About a Vampire (6 page)

He supposed he'd just have to wait to see.

 

Four

“H
olly? Holly! You slept through your alarm.”

Moaning sleepily as someone shook her shoulder, Holly turned onto her back and peered blearily up at the fair-­haired man bent over her. “James?”

“Yeah. Get up, girl. You'll be late for work,” he warned and turned to walk out of the room.

Holly stared after him with confusion and then glanced at the clock on the bedside table. 8:11. She had slept through the night and—­

“Crap!” she muttered and tossed the sheets aside to get up, realizing only then that it was actually the towel she'd fallen asleep in. Catching it up again, she stood and wrapped it around herself, then moved to the closet. She had to dress and—­

Holly paused in front of the closet but rather than search for clothes, she merely shifted her feet as she thought. She wasn't even sure she had a job anymore. She'd missed two days and might be fired. She really needed to call and find out and . . . she was starved. Turning, Holly headed out of the room. She would eat first, and then call, and then dress. At least that way she would know what she was dressing for . . . work, or groveling at the temp agency for a new position.

A grimace claimed her lips at the very thought. Holly hate, hate,
hated
working for the temp agency, but appreciated the job at the same time because they were willing to work around her class schedule.

Holly had worked full-­time to support them while James had got his applied sciences degree at the local college. He'd worked too, part-­time, like she was doing now. The degree had got him a job with a low starting wage, but a lot of promise for the future. Now it was her turn. So, James had his full-­time position and she had her part-time gig with the temp agency while finishing her degree. They were presently between spring and summer courses, so she had been working full-­time the last week and was supposed to this week . . . but she'd missed two days. The temp agency may already have put someone else in her position.

Holly walked down to the kitchen and peered into the refrigerator, examining the contents. She'd gone shopping the night before her unfortunate trip to the cemetery and had bought loads of fruits and vegetables. Most of them were now gone and what remained didn't look very appealing.

Sighing, she closed the door and glanced to the cupboards. There should be cereal. James didn't eat cereal . . . and she had spotted a milk carton in the refrigerator. Whether there was any actual milk in it was another question. James had the annoying tendency to put empty cartons, or nearly empty cartons, back in the refrigerator. She started toward the cupboard where the cereal should be, but then changed her mind. Cereal just didn't seem appealing to her at the moment either.

Holly turned in a circle and then moved to the phone. She may as well get the call done. If she did have to go to work, she had to get moving and then she could grab something to eat on the way.

Holly knew the temp agency number by heart and quickly dialed it, then waited patiently for Gladys to answer. The woman took her business very seriously and showed up as early as 7:00
A.M.
or even before that when things needed doing.

“Good morning, Temps for Hire.”

Holly forced a smile into her voice and said, “Good morning, Gladys.”

“Holly! Good morning, sweetie. I'm glad you called,” Gladys said sounding happy. “I have to tell you, you're really making points for us at Sunnyside. They love you there.”

Holly stilled, her eyebrows rising. Finally she asked in cautious tones, “They do?”

“Oh, my, yes. Every time I call they give me nothing but compliments on you and your work.”

Holly hesitated, but then asked, “And when did you last talk to them?”

“Yesterday. I called for my weekly checkup,” she answered promptly. “And they gave me an even more impressive report on you than last week. Keep up the great work, my girl. You're making the company look good.”

Holly closed her eyes briefly and gave her head a small shake. This didn't make any sense at all. It seemed they hadn't tattled that she'd missed two days' work. That or they hadn't noticed, which didn't seem likely . . . unless neither the boss nor his daughter had bothered to show up themselves. But that couldn't be. Someone had to have been there to answer Gladys's call and give that stellar report.

“So, what did you call about, Holly?” Gladys asked when she remained silent.

Grimacing, she bit her lip briefly as she tried to come up with an excuse for calling, and then said, “I just wanted to remind you that I can only work part-­time again after this week.”

“Oh, yes, your classes start again,” Gladys murmured, the sound of shuffling papers coming through the phone. “Well, that's okay. I'll put Nancy on the days you can't work,” she assured her, and then asked, “You did schedule your classes so you have two days free each week again, didn't you?”

“Yes. I e-­mailed my class hours to Beth on Monday,” Holly assured her and glanced toward the ceiling when James called her name from upstairs.

“Oh, good, good,” Gladys said. “I'll get them from her and work out how to handle the Sunnyside taxes. In the meantime, I should let you go. You need to leave for work soon, I'd guess.”

“Yes. Thank you.” Holly said good-­bye and hung up, then headed upstairs to see what James wanted.

She found him in the bathroom, staring down at the clothes she'd stripped off earlier to take a shower. The black jeans, T-­shirt, leather jacket and makeshift bandana all lay in a crumpled pile on the floor. Holly bit her lip, knowing he would want to know whose clothes they were. In his rush to get to work last night he hadn't seemed to notice the borrowed clothes she was wearing, but he wasn't in a rush now and there was no mistaking them for anything but a man's clothes. He would want to know whose they were and how she'd got them.

“Jeez, Holl, you give me hell all the time for leaving my socks laying around instead of putting them in the hamper, and then you go and just leave
all
of your clothes where you take them off?” he asked with a combination of amusement and irritation. “I saw them there when I came in, but then forgot they were there and tripped on them on the way out of the shower. I could have knocked myself out or something if I'd hit my head on the tub or toilet. As it is I think I wrenched my shoulder catching myself on the counter.”

Holly let her breath out on a slow sigh. He hadn't noticed they were a man's clothes. She supposed it was hard to tell from a crumpled heap . . . maybe. Her gaze shifted to his shoulder as he rubbed at it with one hand, his expression pained. James was shirtless, wearing only his pajama bottoms. He had a nice chest, muscular enough to have some definition, but not overly so, and with just the slightest paunch. He was an attractive guy. Always had been. It had always made her wonder if she even would have caught his eye if they hadn't been thrown together by the lives their parents had led.

Holly's parents were archaeologists. She'd spent the first eighteen years of her life being dragged from one dig to another. Most of that time she'd lived in tents and had been homeschooled in camp . . . by James's mother. His father had also been an archaeologist and a lifelong friend to her father. They'd worked together. James's mother, a teacher before she'd married his father, had traveled with them to look after her and James and had schooled them both. Holly had grown up with James. They'd been each other's only friends. He'd been her first kiss, her first date, her first everything and she was the same for him. Marriage had been the natural next step and it was going beautifully. They never argued, never disagreed. In fact, this was the closest thing to a fight they'd ever had.

“I'm sorry,” Holly murmured, stepping forward and urging him to turn his back to her. Once he did, she began to massage his shoulder. “How was work?”

“Oh, same old same old,” he muttered as she pressed her thumbs into the knotted muscles. “That feels good. A little gentler though please.”

Holly eased her grip, her eyes following the line of James's shoulder to the curve of his neck. He had his head turned away and her position behind and a little to the side gave her a perfect view of the muscle that ran down from his jaw to under his clavicle . . . and the external jugular vein that ran over it. She could almost see it throbbing under the skin. Holly found herself staring at it as she worked the muscles of his shoulder and had to fight the urge to touch and kiss him there. This wasn't the day they had sex. James was always exhausted after work and she was always in a rush to get out the door. It was no time to initiate something and she knew it, so just waited for the desire to recede.

But, instead of fading away as she'd expected, the hunger inside her seemed to grow stronger, and she couldn't seem to drag her gaze away from that pulsing vein. Holly had the oddest urge to run her tongue along it. Bizarre, but she blamed it on the smells coming off of him. James smelled . . . well, yummy. He'd just showered, so she expected it was a new cologne he was using or something. Whatever it was, it was heady with a deep rich scent, almost tinny but in a pleasant way.

“God woman, are you trying to dig a hole in my shoulder?” James said on a pained laugh. “Gentler, please.”

Holly tore her gaze from his throat and glanced forward, freezing when she spotted herself in the mirror. Horror was rushing up within her when Holly noted movement behind her. In the next moment something snaked around her waist even as a palm slapped over her mouth. She was dragged away from James and out of the room so swiftly, it left her off balance and struggling to keep her feet under her as she was whisked down the stairs and through the house. It seemed like barely a blink later that she was being released in the garage and left to find her own balance as her captor stepped away.

Managing to keep her feet under her, Holly turned sharply on her attacker, not terribly surprised when she saw that it was Justin Bricker. The note he'd left in her car had said he'd be here when she needed him . . . and she needed him . . . or at least someone right now.

“I have fangs,” Holly said faintly, hardly able to believe what she'd seen when she'd caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror upstairs.

Justin merely nodded and eyed her warily.

For some reason that infuriated her. At least, she was suddenly terribly furious, and demanded, “What have you done to me?”

“Saved you,” he answered at once.

“For what?” she asked sharply. “Some sort of living death as a vampire?”

“You aren't dead,” he assured her solemnly. “I turned you to save your life, not end it.”

“Vampires are dead,” she snapped.

“But you aren't a vampire. You're an immortal,” he said firmly.

“Buddy, you can call it a retort, but it's still just an incinerator to burn bodies in,” she said grimly.

He blinked in confusion at that. “What?”

“It's—­ Never mind,” she said wearily. “The point is, you can call it immortal all you want, but if it has fangs and sucks blood it's a vampire.”

“But if it has fangs, sucks blood and still has a beating heart and a soul, it's an immortal,” he countered.

Holly merely stared at him as the last part of his comment repeated itself through her head. So she still had a beating heart and a soul?

“You should know you do . . . at least the heart. It's thundering up a storm right now. Surely you can feel it?”

Holly glanced to him sharply. “I thought you couldn't read me.”

“I can't,” he said with surprise.

“Then how did you know I was wondering about that?”

“Because you said it aloud,” he explained, his words gentle.

Holly was silent for a moment, concentrating on paying attention to her body. After a moment, she became aware of the frantic thudding coming from her chest, as well as a pulsing in her head. Her heart was pumping, thundering up a storm as he'd said. She was alive. The news was such a relief that Holly nearly fell over. At least her knees went weak and she would have fallen had he not reached out to steady her. Once she was solid again though, he released her as if she were a hot potato. Holly found it oddly insulting.

Clearing his throat, he moved several steps away and then turned to say, “I'll need to train you.”

“Train me for what?” she asked, wary now herself.

“For survival,” he said grimly. “We have laws, rules, a certain conduct that is expected from us. Breaking the laws can see you punished and then beheaded.”

“B
eheaded
? Are you kidding me?” she asked with amazement. When he shook his head, she protested, “But that's positively feudal.”

“We're an old race,” he said with a shrug and then shifted impatiently and moved toward the door. “You'll need to dress so we can go.”

Holly blinked and glanced down at herself, becoming aware for the first time that she was still wrapped only in a towel. She supposed she'd been so shocked to see those fangs protruding from her mouth in the bathroom mirror that she'd forgotten everything else. She found it surprising, though, that she hadn't lost the towel when he'd grabbed her and dragged her down here. She was also rather surprised that James hadn't noticed and chased after them.

“My husband—­”

“Is in bed sleeping,” Justin assured her. “In his mind, he thanked you for the nice back massage and then crawled into bed.”

“How do you know that?” Holly asked.

“Because that's the suggestion I put in his thoughts as I grabbed you when you were going to bite him.”

“You controlled James?” she asked, outrage seeping out in her voice.

“He can't know about any of this,” Justin said with a shrug.