that wasn’t hers, hoping like hell she’d made the right decision. She turned into the driveway of the little beach cottage and shut off the engine. What wasn’t to love about this humble bungalow with its bedroom dormer, white siding and blue shutters? She’d always wanted to live at the ocean, and now she had her chance. And wasn’t that the silver lining in the black cloud of her life? Her mother, God rest her soul, had at least helped her learn to find the best in every difficult situation. Some skills you never lost.

  Maggie hopped out of her Audi, pulled two pieces of luggage from the trunk, and hauled them to the upstairs bedroom. Staring out the dormer window, she watched the rhythmic wash of the ocean waves. Even through the closed windows, Maggie could hear the measured sound of the ocean, underscored by the living room clock counting her moments of isolation. The house screamed of emptiness.

  This cottage wasn’t filled with the raucous sounds of the boys playing video games or the sweet strains of her daughter’s voice soothing her nerves after a long day at work. No, this quiet weighed on her chest and thickened the air until Maggie thought she’d suffocate in its stillness. Her need to run from the emptiness drove her to strip off her business suit and throw on a bright yellow T-shirt and jeans, and head out into the warm September evening.

  Walking the short distance down the street to the beach, Maggie filled her lungs with the tangy salt air. As the sun slipped slowly behind the cottage roofs, its last rays stretched out to paint the clouds above the ocean muted shades of pink and orange. Sadness briefly fluttered over her resolve, but she refused to give it wings. Things would work out. The weeks away would be hell, but in the end, when everything was settled, she’d create a new sense of normal for her and the kids.

  The evening breeze shifted with her determination, its soft fingers caressing her cheeks and toying with her hair. She wandered aimlessly along the shore, her feet dragging in the shallow surf while gulls screeched overhead, their wings dipping and swaying in a graceful ballet. The deep purple of evening pushed away the muted light of day, swaddling her in the velvet blanket of night. But her inner courage couldn’t quite muster up enough strength to lift her chin or push the curve out of her drooping shoulders.

  Alone as she felt, Maggie didn’t believe anyone would notice a solitary woman making her way back down the beach.

  Maggie would have been wrong.

  * * *
>
  Like most nights, he sat in the alabaster sand, sifting grains slowly from hand to hand as if measuring time. Watching.

  Always watching.

  People rarely saw him, unless he chose for it to be so. And the woman meandering along the water’s edge was no exception. She had no idea he was admiring her. Appraising her. Measuring her.

  With the tide so low, he’d been able to study the exotic creature whose hair rode the wind like black silk. She dragged her feet in the shallow surf, her eyes cast down as if the ebb and flow of the ocean could soothe away her troubles. The dip of her chin and the graceful arch of her neck spoke of a heavy burden.

  She walked without a companion. Alone was good.

  Lord, she was beautiful.

  The sadness that curved her body in on itself made her that much more irresistible. He imagined he could hear the sweet strains of her loneliness carried on the evening breeze.

  He didn’t know he was searching. Didn’t realize the moment had come again.

  It had been a long time since he’d found someone who obviously hungered for the kind of solace only he could offer. He replayed the scene over and over again, long after she’d left the beach, long after the day had surrendered to the night. How serendipitous for her to be here on his beach.

  He sat, quietly measuring time in handfuls of sand, thinking about the grace of her walk, the gentle swell of her hips and breasts, the lovely mane of hair—and he knew.

  You are the one. I’ve been waiting for you.

  In the solitude of the new moon, he sat for a long time committing to memory every detail of their encounter and formulating a plan to make the woman his own. Satisfied, he strolled back to his cottage—his heart and soul as dark as the murky shadows swallowing him.