When their wine arrived, Ann almost instantly downed her glass. Tara was tempted to do the same. She was torn between wondering if her grandfather had gone crazy, or if the whole world had done so. She was ostensibly listening to Ann talk about her day at the office, how they had gone through meeting after meeting, but she was also listening to those around her.
“I think the professor, that Dubois guy, has some explaining to do,” a girl at the table behind them said.
“Dubois is all but foaming at the mouth at the police for closing down his site!” one of her companions replied.
“Well, unless he’s an awfully good actor, I think that lets him out as the murderer,” the young woman replied.
“Never can tell with those scientific types.”
“What about the worker who found the body?” the girl said, her tone suddenly breathy. “Did you see his picture in the paper?”
“There’s someone suspicious,” one of her male companions replied.
“Oh, pooh! Who butchers someone and heads right to the police?”
“And we’re going to publish a book on the gourmet treatment of dogs and cats as main protein staples,” Ann said.
“What?” Tara demanded, realizing that her cousin was staring at her.
“You haven’t been listening to a thing I’ve said,” Ann complained.
“I’m sorry, I have been. Sort of. It’s just been a long day. Grandpapa is still on his tangent. I don’t know why—I was so tired—but I barely slept last night. I kept having nightmares about wolves.”
“Oh, yes, you thought you saw one.”
“I still think I saw one.”
“I told you, there are no wolves. Well, of course, there are human wolves. Like the guy coming in the door now. Ooh la, la. There is a hot—hot—wolf for you. Except, of course, you must always be very careful with wolves. They’ll consume you, unless you stop them.”
“Maybe there was a circus in town. Maybe a creature escaped from the zoo.”
“We would have seen it in the paper.”
“Not when we have a local story like the murder at the dig!”
“Um. And is that why you have not—in the least—noted my state of excitement?”
Tara stared at her cousin guiltily. “You are excited. What happened? I’m sorry—I should have noticed right away.”
“Yes, you should have done so.”
“Well?”
“It was a day you would not believe! First—it was so busy! I went out for coffee, and was struggling with cups and money and food and . . . then I met an American.”
Tara arched a brow. “An American in Paris. How novel.”
Ann made a face. “An American like this one is novel anywhere, I’ll have you know. He was gorgeous. Tall, blond, bronzed, so handsome. And he was all over me.”
“Imagine that. A handsome American sees a Parisian beauty and tries to pick her up!”
Ann laughed again. “I know I’m going to see him again.”
“Did you make a date?”
“More or less, but wait! Right after, I go up to my office, and out of nowhere Willem is suddenly at my office door. He is nearly in tears, wanting me to forgive him.”
“Wow. A happening day.” Tara sipped her wine, studying her cousin. “So, now there are two men fawning in your footsteps. What are you going to do?”
She shrugged, a small secretive smile in place. “Well, I really was shattered by what Willem did. And the American was . . . he looked like someone out of that old show ... “Baywatch.” I’m going to see him, give him a bit of a chance . . . and maybe, at some point, I’ll talk to Willem. I was in love with him. But how can you stay in love with a man you don’t trust? But then, again, in a week, you do not fall out of love. However, in a matter of moments, you can fall into fascination and . . . well, you know, lust.”
“Lust—in a matter of moments. Wow.”
Ann laughed. “Oh, come, come! You’ve never felt that before? I mean, just looking at someone and thinking, I’ll bet he’s great in bed.”
“I’ve thought of guys as attractive without immediately wondering just what they’d do with all that attractiveness.”
“You liar! You simply think you’re far too discriminating for such behavior. We don’t always act on these impulses, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.”
“Lots of people are attractive. Should we sleep with all of them?”
“Only if the urge is really there,” Ann teased.
She was facing the door. Tara was facing her cousin. “Now,” Ann murmured, “talk about your beautiful people! There are two of them coming in as we speak. One better looking than the next. Well, damn. There’s a woman with them. Nope—don’t turn! Bother. All the cute ones are always taken. And they even appear articulate. Well dressed. They must be married. One of the guys must go with the woman. Still . . . don’t look now, but, I repeat, wow. And only one woman . . . can’t quite tell which one she goes with. Unless she goes with both of them. No ... she doesn’t look the type. But then again, what would that ‘type’ look like?”
Tara laughed softly. “Are you sure you need me to listen to you? You seem quite able to carry on a conversation all by yourself.”
Ann made a face at her. “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”
“Okay, then, I’ll look—”
“Don’t you dare turn around and stare! It will appear that we’re out on the prowl, looking for men.”
“Well, if you recall, we did agree that we both needed to meet new people. But then, that was before the American fell into your lap—or into your café au lait—and Willem made an appearance in your office. But then, what the heck, maybe there should be a third guy in the lineup.”
“Don’t be crass. We would never pick up strangers in a bar.”
Tara started to turn around.
“No, no, no! I said that you can’t look now! We most certainly don’t want to be obvious.”
“We’re not obvious. You just said that we would never be so crass as to pick up strangers in a bar.”
“Certainly not. We would become friends with them before we picked them up.”
Tara sighed, “Honestly, Ann, I’m not sure I want to create any new friends to pick up. I think I’m lucky that I’m not involved with anyone at the moment. Jacques is going to have my entire attention while I’m here.”
“He went off on a tangent again, eh?” Ann murmured. “Oh, my God!” she breathed suddenly.
“What?”
“Tall . . . nicely tall. Broad shoulders. Umm . . . very sleek and agile. I could eat him up, just watching him walk across the room.”
“Him—who?”
“Tall, dark, and walking sensuality. Well, both of them are dark. And the one coming this way . . . I think he’s taller than anyone else in here. Lord!”
“Lord, what?”
Tara started to turn again.
“No! No!” Ann pleaded. “He’s coming here. He looked over this way, and now . . . he’s coming here!”
“He must be someone you know and don’t remember.”
“No. I would never forget that I knew him.”
Tara let out an explosive little sound of impatience and tried to turn again.
“No!” Ann caught her hands, preventing her from turning on the stool. “Don’t look around!”
“Well, you’ve got to let go of my hands! We’re going to look very bizarre!”
Ann drew her hands away.
“Fine, okay. What does he look like?” Tara asked.
“Dark, rich dark hair, like sable, ooh, just shaggy enough to be very arty . . . nice frame around his face. Rugged face, but very nicely put together. And his eyes ... My heart is fluttering right now.”
With a sense of growing dread, Tara frowned at her cousin and spun around on her bar stool. She nearly slid off. Brent Malone was approaching her.
“Hello.” He had a bottle of beer in his hand, and his smile was as casual as that of any friend
greeting another in a public place. He offered Ann an inquisitive nod of friendly acknowledgment over Tara’s head.
“Hello,” she replied, the sound of her voice as stiff as her neck.
“Hi,” Ann said pleasantly, awaiting an introduction. She nudged Tara. “Well?”
“Brent, my cousin, Ann—my French cousin Ann. Ann DeVant, Brent Malone.”
“How do you do, a pleasure,” Brent said.
“Certainly. I must admit, I didn’t know that Tara had friends—other than our old family friends, of course—in the area.”
“We just met,” Brent said. “But the circumstances were such that . . .” his curious golden eyes studied her with rueful amusement, “well, I do feel as if we’ve known each other a long time.”
“You never mentioned Mr. Malone,” Ann said.
“Brent,” he quickly supplied. “I’m with some friends. Would you care to join us?”
“Oh, I don’t think that we can,” Tara began.
“We’d love to,” Ann said.
“But we’re not staying long,” Tara said.
“It’s been a long day, which means that I’m not in a hurry to end a night’s relaxation,” Ann said.
“Then do, please, come along.”
Ann was off her stool quickly. Tara caught her cousin by the back of her shirt. “I don’t trust him,” she whispered.
“Good, you should never really trust any man,” Ann whispered back, “but I’m following that one—with you or without you!”
“Ann!”
With little choice, Tara followed her cousin to the table Brent and his companions had somehow managed to find.
“Tara Adair, Ann DeVant, I’d like you to meet Lucian and Jade DeVeau. Lucian, Jade—Tara and Ann.”
The man rose, greeting them. The couple were the same people Tara had seen Brent meet at the café the other day. The woman was attractive—very—with sea-colored eyes and a length of beautiful hair that seemed a shade between brunette and blond. She had a warm, welcoming smile that seemed sincere. She didn’t appear at all averse to Brent’s friends coming to the table. She was apparently married to the tall man with the nearly black hair, since they shared a surname. He moved with an agile, sure, fluid power, even in the simple act of acquiring an extra chair; in manner—and in an elusive quality Tara couldn’t quite pinpoint—he had a similar magnetism to that of Brent Malone. Perhaps that was what disturbed her the most. There was nothing about either man that should be alarming, yet she had the feeling that their reflexes would be faster than the speed of light, and that something that she couldn’t see or comprehend remained dangerous about them . . .
“Nice to have you join us,” Lucian said, taking his chair again as they were seated. “So, Ann, this is your home.”
“Yes. I work in Paris, but live in the village. We have an old family . . . well, it’s not a chateau in the grand sense of the word, but it’s a lovely family home out here.”
Tara wanted to kick her cousin. She didn’t want these people knowing where they lived. But that was ridiculous. She hadn’t actually told him, but she was certain that Brent Malone knew where she was staying.
“You must come and visit while you’re here,” Ann continued.
Tara kicked her cousin. Ann yelped involuntarily, then stared at her across the table. Tara knew that Brent Malone was watching her, knew exactly what had happened, and remained amused. She was certain as well that he had lured the two of them to the table specifically to get an invitation to the chateau.
Now, they had it.
“A chateau, how lovely,” Jade said.
Lucian summoned a waiter, his French seeming as perfectly accented as any Tara had ever heard.
“Are you French?” she inquired.
Jade answered. “I’m originally from the New Orleans area,” she said. “And you?”
“New York,” she said, turning her attention pointedly back to Lucian. “And you?”
“Lucian likes to consider himself a citizen of the world,” Brent said.
“I’m not French, but I have lived here,” Lucian told her. “ I’ve called the States home for some time now.”
She turned her gaze hard on Brent to realize that he had never stopped watching her. “And me? I thought you would never ask. Originally, I come from Virginia,” he said.
“There’s a lot of French spoken in New Orleans, of course,” Lucian said. “It’s easy to keep up.”
“Naturally,” Tara said pleasantly, but turned her attention to Brent Malone. “But I haven’t heard of it being such a commonly spoken language in Virginia.”
His eyes didn’t waver from hers. “I happen to be a student of linguistics,” he said flatly.
“My French should be better,” Jade said. “But in New Orleans ... I haven’t the purity of Lucian’s accent, because I’m afraid we have a patois. I guess, over here, it’s kind of a Southern-slash-French accent.”
“That’s fine, you speak the language, comprehend what is said,” Ann told her. Tara saw that her cousin was flushed, and with the blush on her cheeks, she was even more attractive. She was chatting away at the table, but she seemed to be watching the back of the room. Tara tried to see what she was looking at, but the bar had gotten very crowded.
Now and then, Ann stared at her with amusement, and seemed to nudge her chair closer to Brent’s. Tara couldn’t help it; she didn’t like it a bit.
She understood it; but she didn’t like it, any more than she liked the fact that the man at her side was too close—and closer with every move Ann made. In truth, he was a normal distance away, sitting as they were in such a tightly packed establishment. But it was as if she could feel the whole of him. The stretch of his legs beneath the table, perfectly correct, yet if she shifted, she would brush against him. She hated the fact that a strange heat seemed to emanate from him, compelling her to move closer, as if she were cold.
She wasn’t cold.
His scent . . . whatever the aftershave or soap he wore ... remained compelling as well. Subtle. There was nothing overt about him at all. But it was there . . . something that beckoned at a subliminal range.
And while it lured, it also sent lightning into her system, tremendous flashes that warned her to be wary.
A man was dead.
She knew he hadn’t done it.
Ah, but what if there had been a conspiracy? What if these “friends” of his who had just arrived had been in the tomb, what if they were the murderers? Surely, none of this talk of evil and vampires had been true, even though Jacques’ mind and the minds of these strangers were traveling along similar courses. Maybe they even knew something about Jacques, knew that she had been in the tomb because of his beliefs, and they were playing upon them?
“Tara!” Ann said.
She jumped. “What?”
“You’re a thousand miles away. I’m off with that tall fellow over there. We’re all going to dance. Brent has just asked you to join him.”
“Oh, sorry. I, uh, I think I’ll beg off,” she said.
Lucian and his wife were already standing. Ann was practically running—pushing and shoving her way—heading toward the rear of the room. What tall fellow? Tara still didn’t know who her cousin had been watching.
“Tara?” Brent was watching her. There was a definite humorous edge in his eyes, and perhaps a challenge. His hand was stretched toward her.
She wanted to jump up and knock his hand aside. But suddenly, his long bronzed, work-roughened fingers lay on her arm.
“Sure you don’t want to join them?”
She tried to find her cousin on the dance floor. She couldn’t see her, and, perhaps unreasonably, she worried about her.
She stared down at Brent’s hand on her flesh.
She wanted to draw her arm back, but she didn’t. She felt her heart drumming.
“I don’t trust you any farther than I could throw you,” she told him flatly. “And I’m worried about my cousin.”
“I know.”
“Oh, you do?”
“You’re like an open book.”
“Then you should know that I’m thinking this as well—I want you to leave us alone.”
“Your cousin looks happy.”
“But she shouldn’t be. There’s something ... something slimy about all of you.”
His lashes lowered over his curious eyes for a long moment. Then he stared at her again.
“Slimy?”
“It’s the best word I can summon to fit the feeling.”
“Slimy? Wow, I am ... crushed.”
“How can I possibly crush you? You barely know me. You’re an exaggerator. And a liar.”
“I don’t believe that I’ve lied to you,” he told her.
“And I also don’t believe that you feel that you barely know me. Are you always this cold?”
“Only when I meet a man while another is being brutally murdered.”
“Look, I swear to you, we’re not slimy. But let’s see ... in that moment when you were lost to us, you were thinking that one of my companions might have slipped in and killed Jean-Luc while I was chasing after you in the tomb.”
She was so startled that he had divined her thoughts so accurately that she gasped aloud.
“Feel free to check their passports and airline tickets,” he said, removing his hand from her arm and leaning back. “They have just arrived.”
“Oh, really, and the authorities will give me that information?”
“I’m sure you can find a way to learn exactly what time—and from where—they arrived.”
“Great. I am going to speak with the police.”
“Don’t tell them you were there,” he said. The words were even. They were still a command—and a warning.
“I don’t understand you at all. You’re a fool. I could completely clear you.”
He leaned forward, very close, and very intense. She was overwhelmed again by a strange sense of warmth. She told herself that she was not pulling back because she had no intention of giving in to such fantasies.
“Don’t let your name become involved with what happened,” he went on. “You don’t trust me as far as you can throw me—well, I’m telling you, I don’t trust Dubois. And we both know there is a murderer out there.”
Realm of Shadows (Vampire Alliance) Page 12
