Driving Mr. Dead (16 page)

He pulled me up, into his lap, grinding our hips together as he guided me over him. He ran the tip of his nose down the length of my cheek, his lips skimming after. Light pressure pinched at my jawline, and fingers slipped around the nape of my neck, securing my head in place as he tilted it back. His tongue worked teasing little circles along my skin.

His lips closed over my jugular, and there was the barest hint of pressure … and then … bliss. He drew against the wound, the blood seeming to flow up directly from between my thighs, through my chest, and into his mouth.

I shuddered and stilled, unable to process all of the sensations needling at my brain. He rocked his hips, sending his rigid length against my warmth. My breath caught, and I snagged my fingers through his hair, pressing his face against my neck.

Over his shoulder, I could see the faintest outline of light around
the edges of the cellar door. Collin’s movements were more languid, gentle, as the rhythm continued—draw, rock, draw, rock—until I was riding him slow and firm as he licked the twin puncture wounds at my throat. I felt the first flutters of orgasm and cried out with the force of it. Collin pulled me to him with bone-crushing force as he followed me, crashing back against the rough burlap bags.

Collin rearranged us carefully, settling me against his chest, kissed me one last time on the forehead, and promptly passed out.

I woke up with a vampire snuggled around my waist.

That was a new entry in the “Bizarre Miranda Experiences” annals.

I squinted up at the still-sealed cellar door and saw that the scant light around the edge had gone pink. The sun would be setting soon.

I scooted off the bed, no small feat with Collin’s arms wrapped around my middle. It was a “coyote ugly” situation, except that my partner was quite attractive but technically dead. After tugging and pulling for nearly ten minutes, I finally managed to pry myself loose and rolled off the feedsacks and onto my face. I slid into my creased, soiled jeans and shirt, wincing as I made my way up the cellar stairs.

Clearly, the next time I had sex with a vampire, I was going to need to stretch first.

Outside, I heard a truck engine gunning. I removed the ax handle and lifted the cellar door just a fraction. Peeking out, I saw the farmer’s truck ambling down the gravel driveway.

The neat little yard was bathed in dusky twilight. I eyed the little champagne-colored sedan enviously, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to take it. Particularly with those cheerful little garden gnomes
glaring at me from the neglected flower beds. I was a lot of things, but I wasn’t a thief. And even if I’d only been guessing the night before, and the good farmer’s wife had run off with the mailman, I wouldn’t be able to stand the idea that I’d taken a reminder from the man who owned this house.

In the picture I’d formed in my head, they’d been happy together. They’d lived a long life filled with happy holidays, grandchildren, and long chatty breakfasts, and now the farmer was patiently biding his time until he could see her again.

When I got home, I’d have to remove
The Notebook
from my Netflix queue. Clearly, the repeat viewings were messing with my head.

I looked back at Collin’s sleeping form. I was cautiously optimistic about what had happened the night before. I enjoyed Collin. I enjoyed spending time with him. And he seemed amused, if not intrigued, by my ability to sow destruction wherever I went. Maybe he would be interested in pursuing some sort of relationship when this was all over. Was I in love with him? Not yet. But I wanted more than a “friends with benefits” arrangement.

I wanted to know that if I came home at the end of a long day, I could call him and laugh with him over my latest misadventure. I wanted to tell someone how I really felt, not just the things my family and friends wanted to hear but my real fears and desires … things I’d already shared with him after knowing him for only three days.

For the first time in my life, I wanted someone I could really share my life with. I hadn’t had that with Jason. I couldn’t let him see what I was really like, the hair that took two hours to straighten, the clothes I’d ruined with darkroom chemicals, the gecko tattoo
that I’d let my freshman roommate give me on a dare. But Collin would probably find those stories funny as hell.

I plucked at the chain around my neck and suddenly knew how we were going to get home.

After clicking on the camping lamp I searched the shelves for breakfast. As delicious as they were, I didn’t think I could handle another jar of spiced peaches. I selected what looked like a jar of apple-pie filling and popped the top, carefully sliding the contents into my mouth. It was ambrosial, especially when paired with the lovely domestic distilled water. I ate half the jar while I tried to make out the rest of the dimly lit room. It seemed to be used strictly for feed storage and storm supplies. The only boxes I could make out stood in the corner. I took up the camping lamp and edged closer to them. In neat block print, the box was labeled, “MAEVIS, CLOTHES, GOODWILL.”

I glanced down at my wrinkled, stained clothes and wondered whether Maevis would begrudge me a fresh outfit. With my luck, stealing a dead woman’s clothes would result in a hell of a haunting. But I balanced that against the thought of wearing these jeans another day and decided that I was willing to risk it. I opened the box to find an array of church dresses, housecoats, khaki pants, and mom jeans. There was a beautiful bottle-green double-knit suit in my size, but the idea of taking what was probably Maevis’s best dress in her prime shamed me. I picked a more casual red-and-white check dress with a wide, pointed white collar. It was the sort of dress I could see Maevis wearing to a Sunday picnic. Unfortunately, I had to wear my boots with it, which ruined the effect.

I reached the bottom of the box and had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. The farmer was also donating some vacation clothes
to Goodwill. I cast an evil glance my vampire’s way. From the looks of them, they’d fit Collin perfectly.

“Come on,” I called from the farmer’s front door. “We have to get moving before he comes back!”

Collin’s muffled voice came floating up from the cellar. “I look ridiculous.”

“I look like Lucille Ball’s manly cousin,” I yelled back. “It can’t be that bad.”

I opened up the little mailbox labeled “McGregor” near the door. Despite the fact that it was the only cash I had on hand, I left my last remaining twenty-dollar bill inside, where Mr. McGregor was sure to find it. It eased my conscience a bit for helping ourselves to his food and clothes.

Collin emerged in an orange and blue Hawaiian shirt, his long swimmer’s legs sticking out of blue plaid Bermuda shorts. I ruthlessly pinched my lips together to keep my braying laugh from escaping. He looked like a pale, pissed-off tourist. “Do you have any idea what happened to my clothes while I was sleeping?”

Currently, his pants were at the bottom of the burn barrel near the garage. And the scarecrow had received a brand-new hand-tailored shirt. “I couldn’t find them when I woke up,” I said, my eyes as wide and innocent as a baby seal’s. “Maybe a barn cat took them?”

“A barn cat?” he repeated, raising his eyebrow. “A barn cat that managed to get through the barred cellar door, take my clothes—my clothes only, mind you—and then escape unnoticed while we slept?”

“A very strong, very selective barn cat,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “We’re just lucky I found these clothes in the Goodwill box.”

“
Hmph
.” He sniffed. “A vindictive little kitten who is still angry about an obliterated car, more like.”

I grabbed his hand and led him down the gravel drive toward the highway. “Don’t be silly. What sort of kitten has a car?”

The walk into town was long and arduous, but the sky was clear and the moon full. Collin told me stories about his marches with the king’s army, trekking through what the British soldiers saw as the ends of the earth. We made good time, with Collin carrying me on his back for the last two miles. He was worried about me being too tired and insisted that it was payment for drinking my blood the night before without express permission.

“We haven’t talked about the events of last night, by the way,” he said, tickling my knees a bit while he adjusted my weight over his back.

“I don’t think I’m ready to,” I admitted. “I’m not saying I regret it, because I absolutely don’t. But I’d like to wait until we’ve finished this before we tackle something as heavy as the Talk.”

“Why do I get the feeling that, in your head, that’s ‘Talk’ with a capital T?”

“Because you’re psychic,” I said, grinning cheekily. “And a discussion involving words like ‘feelings’ and ‘commitment’ deserves a capitalized title.” He shuddered beneath my hands. “I felt that.”

We arrived on the outskirts of a town called Hader’s Knob, which, it turned out, was in Missouri and only three hours away from the Hollow. We were fortunate to find just what I was looking for in the seedier part of said outskirts. In a town called Hader’s Knob, there
were bound to be seedy outskirts.

“A pawn shop?” Collin asked as I led him down Canal Street toward Golden Scales Pawn. “But we don’t have anything to pawn.”

I lifted my chain from around my neck, dangling my engagement ring for him to see.

“No,” he insisted. “You can’t mean to sell your engagement ring.”

“Why not?” I asked. “We need bus fare. I am not going to marry Jason or anybody, really, unless my parents have arranged some sort of proxy marriage … which I probably shouldn’t mention around them, because it might give them ideas. Legally, Jason broke the engagement, so the ring is mine. Either way, it would hurt me a lot more to miss our deadline tonight than it will to sell this ring. So into the pawn shop I go.”

“Just you?”

“Yes,” I told him as we neared the shop entrance. “I’d like to handle this on my own. It’s a closure thing.”

He smoothed my hair back from my face. “Is this one of those mysteries I will never comprehend because I was born a lowly male?”

“You used the word ‘lowly,’ not me,” I called over my shoulder as I pushed the door open.

Everything that seems sketchy about pawn shops from the outside is doubly true on the inside. You can almost feel the desperation and broken dreams dripping off the merchandise. I was glad that Collin was outside. Lord knows what he would have picked up, vision-wise. I wound my way to the counter through displays of used laptops, weird random “art,” and, most heartbreaking of all, a row of kids’ bikes.

A large bear of a man with a shiny bald head leaned against
the counter, poring over a comic book. His tidy black polo had a shiny gold shop logo embroidered over a well-built chest. I didn’t know whether I should be comforted or intimidated by his size, so I settled for clearing my throat politely. The man looked up from his Archie comic and smiled.

“How can I help you, hon?” he asked kindly. His head shimmered in the greenish fluorescent lights. I wondered idly if he waxed it to achieve such a sheen. He gave me a small smile and pulled a soft maroon cloth out of his display case. I guessed he knew that I was going to pawn jewelry, since I didn’t have anything else on me. I wasn’t carrying so much as a purse.

I stayed frozen to my spot, unable to step forward somehow. I knew I couldn’t keep the ring, didn’t want to, really. But selling it seemed so final. It made me a little sad to think of Jason’s family heirloom sitting in a pawn shop in the middle of nowhere. But I had to sell this stupid ring. I could not spend the rest of my life in a town called Hader’s Knob.

“I won’t bite, I promise.”

I fiddled with the chain around my neck. “I’m sorry. I’ve never done this before.”

“That’s OK, this time of night. We call it the ‘Bad Decision’ shift. Let me see what you’ve got.”

I pulled the chain over my head, because snapping one off your neck is not as easy as it looks in movies. And I handed it to the clerk.

“Are you looking to sell or pawn?” he asked, holding the ring up to the light.

“Sell. I don’t really want to see it again.”

He frowned, taking out a jeweler’s loupe. “Let’s take a closer look here.”

I took the chain and stuck it into my dress pocket. Already, I felt a weight lifted from my shoulder. I wondered why I’d held on to the ring for so long, why I’d agreed to take it back in the first place. Maybe I should send Jason the remaining balance after we paid for the bus tickets, I thought. Surely we would have some cash left.

With his jeweler’s loupe still in place, the clerk looked up at me and grimaced. “Hon, I’ve got some bad news for you.”

“Did I damage the setting?” I asked. “I haven’t exactly been vigilant about getting it cleaned or inspected.”

“Since you broke off your engagement?” he asked. I nodded. “And your fiancé told you this was a diamond?”

I nodded. Wait, did he say “told you”?

I closed my eyes and waited for the verbal blow. “What is it?”

He grimaced, placing the ring in my hand. “What you have here is a high-quality cubic zirconia.”

“Would you excuse me for a minute?” I asked through a tight smile. He nodded sympathetically.

I walked out the front door, to where Collin was waiting for me. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but I held up a finger. “You ASSHOLE!” I yelled. “Dirty, rotten, low-down PRICK!”

Collin’s eyes widened to the size of saucers, and he rushed toward me, glaring over my shoulder as if the shop was harboring some sort of junk-selling deviant.

“I’m fine,” I promised him. “Just give me a minute.”

I walked back into the shop, my fingernails biting little half-moons into my palms. “I’m sorry. I’m better now. Clearly, I was given some high-end Cracker Jack prize. So please explain to me how it didn’t turn my finger green or fall apart in the last year.”

“Oh, well, the band is fourteen-karat gold,” he assured me. “See
this little mark on the inside of the band?” He held it up so I could see the tiny “JM” stamped into the metal. “That means it came from Jewelry Mart. Your fiancé probably bought a costume ring off of a home-shopping network and had the ‘stone’ reset in a respectable band.”