Alex shook his head. One vampire in the family was more than enough.
He was on his way back to his car when something that looked like a small horse plowed into him, knocking him flat on his back.
A moment later, he heard a voice calling, “Max! Max! Come back here!”
Alex was trying to dislodge the slobbering beast from his chest when a woman ran up and snapped a leash on the St. Bernard’s collar.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “He’s not very well-trained. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, fine.” Rising, he wiped his face on his shirt sleeve.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” She looked like an angel in the moon’s pale light. Her long, golden hair was pulled back in a tail. Her eyes were light—blue or gray—he couldn’t be sure. The top of her head just reached his shoulder. She wore a pair of cut-off blue jeans and a red t-shirt that said Photographers do it in the dark.
“Well, as long as you’re all right, I’ll be going.” She dug into her pocket and handed him a crisp white business card edged in gold. “If you ever need your picture taken, give me a call.”
“Will do.”
“I’m really sorry,” she said again. Taking a firm hold on the dog’s leash, she turned and jogged back toward the pier.
Alex stared after her, then called, “Hey, wait up,” and ran after her.
“Don’t tell me,” she said dryly, “all of sudden, your back is hurting and you know a good lawyer.”
“What? No. No, nothing like that. I just thought, well, maybe I could buy you a cup of coffee.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then maybe you could buy me one? I mean, after all, it’s the least you can do after that monster dog attacked me.”
She laughed, a full-throated sound filled with merriment. “Do you know where the Java Hut is?”
“No.”
“When you leave the parking lot, turn left. Go down two blocks. It’s on the right side of the street. I’ll meet you there in…” She glanced at her watch. “Twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes,” Alex said, then wondered what the hell he was doing. He was here to find out who killed his wife, not hook up with some curvy blond.
But fifteen minutes later, he was sitting at a front booth in the Java Hut Café.
After handing Max over to his owner, Rylee packed up her cameras and her tripod, grabbed her backpack, and jogged down the beach to the parking lot. After stowing her gear in the trunk, she slid behind the wheel and turned the car toward home.
Rylee slowed as she neared the traffic light at the corner. She never should have told that guy on the beach she would meet him at the Hut, but the pain in the depths of his eyes, the wistfulness in his smile, had touched her heart. Her invite had been impulsive and one she now regretted. With the recent killings in the city, a girl had to be out of her mind to meet a complete stranger at this time of night.
So, she was surprised to find herself making a U-turn at the next light and heading back toward the café.
She found him sitting at a table near the front, staring out the window, apparently so lost in thought he was unaware of her presence until she cleared her throat.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” he remarked, looking up at her.
“I wasn’t going to.” Rylee shook her head. “I really don’t know why I’m here.”
He gestured at the chair across from his. “Well, now that you are, you might as well take a load off.”
Rylee hesitated a moment, then sat down.
“I’m Alex,” he said, offering her a faint smile. Up close, he saw that her eyes were the clear, light blue of early morning. “Nice to meet you, Miss Wagner.”
Her brows shot up in surprise. “How did you know my name?” she asked, her voice tinged with suspicion.
“I read your business card.”
“Oh, of course. Call me Rylee.” She hadn’t paid much attention to his looks earlier but now, in the well-lit café, she couldn’t help noticing that he was a tall, good-looking guy with an athletic build, a tan that spoke of hours spent in the sun, dark brown hair and brown eyes.
“Nice to meet you, Rylee. Where’s the mutt?”
“Oh, Max isn’t mine. I borrowed him for the shoot tonight.”
Alex jerked his chin toward her t-shirt. “So, you really are a photographer?”
“Yes, free-lance. It doesn’t pay much, but I love it. Do you live around here?”
“No, I’m here on…on business.” He glanced at the menu as the waitress headed their way. Rylee opted for a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich and a Coke. Alex decided on a cheeseburger, fries, and coffee.
“So,” Rylee said when the waitress left to turn in their order, “where are you from?”
“Oregon, originally. I live in Boston now.”
She glanced pointedly at his wedding ring. “Is your wife here with you?”
Taking a deep breath, he released it in a long, slow sigh. “No.”
Rylee bit down on her lower lip, wishing she hadn’t said anything. Alex didn’t have to say his wife was deceased. It explained the pain in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
He pushed away from the table. “This probably wasn’t a good idea.”
“Alex…”
“I’m afraid I’m not very good company.” He dropped a twenty on the table. “It was nice meeting you,” he murmured, and headed for the door.
Rylee stared after him, sorely tempted to follow him, to take him in her arms and comfort him. And how silly was that? She’d only spent a few minutes with the man and didn’t really know anything about him—except that he was hurting deep inside. And yet she couldn’t help feeling that he needed her.
She hurried outside, hoping to catch him, but she was too late.
He was already gone.
CHAPTER 5
Rhys gave Babette an affectionate pat on the rump, kissed her cheek, and left the room. She was a pretty young thing, with short curly black hair and the brightest green eyes he had ever seen. Like all the mortals who frequented La Mort Rouge, Babette got her kicks by letting vampires feed off her. There had been a time, before Megan, when he would have taken more than her blood, but he was a married man now, bound to one woman. He had a lot of faults, but infidelity wasn’t one of them.
He paused on his way to the office. Was that Alex sitting at the end of the bar? What the devil was he doing back here?
Giving in to an uncharacteristic bout of curiosity, Rhys moved swiftly across the floor and took the seat beside O’Donnell’s. He jerked his chin at the empty shot glass in front of the kid. “Can I buy you another?”
“Sure.”
Rhys signaled for the bartender. “I’ll have a glass of port,” he said. “And bring my friend whatever he’s drinking. And leave the bottle. He looks like he needs it.”
With a nod, the bartender hurried away.
Rhys braced his elbow on the bar and studied the kid’s face. “What brings you back here?”
“Didn’t have any place else to go.” Alex picked up his glass as soon as the bartender refilled it and downed the shot in a single swallow.
“You might want to go slow with that.”
Alex shrugged as he poured himself another. “I got nowhere to go and nobody waiting for me when I get there.”
“Instead of getting wasted, why don’t you find Babette and go make use of room number three?”
Alex glared at him. “Are you crazy? My wife just died.”
“I’m not telling you to fall in love with the girl. I just thought a little recreational sex might take your mind off your troubles for a while.”
“Yeah, well, thanks for the offer, but I don’t think so.”
“Come on,” Rhys said. “Let’s get out of here. Bring the bottle, if you like.”
“Where are we going?”
“My lair.”
“Where’s that?”
Taking hold of Alex’s arm, Rhys said, “I have a little
penthouse apartment in a high-rise in West Hollywood.”
And the next thing Alex knew, they were there. Looking around, he couldn’t help being impressed as his feet sank into plush blue-gray carpet that must have been two inches thick. Matching black leather sofas faced each other in front of a white marble fireplace veined in gold. A life-sized statue of a golden-haired Madonna stood in one corner.
Alex gestured at the figure, one brow raised in amusement. “A Madonna? Seriously?”
“Beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Yeah. I just never thought of you as the religious type.”
Rhys shrugged. He had stolen the statue from a Catholic church three centuries ago.
Alex looked at the painting over the fireplace. “Is that an original?”
“A Botticelli.”
“Must be nice to be rich.”
“Indeed. Sit down.” Rhys gestured at the bottle of Jack Daniels clutched in O’Donnell’s hand. “Can I get you a glass, or do you want to just drink it straight from the source?”
“I’ll take a glass,” Alex said, dropping down on a corner of the sofa nearest him. “Thanks.”
Rhys splashed some port from a crystal decanter into a goblet, then handed the glass to Alex before taking a seat on the other sofa. “You can drink yourself into oblivion tonight,” he remarked as the kid filled his glass. “But the pain will still be there tomorrow.”
“I guess you know all about pain, having caused so much of it.”
“You might want to choose your words with a little more care, hunter.”
“Yeah. Sorry,” Alex mumbled.
Leaning back, Rhys stretched his legs out in front of him. “I never understood why it was okay for your kind to kill mine, but not for my kind to kill yours.”
“You don’t just kill us,” Alex said, his words slurring. “You feed on us. Whoever killed my wife drank her blood before they ripped out her throat. It ain’t right.” He slammed his hand on the arm of the sofa. “Drank her blood,” he said again, his eyes haunted. “Killed my son. My son. Damn vampire,” he mumbled, and toppled over sideways on the sofa.
Rhys caught the glass and the bottle before they hit the floor. Setting both on a nearby table, he lifted Alex’s legs onto the sofa. “You poor stupid fool,” he muttered, shoving a throw pillow under the kid’s head. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”
Alex woke with a groan. He’d had hangovers before, he mused, but this was the mother of them all. The last thing he remembered was passing out on one of the sofas in Costain’s lair. He had no recollection of how he’d made it back to his hotel room. A glance at his watch told him it was a quarter-to-three.
He groaned again. His head throbbed relentlessly. The light hurt his eyes, the ticking of the clock echoed like thunder in his ears. Sitting up resulted in a wave of nausea that sent him sprinting for the bathroom. The whiskey that had tasted so great going down tasted a hell of a lot worse coming back up.
Standing on shaky legs, he brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth, then staggered back to the bedroom. Picking up the hotel phone, he dialed room service. The last thing he felt like doing was eating, but his old man swore that a bacon, egg, and cheese omelet washed down by a cup of hot black coffee was a sure-fire cure for a hangover.
After putting in his order, he headed for the shower. He stood under the spray for ten minutes, his forehead resting on the cool tile. After drying off, he tugged on a pair of clean jeans and a t-shirt.
His order arrived a short time later.
He forced himself to eat, then sacked out on the sofa.
When he woke again, he felt marginally better, though his head still throbbed. He pulled on his boots, grabbed his jacket, then looked around for his keys. He found them on the dresser, along with a note from Rhys, that read:
I’m not your mother or your keeper. Either stay sober or stay home.
“Good advice,” Alex muttered. Tearing up the note, he grabbed his keys and his wallet and left the hotel.
He drove around until dark, then headed back to the beach where he had met Rylee. He knew the odds were slim to none that she would be there again tonight, but there had been something about her that he couldn’t forget. Something that made him almost desperate to see her again.
After parking the car, he strolled along the shore line, all the while telling himself it was a waste of time.
But sometimes, when a man’s at the end of his rope, Fate takes pity on him.
He hadn’t gone far when he saw Rylee walking barefooted along the shore. She smiled uncertainly when she saw him.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Alex said. “I shouldn’t have run out on you like that.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. My mom always said there’s no good excuse for bad manners.”
“Don’t worry about it. I could see you were upset about something.”
“Yeah, well, my wife passed away some months ago. I’m still trying to cope with it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Can I walk with you for a while? I mean, unless you need to go?”
“Walking is good,” she said.
They strolled in silence for several minutes before he said, “I came down here hoping to find you.”
She smiled up at him. “What a coincidence. I came hoping to see you again.”
Her smile, the warmth of her words, was like a balm to his troubled soul. “Tell me about yourself,” he said. “What do you like to do for fun?”
“Everything! Surfing, beach parties, Disneyland, movies. And roller coasters—the higher and faster, the better.”
“Favorite color?”
“Hot pink, of course,” she said, pointing at her t-shirt. This one said, Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
“Favorite movie?”
“Oh, too many to name. How about you?”
“The Lord of the Rings trilogy.”
“Which character are you?”
“I always thought of myself as Sam, but Daisy—she’s my sister—she thinks I’m Aragon.”
Rylee studied him a minute, then nodded. “I can see that.”
“Favorite song?”
She brushed a lock of wind-blown hair away from her cheek. “Anything by Toby Keith.”
“Ah,” he said with a smile. “Country girl.”
“All the way. How about you?”
“Anything but rap and hip hop.”
“How long are you going to be in town?”
He paused to gaze out at the ocean. Moonlight shimmered on the face of the water. Far off in the distance, he heard the lonely wail of a foghorn. He glanced sideways to find Rylee looking up at him. “I don’t know. Probably longer than I first thought.”
“I’m glad. Would you like to talk about what’s bothering you? I’m a good listener.”
Alex hesitated a moment. Then, staring out at the ocean again, he said, “My wife, Paula, was engaged to my brother before I married her. When he passed away, she and I spent a lot of time together. We both loved him and it eased the pain a little, sharing time together, talking about Brandon. She was lonely. I was lonely.” He shrugged. “We never should have married. You can’t build a lasting relationship on shared grief. I loved her, but I wasn’t in love with her. Do you know what I mean? Once the newness wore off, we both realized we’d made a mistake. But by then she was pregnant. The baby made a difference, gave us a reason to stay together.”
Rylee laid her hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze.
“The baby died with her.”
“Oh, Alex, you really have been through hell, haven’t you?” Wanting to comfort him, wondering if she would be rebuffed, Rylee took a deep breath and then slipped her arms around him. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said, blinking back her tears. “I wish there was something I could say, something I could do, that would make it better.”
“You are,” he murmured. “Just by being here.” He rested his forehead against hers. “This is crazy.
I hardly know you, and yet…”
“It seems like we’ve known each other forever,” she said, finishing his thought for him.
“Yeah. But it’s…”
“Bad timing,” she said glumly. “I know. You’re still grieving and you live in Boston and…”
“And there’s things about me that you don’t know.” He moved away from her, then stared at the waves lapping at his feet. Vampires had no civil rights. There were no regulations against hunting the Undead, no laws against taking heads or selling vampire blood on the Internet. Law enforcement agencies, doctors, nurses, and people in similar occupations knew vampires existed, but, for the most part, no one mentioned the Undead community. For obvious reasons, both hunters and vampires kept a low profile.
Rylee crossed her arms under her breasts. “I understand. Like I said, bad timing.”
“Rylee…”
“Don’t. I’m a big girl. I can take a hint.”
Alex dragged a hand over his jaw. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, but whatever it was, he was going about it all wrong. “Listen…”
“No, it’s all right,” she said, her words coming out in a rush. “It’s just that I’m a little confused. I mean, you said you came here hoping to find me and now…”
Not knowing how else to shut her up, Alex pulled her into his arms and kissed her. And for one brief moment, he forgot everything except the warmth of her lips, the certainty that she was what he had been looking for his whole life.
Taking a step back, he blew out a breath. What the hell was he doing, kissing a stranger while he was still grieving for Paula and his son? Shame engulfed him. What kind of monster was he, to want to be with another woman so soon?
He had told himself he had come here looking for Rylee so that he could apologize for last night. But that was a lie. He was here because he hadn’t been able to think of anything but her since he’d run out of the café. There was something about her that soothed his pain, made him feel like life might be worth living again. And that, too, was just wrong.
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