Chasing Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel) (4 page)

—especially one who would be living above the barn.

But it was a price I would willingly pay, because the presence of another would be a welcome reminder of my own humanity.

I was just coming back from hauling the waste of the fifth stall out to the compost pile when I heard a car, and out of habit I stopped moving to feel with my “supe-sense” whether or not this new arrival was of a supernatural origin. I got nothing but the scent of a human, and relaxing, I started forward again.

Given the oddity of my sister visiting me out of the blue (even if Diarmid had been the one to send her), I shouldn‘t have been surprised by the feeling I got as I drew closer. My gift for sensing the presence of another supernatural being worked at a fair distance, but because I had smelled human, I had assumed human. As I was pushing the wheelbarrow back into the barn my visitor was getting out of a late-model Dodge truck, and I found myself suddenly engulfed with the feeling of an immortality that wasn’t my own. Because it was so unexpected, I started looking around to see if there was someone else I had missed. But then I realized it was coming from the guy who was slowly striding toward me.

And then I was struck with two more sudden realizations: I was about to meet my first immortal human…and he was, quite literally, the man of my dreams.

I stood frozen in place as he walked into the barn, stopping just inside where he didn’t have to squint. “Ms. Caldwell?”

I gave myself a hard mental shake and forced my feet to move forward, recalling the ominous words of the psychic when I had asked her when I would finally meet the man I had been dreaming about: “
Fate will bring you together when you need each other the most
.” I was suddenly frightened, and damn it, I didn’t scare easy. If Mark Singleton was the man who would complete me, then his coming here on the very day my sister said our father wanted me to find the betrayer of vampire kind could only mean one thing:

Trouble was coming.

“Are you Mark Singleton?” I heard my voice say, proud that at least one part of my brain was functioning correctly. Not only was I suddenly afraid that Mark and I were in for a very bumpy ride, I could feel my body buzzing as I drew nearer to him. Every
nerve ending was on fire, every inch of my skin ached for the touch that to me was already as familiar as breathing. With an effort, I kept my fangs retracted and forced the sudden image of our bodies twined together in my bed from my mind, plastering a smile on my face because Mark was beginning to look a little perplexed. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was acting strangely, or if it was possible he was feeling some sort of effect of being near me. After all, we were bondmates—was he supposed to be feeling something, too?

My visitor nodded slowly, and I suddenly noticed he had what I could only think of as a military bearing. He was standing ramrod straight and his eyes were on me, but he seemed to be drinking in every single detail of his surroundings. He had also maneuvered himself so that he
 
could clearly see out both open ends of the barn. “Yes ma’am, I’m Mark Singleton,” he answered.

Breathe
, I reminded myself, extending my right hand. “I’m Saphrona Caldwell, Mr. Singleton. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Finally
, I added silently.
God knows I’ve waited long enough
.

Mark shook my hand with a firm grip, and I liked that he didn’t make it all soft just because I was a girl, like some men did. I returned it enthusiastically. “So what made you decide to answer my ad, Mr. Singleton?” I asked, doing my best to ignore the electrical current that had raced up my arm when our hands touched.

“To be honest with you, ma’am, I really need a job,” he answered sincerely. “I’ve been out of the Corps over a year, ‘
cause
I needed the time, but I need to get back to earning a living. And I need to get out of my parents’ house.”

The last he said with a grin, so I returned it with a smile of my own.
“The Corps?
You mean the Marines?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes ma’am.
Spent the last twelve years with the United States Marine Corps—well, eleven of the last twelve years.
Straight outta high school.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I see. So tell me, Mr. Singleton, just what does a man with eleven years of dedicated military service know about farming?”

Mark laughed. “Jack shit nothing, in all honesty—pardon my bad English,” he said. “But like I said, I really need a job. And I’m a Marine, which means I can take orders with the best of ‘em. You tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Show me what to do once and you won’t have to show me again. I actually did spend some summers at my grandparents’ farm up until I was nine, but they fell on hard times and had to sell it.”

He paused, placing his hands on his hips as he looked at me. “Ms. Caldwell, I can see you’re skeptical. I’ve no doubt you’d prefer someone with more farming experience, and I’m a freakin’ jarhead. I know jack about cows and pigs except what they become in the way of food. But I’m a hard
worker,
I won’t complain about shoveling sh—crap, digging holes, none of it.”

I tried not to smile too much. Here he was making an impassioned plea for me to hire him, and I was already planning to do so for the simple fact that I’d been dreaming about him for over two hundred years. No way in hell was I going to turn away my soulmate because he hadn’t set foot on a farm since he was nine. I had to get to know him and learn everything I could about him—
especially
what had happened to his mother that had turned him into an immortal human. Obviously I knew she’d been
bitten by a vampire during her pregnancy, and he’d used the word “parents” so it was reasonable to assume that his mother had survived the attack.

But then I had to wonder if perhaps he’d been referring to a
step
mother. After all, I couldn’t imagine his birth mother having been bitten and received enough draculin to turn her unborn son into an immortal human, but not turn her into a vampire. My instincts told me that either she had been turned or she had died. I would feel an even deeper kinship with him if the latter were the case, as my own mother had died giving birth to me.

I also could not help but wonder if Mark even knew about his condition.
Dhunphyr
were truly so rare as to be practically non-existent—a myth among mythological beings. Yet here one was, standing right in front of me. I had almost missed the truth because my senses had identified him as human
before
they had identified him as an immortal. Was that because I hadn’t been paying full attention or was it some trait specific to his kind?

I cleared my throat, and for the sake of keeping up appearances asked him, “Why
do you
want
this
job then, if you’ve no real farming experience?”

Mark shrugged. “Should I take a job more suited to my talents?
Maybe.
But there ain’t
none
out there for an inactive Marine, except perhaps being a cop or a government spook. I’ve already spent a third of my life as government property, and quite frankly I’d rather like to be my own property for a while. To me, any job is better than no job. You’re offering a place to stay on top of that. Is it possible I’m not going to be very good at it? Sure. Is it possible I’m gonna screw something up? Sure again. I know it’ll take me some time to get the hang of the routine, but I’m a quick study. Like I said, I’m a hard worker. And I can promise you I’m trustworthy. Once I get the routine down, you won’t have to be looking over my shoulder every ten minutes.”

“Sounds good to me.
But you might change your mind when you see the apartment—it’s on top of the barn,” I said, pointing over our heads.

He glanced up as I moved past him and over to a door on the right side of the barn. When I’d had half the hayloft converted into an apartment, I’d removed the ladder on the outside of the tack room, and had put stairs inside it that led up to the living space. Whoever I hired would live there, and would be able to enter through a door on the outside of the barn and one inside. I grabbed a set of keys from a nail on the wall and led him up the narrow staircase, where I unlocked the door and gestured for Mark to precede me inside.

He looked around for a moment at the combined living room and kitchen area, then turned to me saying, “That the bedroom over there?”

I looked where he pointed toward the other end of the room. Indeed, I had closed off the bedroom and the bathroom. Nodding, I replied, “Yes. The door on the right is to the bathroom, the one on the left is the bedroom. As you can see, all the basic furniture is here, but if you have or want something of your own, you’re welcome to bring it in.”

I turned then and pointed at the front wall, where I had exchanged the bay doors used for loading and unloading hay for a set of French doors (another set of bay doors had been cut into the rear wall of the loft for hay storage). On warm days, of which there soon wouldn’t be any, whoever lived up here would be able to open those doors
for a nice breeze and lots of natural sunlight.

“You’ll be able to haul anything heavy up through those doors, if you can figure out how,” I said.

“I’m sure what you have is fine, Ms. Caldwell,” Mark said. “I ain’t a picky fellow.”

I took a moment to study him, though in my dreams these last two centuries I had already memorized every line, every curve. He seemed to sincerely want the
job,
though I still couldn’t fathom why he’d want a job he didn’t really know how to do. Not that it mattered overmuch to me, as I was just glad to have him here. I couldn’t wait for the days and nights ahead of getting to know him.

Of course, in so doing, I was eventually going to have to tell him the truth about
who
and what I was—and what he was, if he didn’t already know.

“Well, I do need the help, and since you’re so willing to become my indentured servant,” I joked, which earned me a smile, “I guess all that’s left is to haggle price and payment method.”

“What, uh, what were you thinking to offer?” Mark asked.

I’d been planning to offer three hundred a week and let potential applicants negotiate for a higher pay, but considering who had actually applied for the job…

“Seven hundred a week, which I can pay you in cash, or I can get income tax forms and pay you by check,” I replied.

Mark whistled. “Wow, that’s pretty generous. More than what I was thinking,” he said.

I shrugged even though I figured it was probably a lot less than he’d been making as a Marine—but then I knew nothing about military pay grades, so it could have been a lot more. “I keep three to four horses at a time—one stallion, one broodmare, and their offspring. I have a bull and five cows for a total of six cattle, one boar and ten sows in the way of pigs, and a dozen hens for egg-laying. I’ve a paddock and two pastures that are fenced in and a hayfield where I grow my own hay.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Doesn’t sound like much, but at the same time, sounds like too much for one person. Can I ask how long you’ve had this place and how long you’ve been running it by yourself?”

I was prepared for the inevitability of such a question, and for right now, I gave him the public answer. “This farm has been in my family since 1846, believe it or not. Always been small, though it was bigger once and there used to be another house on the property for the hands. I’ve had it for the last five years.”

“Been by yourself the whole time?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I replied. “But right now, I’ve a situation where I’m faced with the need for help, so I placed that ad—had actually forgotten about it because no one’s responded. At least until you came along.”

“May I ask how you can afford to pay so much? Twenty-eight hundred a month seems a bit much if it’s so small a farm,” Mark wondered.

I chuckled. “Herugrim, my current stallion, is a descendant of Celtic Thunder, one of the most famous race horses of the early 20
th
century. Colts and fillies sired by Thunder’s progeny fetch a fair price. I also charge stud fees for breeding with other mares, and I sell his sperm. Then there’s the fact that each of my cows produce a calf
each year—I sell the bull’s sperm, too—and my sows produce a litter numbering between ten and twelve on average twice a year, which means I’m selling about two hundred piglets in a given year.”

Mark laughed. “Obviously I don’t mean to
offend,
it’s just that you hear stories about how hard it is on a farm, and how prices of livestock have gone down and such.”

“None taken,” I replied. “And those are both very real scenarios, which the farm has faced more than once over the years, but right now it’s doing very well. Have you thought about how you want to be paid?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want either of us to get in trouble with the IRS, so I suppose it would be best you get those forms, so everything’s nice and legal.”

I nodded and then turned back for the door. “You’re probably right. It’s just that I’ve never had help here before, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to do. My accountant also recommended going that route.”

Mark followed me back down the stairs after I had locked the door to the apartment. As we descended, I told him that I would not charge for electric and water, which the barn was already equipped with for the animals’ needs, but if he wanted cable or his own phone line, he was going to have to pay for them himself. I then said I could call my accountant and have her fax me the income tax forms so that we could take care of that today, or he could come back tomorrow and we’d take care of it then. He elected to get the paperwork done today so I invited him into my house.