The Reluctant Vampire taf-15

by Lynsay Sands

  Harper released her fingers suddenly and turned to shift the car into gear again. “We’ve waited long enough. I guess we’d better get Stephanie’s stuff and head back to the house.”

  Drina glanced around with surprise. She hadn’t realized she’d sat in thought so long, but judging by the disappointment in Harper’s voice, she’d been silent quite a while. And she hadn’t answered his question. Which, judging by his closed expression, he was taking as a no.

  She needed to explain her promise to Stephanie, Drina realized, but before she could, Harper reached out and turned the radio on. He also cranked it up several notches so that loud music filled the car. Rather than try to shout over the radio, Drina let it go for now. She would explain when they got back to the house. . and then she would ask him to come to Toronto with her if Lucian did order them back. They could decide from there what to do after that. There was no doubt in her mind that she wanted to be with him. The question was where that would be, and it was something they both had to decide on.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “There you two are. We were about to send out a search party.”

  Drina paused in the front entry of Teddy’s house and turned to glance into the dining room. Her eyes slid over the three people seated at the table but widened as she found the speaker.

  “Tiny,” she said on a grin. “You’re awake.”

  “Yeah.” He smiled and stood to move out of sight toward the kitchen, but his voice was loud as he asked, “Coffee?”

  “Yes please,” Drina said, her gaze sliding back to Teddy and Mirabeau at the table as Harper said he’d take one too.

  “He woke up shortly after you guys left,” Mirabeau said, positively beaming with relief and happiness.

  Drina smiled at the woman, and then turned to remove her coat and boots and stow them away even as Harper did.

  “Teddy took Alessandro and Edward and the girls home shortly after Tiny woke up,” Mirabeau announced, as Drina set the bag from the corner store on the table and settled in a seat. “So it’s down to the six of us.”

  “Speaking of the six of us, where is Stephanie?” Harper asked. “We bought the stuff she wanted.”

  Drina grimaced. They’d spent longer at the house than intended. It was after midnight. The girl had probably gone to bed. Although if so, it was somewhat surprising that Mirabeau was here at the table. The thought made her frown as she asked, “Did she go to bed?”

  “No. Anders took her out for a burger,” Mirabeau answered.

  “What?” Drina asked blankly.

  Mirabeau nodded. “We were playing cards, then Anders got a call and left the room to take it. When he came back in, Stephanie was complaining about how long you guys were taking and said she wished she could call you and maybe have you pick her up a burger on the way back. He offered to take her out to get one.”

  Tiny smiled faintly, and added, “The kid couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”

  Drina frowned. She wasn’t surprised Stephanie would jump at the chance to get out of the house. She’d been stuck in here for twenty-four hours and had been stuck inside Casey Cottage before that. She was probably going a bit stir-crazy. Still, Drina couldn’t help thinking it was a bad idea to take the girl anywhere considering the attacks on her.

  “It’ll be fine,” Mirabeau said soothingly. “Anders isn’t stupid. He’ll take her straight there and back. Besides, we’re out in the middle of nowhere here, and I checked the road as they were getting in the truck. There was no one watching.”

  Drina relaxed and nodded. Teddy’s house was out of town, a strip of land between two large fields. There was nowhere to hide out here to watch the house unobserved. Wondering how long she had before bed, she asked, “So how long ago did they leave?”

  “An hour ago,” Teddy said, when Mirabeau paused uncertainly.

  “It can’t have been that long,” Mirabeau protested with a frown.

  “I checked my watch when they left,” Teddy said quietly.

  “They should be back by now,” Harper pointed out with concern.

  Drina reached automatically for her back pocket and her phone, but paused as she recalled she was wearing joggers. Her phone should be-She cursed as she realized it would have been in the back pocket of the jeans she’d been wearing when she was sprayed. Only she’d emptied her pockets before handing over her jeans to be bagged and tossed, and there had been no phone there. It must have fallen out when she was rolling around on the front yard of Casey Cottage, she thought.

  “I’ll call Anders,” Mirabeau announced, retrieving a phone from her own pocket. She’d just started to punch in numbers when they heard a vehicle pulling into the driveway. Mirabeau stood and walked to the window, relaxing as she peered out. “It’s the SUV.”

  Everyone at the table seemed to relax at the news.

  Mirabeau had just sat back in her seat when Anders burst into the house and appeared at the dining room door. “Is she here?”

  Drina raised her eyebrows. “Who?”

  “Stephanie.”

  Drina stilled at that hissed name, foreboding slipping through her.

  “She was with you,” Mirabeau said, as if he might have forgotten it.

  Anders cursed and turned back to the entry.

  Realizing he was about to leave again without explaining himself, Drina stood and rushed around the table to stop him. “Just a minute. What’s going on? Where is she?”

  Anders paused, but then sighed and turned back, running one hand through his hair with frustration. “I don’t know. I stopped for gas, filled up, went in to pay, and when I came out, she was gone.”

  “She probably just went to use the bathroom or something,” Teddy said soothingly as the tension in the room ratcheted upward. Standing, he moved to the desk and pulled out a phone book. “Which gas station was it? Esso or the Pioneer by Wal-Mart?”

  “Neither,” Anders answered. “The other one. I don’t remember the name.”

  Teddy turned to peer at him blankly. “What other one? We don’t have another one.”

  “The one up by the highway,” Anders said. “It doesn’t matter anyway, I did check the bathroom.

  Teddy let the phone book lower to the desk. “Why the hell would you go all the way out there? The other two are half the distance.”

  Anders muttered something Russian under his breath and turned away again. “I’m going back out to look for her.”

  “The hell you are.” Drina caught his arm and pulled him back around. “What’s going on, Anders? Where were you taking her?”

  “I can’t tell you,” he said grimly.

  “Why not?” Mirabeau demanded, joining them.

  “Because Lucian said not to.”

  Drina blinked in surprise at those words, then narrowed her eyes. “You were taking her to Toronto.”

  He didn’t confirm that, but he didn’t deny it either, and she knew she was right.

  “Why didn’t Lucian want Drina to know that?” Harper asked, crossing to join them as well with Tiny on his heels.

  “Because she would have felt she had to come too, and he wants her to stay here with you,” Anders said dryly.

  Drina felt Harper peering at her but was too busy worrying over what Anders had said and what it would mean for Stephanie. Being in Toronto, closer to Lucian, and without anyone who cared about her. Drina knew Stephanie’s sister, Dani, was somewhere down in the States right now, playing bait, and Mirabeau and herself were here in Port Henry. The kid would have been on her own.

  “Well, she couldn’t have gone far without a coat. She was probably in the bathroom while you were in the store and in the store while you checked the bathroom. It’s not like she’d walk back, Anders,” Teddy said, picking up the phone. “It’s too damned far and cold for that. She’s probably standing around in the gas station waiting for you to come back.”

  “No, she ran away,” Drina murmured, and Mirabeau nodded solemnly.

  “What?” Anders frowned. “Why t
he hell would she run away?”

  “Because she likes it here, and you were taking her back to Toronto, where she was miserable,” she said dryly.

  “She didn’t know that. I hadn’t told her yet. I was going to after I got on the highway.”

  “You didn’t have to tell her,” Mirabeau assured him. “She would have read it from your mind.”

  Anders didn’t laugh at the suggestion. His mouth tightened, and he said, “I made sure I didn’t even think about it. There was nothing to read.”

  His words told Drina that he knew about Stephanie’s special abilities, or at least knew part of it. He knew she could read his thoughts even though he was old and not a new life mate, but didn’t know it wasn’t restricted to surface memories. Which meant Lucian knew. She saw Anders’s eyes narrow on her and sighed as she realized how he’d known. He was reading her thoughts even now and had probably read them before, both from her and Mirabeau.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Drina said wearily, moving past him to get to the closet and retrieve the bomber jacket.

  Anders turned toward the door again. “I’ll go back out and look for her again.”

  “Wait for us,” Mirabeau said, reaching past Drina to grab her own coat and Tiny’s. “You can drop Tiny and me at Casey Cottage. Our SUV is still there. We can help search too.”

  Drina had started to shrug into Stephanie’s bomber, but paused and glanced to Harper uncertainly when she realized she’d just assumed he’d be willing to search for the girl and hadn’t asked. “I’m sorry. Would you mind if we-?”

  “No, of course not,” he said solemnly. “Hand me my coat.”

  Sighing with relief, she passed his coat over, then grabbed her boots and moved back into the dining room to don them. Teddy was hanging up the phone as she entered. When she glanced his way in question, he shook his head, and then sat down at the desk and opened the phone book again.

  “I’m going to make a few calls,” he announced. “Get the clerks at Tim Hortons and the corner store and anywhere else still open to keep an eye out for her, and then coordinate a search party. Report in here if you see or hear anything.”

  Drina nodded and sat down to quickly don her boots. By the time she finished, Mirabeau, Tiny, and Anders had left, and Harper was straightening from donning his own boots in the entry.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Nodding, Drina led the way outside and to Victor’s borrowed car.

  “Where do we start?” Harper asked as he started the car. “The gas station by the highway?”

  Drina frowned and considered briefly, but shook her head. “Anders is probably heading back to the gas station, so there’s no use trying there.”

  “I don’t know,” Harper said as he backed out of the driveway. “Stephanie might hide from Anders because he was going to take her to Toronto, but I don’t think she’d hide from you. She might come out if she saw us driving around.”

  “Do you think so?” Drina asked, hoping it was true.

  “Definitely,” he said solemnly.

  Teddy hadn’t been kidding; the gas station was a hell of a distance out of town. It seemed to take forever to get there, but Drina spent the whole journey scanning the streets and anybody they passed, growing increasingly desperate to find Stephanie as she considered what could happen to her on her own.

  Drina wasn’t worried about perverts or mortal sickos attacking the girl. With her increased strength and speed, Stephanie was pretty much mortal proof. Actually, any mortal foolish enough to look at the petite blonde and see her as a victim, would find they were very much mistaken. But someone had been attacking them, and if it was Leonius. .

  The thought of what might happen to the girl if he got his hands on her was worrying Drina sick.

  They saw Anders at the gas station, but no Stephanie, so set out to drive around the surrounding area, scanning fields and businesses, and then houses and yards as they got closer to town and a more urban area.

  “Is there anywhere she would go? Somewhere she liked or. . just anywhere you think she might go?” Harper asked some two hours later. They were driving in circles now, recovering old ground and seeing nothing but the others out searching for Stephanie.

  Drina started to shake her head, but paused, and murmured, “Beth.”

  “Beth?” Harper glanced to her with a frown. “Beth of the madam days Beth?”

  Drina nodded. “I was just thinking that when Beth ran from Jimmy, she went straight back to the empty brothel. The last place she’d been safe and called home.”

  “Casey Cottage,” Harper said, getting it at once. He turned at the first corner, and Drina closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer that they’d find her there, safe and sound and well. However, it appeared no one was listening to prayers that day because a thorough search of Casey Cottage turned up nothing.

  “I guess it’s back to driving around.”

  Harper frowned at the weariness in Drina’s voice as he ushered her out of the house and across the deck. She sounded exhausted, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she was. Surely she hadn’t slept much on that stool of hers the night before while waiting for the drugstore to open. But he suspected most of the exhaustion was caused from worry. She was beginning to lose hope.

  “I need more gas, and the one by the highway is the only one open at this hour,” he said, as they walked along the side of the garage to the driveway. “We’ll head back there and start another circuit.”

  Drina nodded, not looking terribly encouraged.

  Harper opened the car door for her, but when she went to get in, he caught her arm. “We’ll find her, Drina. We won’t stop looking until we do.”

  Drina let her breath out on a sigh, then leaned forward and kissed his cheek, whispering, “Thank you.” She looked just as calm and strong as she had all night, but there was something in her voice that told him while she appreciated his effort to encourage her, it hadn’t really worked. Harper watched her slide into the car and wished he could do something to make her feel better. But the only thing likely to do that was finding Stephanie.

  Where the hell was the girl? he asked himself as he closed the door and walked around to get in the driver’s side. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a clue.

  They were quiet on the drive back to the gas station, both of them scanning the passing scenery for Stephanie. They were nearly to the station when Harper said, “Maybe we should call the house and make sure no one’s found her.”

  Drina glanced at him with surprise. “I’m sure they would have called if they had.”

  “Oh right,” Harper muttered, and then suggested, “Still, if she’s causing a fuss about leaving, they might be a little distracted and forget to call.”

  “That’s possible,” Drina said slowly, and then straightened a little, and asked, “Can I use your phone?”

  He pulled his gaze from the road to glance at her with surprise. “Where’s yours?”

  “I lost it the night of the fire,” she admitted.

  Harper grimaced and turned his gaze back to the road before admitting, “So did I. It was in my back pocket.” It was probably a melted mess by the end, he supposed.

  “Neither of us has a phone?” Drina asked with amazement, and then smiled slightly, and said, “Then they couldn’t call us. She could have been at Teddy’s for hours.”

  Harper glanced at her, worried about her getting her hopes up only to have them dashed, but said quietly, “We can call from the gas station. I know Teddy’s house number.”

  Drina hung up with a little sigh, and stood for a minute, waiting for her disappointment to ease. Harper had given her Teddy’s number and suggested she call while he pumped gas. But Stephanie wasn’t back at the house, and no one had even reported a sighting of her, “Not the gals at Timmy H’s, or Val at the twenty-four-hour Quicky mart, nobody.” Teddy had sounded as frustrated as Drina felt.

  “No joy, huh?”

  Drina glanced to the skinny, sandy-haired gas-station attendan
t behind the counter. His nametag read Jason. “No joy?”

  “No luck,” Jason explained, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the words. “No one’s seen her?”

  “Oh, no,” she said on a sigh, pushing the phone back toward him. “Thank you for letting me use the phone.”

  “No problem,” he said easily, turning away to set it back where it belonged on the counter behind the till he manned. “Least I could do since we didn’t have a pay phone. It’s hard to find those anymore. They become more scarce as cells get popular.”

  “Yes,” Drina murmured, her gaze dropping to the chocolate bars lining the front of the counter. As upset as she was, her body was getting hungry. Harper must be too.

  “It’s hard to figure why no one’s seen her though. A new car seems to pull in here every ten minutes with people out scouting for her. Teddy must have half the town searching,” Jason said, turning back. “If she’s on foot, someone should have seen her by now. Maybe she thumbed it.”

  “Thumbed?” Drina asked blankly.

  “You know.” He held out his hand, fingers curled into a fist and thumb up. When she still looked blank, he added, “Hitchhiking. She must have hitched a ride or something.” Jason smiled faintly when her expression cleared. “Your accent. . you’re not from around here, huh?”

  Drina shook her head, and murmured, “Spain.”

  “Cool.” He nodded. “Always wanted to go. Someday I will.”

  “Were there any other cars here when Anders was getting gas?” she asked suddenly.

  “Anders,” Jason said blankly, and then his expression cleared, and he said, “Oh, you mean the cool black dude who lost the girl?”

  Drina nodded.