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“I don’t think I did,
” I muttered and blinked at the waitress as she brought our food.

“Maybe not,” he conceded, “b
ut you don’t have to worry about Clara. You don’t need to be jealous because there is absolutely no love there.” I gave him droll look. “And I won’t hurt her either, because…she married my brother.”

I gasped, sucking coffee
into my wind pipe. While I coughed, he came and sat beside me. Rubbing a small, forceful circle in the middle of my back, he patted and turned my face to look at him. When he saw that I was okay, he asked, “Do you need mouth to mouth?” He grinned, tilting his head a little. “I’d be very obliging.”

I coughed and shoved at his stomach. “All right, Casanova. Let’s take it down a notch.”

He lifted his hands as he returned to his side of the booth. “Hey. Just trying to save a life.”

“You already did. I don’t think I thanked you for that, by the way.” I made sure to look at him and not be a coward.

He smiled and looked like he was about to make a joke, but then he thought better of it. “You’re welcome, Fay. And it appears it was fate that brought us together.” I lifted an eyebrow. “Brother and sister-in-law.”

“Oh, right. That’s not
a coincidence. Can’t be.”

“No,” he agreed. “It’s not. We’re going to find out soon enough what’s going on. I’ll get you there. I’ll get you to Clara. I promise.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded his head and took a big bite of pancakes.

“So…Eli is your brother?”

He grinned. “Don’t worry. I’m the better looking brother.”

I laughed and rolled my eyes, dipping my bacon into my syrup and hearing him groan about how disgusting it was. He told me some things about Eli and Clara. He had been at their wedding, which broke my heart into little pieces right then and there. But again, it was no one’s fault but mine. He talked about anything he thought I would want to know that happened in the very short weeks that he had known Clara.

I ate and I listened.

_____
_______

We drove—he drove—until the afternoon when I noticed him starting to twitch around in the seat, obliviously uncomfortable. He rubbed his thigh with the side of his fist over and over so hard I thought the fabric of his jeans was going to rip. Then he started to tap a rhythm on the steering wheel and turned the music up louder. As Aerosmith blared over the speakers, I knew exactly what was happening. I still didn’t understand why I was calm and understanding about this, but knew what I needed to do.

I thought about the night my parents died. Clara called me. I wasn’t home. She was in hysterics. She had come home and found them…

Enoch’s hand swung over and gripped my thigh tightly. “Stop it,” he growled.

I continued to look out the window, noticing how his hand hadn’t moved from my leg. I sighed. It had been so long since someone had touched me. “You need it, don’t you? I can tell. You’re getting all twitchy.”

“And I told you that I don’t want that from you,” he said harshly.

I looked over. “You just want it from someone else?”

He watched the road. “Yes.”

Coward.

“I’m not a coward,” he said with an angry chuckle and took his hand away. My skin was cold where his hand had been. “I’m the
only one
being smart right now.”

I covered my lips with two fingers. I
said that out loud.

He drove for a few more minutes and then pulled off an exit. When he pulled into a bar parking lot, I got anxious. I looked over to see him still brooding, his brows drawn together. He put the car in park and looked over at me for the first time. “Stay here. Don’t come in and don’t get out of this car for any reason.
Lock the doors.” I started to argue, but his menacing look stopped everything. “Don’t.”

I leaned back in my seat slowly
and looked at my lap. There were two things he was going in there for and neither of them was good. He got out and stopped by his door, his hand on the top of the car. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Stay in the car, no matter what. I’m…
not
leaving you.”

Then he slammed the door and sprinted inside. I watched him go, wondering what had just happen
ed. One minute he was an absolute jerk, the next he was reassuring me he wasn’t leaving me like I had thought he was last time. I wanted to take a nap, feeling tired and drawn out, but the sun was too bright, so I climbed in the back seat and turned my face toward the back. I looked at my watch. It was fifteen after three. When someone knocked, waking me, I looked at my watch and it was almost four. I looked up at his face, the sun haloing behind his head and could already tell he was better. I unlocked his door and he climbed in.

“We need to ditch this car soon and grab another. It’s not smart to keep it. The cops will be looking for it.” He backed out and started to drive like everything was normal. Like he hadn’t just been in there feeding off someone who was sad about their wife leaving them, or fighting because of cheating on a game or pool, or the more likely option, someone who he’d been doing intimate things with that I didn’t want to think about. I rolled back over and pretended that he hadn’t even come back. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?” he asked. Like he had no idea. Maybe he didn’t.

“Nothing.”

He sighed and drove faster. “I don’t like doing it
any more than you like knowing I do it. Soon we’ll be there and you never have to see me again.” I scoffed under my breath. He was such a guy for actually not really being one. “Now what?” he growled.

“Nothing,” I answered again.

“I really hate that answer.”

“I’m so glad you’re in a better mood,” I spouted sarcastically and covered my head with my arm. I slept. I dreamt of f
loating, rafting with Clara and our parents down the Ichetucknee River in Florida, something we did every couple of years. Then my dream moved to other dreams. I was falling, but so warm. I wrapped myself around the warmth, not understanding why it moved and even seemed to chuckle. Then I was cold all of a sudden before we were moving again. My head ached.

I moaned when I was blasted with heat, but couldn’t stay asleep any longer. I woke to find myself not in a sleek black car, but an old blue Mustang with white leather. White
, cold, freezing leather. I wrapped my arms around myself and sat up in the seat before climbing up in the front.

“Afternoon
, sunshine,” he drawled, but he seemed extra chipper about something.

I grimaced. “You’re giving me whiplash, Enoch. Pick a side, already. Either you love me or you hate me. Or…” I rolled my eyes, feeling my cheeks bloom with red, “you know what I mean.”

              He grinned wider. “Oh, yes. I know what you mean. Do you like the new ride?”

             
“I never was a ‘stang girl.”

             
He laughed. Hard. Too hard. I laughed, too, because Enoch letting loose was too good to pass up joining in. “A ‘stang girl, huh? Wow. We wouldn’t want that.” He grinned over at me. “That sounds painful.”

             
I pushed his arm. “Shut up.”

             
We stopped for supper not too long after that. I had about had it with crappy diner food, but that was the way it was on the road. It was getting darker. We were getting closer, and though he didn’t need to sleep, per se, he said he liked to rest and wanted to get a room for the night. I didn’t know if he was just doing that for me or not, but that would be an awfully nice gesture and I didn’t want to give him that much credit.

We checked in
to the motel first and then went into the adjoining restaurant. The diner was pretty rowdy that night. There was some kind of karaoke tournament going on and we just happened to catch it on the right night. I don’t think Enoch’s aggravated eyebrow came down the entire time we waited for our burgers.

I laughed at him under my hand, but he somehow heard it over the loud singing and laughing.

“Oh, this is funny? If I wanted to be tortured, I could think of a hundred less painful ways,” he said and sucked down the last of his drink. He waved to the waitress and she refilled his Coke and my diet.

“I pegged you for a hard liquor man.”

“Booze don’t do me any good, love.” He smiled and leaned back in the booth, linking his hands behind his head. “I’m not built like you, remember?”

“Right,” I drawled and tried not to look at his arms stretched in that shirt, but failed. I looked away
as quickly as I could, but it wasn’t quick enough. I saw him tick his head to the side, whether in question or trying to catch my eye. Either way, I wasn’t falling for it.

I looked around the room and thought it funny that Enoch and I were the only ones not drunk and falling all over the place. Everyone else had plates of nachos and dart board games going as they listened to horrible singing and waited their turn. It was more like a bar than a diner, really. The sign was deceiving. I heard the song change—a woman singing a very
sloppy rendition of
Endless Love
. I grimaced and shook my head as people got up and started dancing to it just as I saw an eager face coming my way. I turned back to Enoch and tried to act like I was engaged with him. “Oh, no,” I muttered.

“What?”
Enoch said and twirled the knife in his fingers. Great, he was already armed.

“Nothing. Just
pretend like we’re talking.”

“We are talking, princess.” He grinned. I think he enjoyed any opportunity to call me that.

“Talk more, smart-alec.” I laughed a little louder. He looked to the side, seeing the guy almost to our table, and he shook his head at me.

“What’s the matter, princess? Don’t want to dance with two-left-feet-McGee?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Why not?”

I looked at him, meeting him stare for stare. “Fine.”

“Hey, there,” I heard to my right. I turned and gave him a small smile. “Would you like to dance to the cheesiest song known to man?”

I laughed. “Uh…Yeah. Sure.”

I slid out, but before I could take two-left-feet-McGee’s hand, a warm, familiar hand took it instead. “Sorry, buddy.
This cheesy song is spoken for,” Enoch’s gruff voice said near my ear.

He lifted his hand
s in good-natured back down and walked back to his seat.

I thought Enoch was just going to sit back down and say I owed him or something, but he towed me to the dance floor, pulling me under his arm before yanking me to his chest, forcing the air right out of my lungs. I gasped a little when our chests connected, our faces so close. “You’re pretty good at that.”

“Over three hundred years of living will make you good at anything,” he said, almost bitterly, but he smiled a little.

“Three
hundred years…” I mused, but said nothing more.

“You’re welcome, by the way. I promise I won’t step on your cute little feet.” He twirled me out and back in before dipping me back just a little and lifting me back up. I fought for breath for more than one reason.

“I can’t make the same promise, sadly.”

“All you need is a good leader,” he
said low against my temple. “Males have changed so much over the decades. When I was born, men led the dances and woman didn’t have to worry about being stepped on. It was a show of pride and honor to know how to lead a lady on the dance floor.”

He moved with more
open moves, more swift. He pressed a hand to my back and began leading me through a dance I’d never done before or seen, but it was fun and beautiful. He had his eyes closed, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he led me through the moves with surety and security. A few of the other couples watched with impressed smiles on their faces at Enoch’s skill.

His face was s
o open and smooth as he focused; he looked relaxed and young. He was the most handsome he’d ever been. He was so close in that moment, I could have stolen a kiss and he couldn’t have stopped me. His dark hair brushed my hand on his neck every time he turned. It sent chills down my entire being. Not goose bumps. No—these were something else entirely. He was so honest. He may be mean at times, but you couldn’t say the guy wasn’t honest. And he was real and could be so…caring sometimes, seemingly out of nowhere.

All I could do was hang on and try not to kiss him.

He sucked in a breath, his eyes still closed, and slowly licked his bottom lip. He let his eyes open slowly, and the song ended just as another song began. We stood there in the middle of the crowd not moving, not dancing, and me barely breathing.

His hooded
eyes watched me and he seemed so surprised. His eyes searched my face as the faster dancers moved around us. I should have been embarrassed, knowing that he was tasting my want for him, but I just couldn’t be. Was he really that surprised?

Someone tapped my shoulder. I expected the same guy, but
I turned my face to find a new guy there. “My turn.” He grinned.