Sunset Rising (Sunset Vampire Series, Book 5) (16 page)

Granted, I had taken the time to send
multiple messages to reassure everyone that I was fine. But I knew
Kat better than most and she was going to be really pissed with
me.

I imagined a dark, oncoming storm in my
mind’s eye.

A shiver ran down my spine and I knew it
wasn’t from the gradually cooling evening air that impacted my
face.

I sat quietly before the cabin’s fireplace
that evening and drank three beers before finally going to bed.

I slept restlessly.

The next day began with a cool morning
breeze and a mostly clear sky. I rose early for a light breakfast
and then sat outside with a mug of hot tea to appreciate the
sunrise. Additionally, I busied myself unraveling the snarl of
fishing line on my reel that I had acquired the previous day.

Later that morning, I set out for a relaxing
walk through the woods. I’d always enjoyed the outdoors, and it was
particularly beautiful here as the waning fall gave way to the
precursors of winter.

It occurred to me that Thanksgiving was just
a couple of weeks away. My thoughts gravitated to last year and my
first Thanksgiving with Kat. It was hard to believe that we had
been together for more than a year.

In fact, it had almost been that long since
our life or death fight with the renegade vampire, Chimalma.

Kat and I had been through so much together
in the short time we’d been together.

Had all of that been too taxing for us? Was
our relationship threatened by too much drama?

There were no easy answers, and I considered
those questions at length.

After a time, I arrived at an honest answer.
No, to both.

I wished that Kat were there to share the
beautiful, relaxing surroundings with me. Maybe between the two of
us we’d be able to set everything right again.

But then the problem wasn’t that I didn’t
want to spend my life with Kat. On the contrary, it was that I
didn’t think I could go on as we were, essentially without her
regular presence in my life.

How did previous generations do it during
times of wars and conflict abroad, when lovers were apart for years
at a time?

I made my way back to the cabin by midday
and decided that I once again craved a meal from Cooper’s Café
versus a cold sandwich.

Within the hour I was seated at my usual
booth as Bel waited on me.

“
Don’t you ever get a day
off?” I asked.

“
I wish,” she replied.
“But when you have an ex who only pays alimony and child support
when the mood strikes him, you work more than you play.”

“
Can’t you take him to
court?”

“
Sure, if I had the money
to pay an attorney,” she said. “And until he stops paying entirely,
a judge really isn’t going to take much notice.”

While that might have been true, it
certainly didn’t seem fair.

“
I’m sorry to hear that,”
I said, not really sure what I should say to that.

“
Hey, we all have our
burdens, right?” she said.

She said a real mouthful there.

“
So, let’s review for a
moment. You’ve had the chicken-fried steak and then the fried
chicken,” she said. “What will it be today, I wonder?”

“
Guess,” I
said.

“
I’m guessing something
fried,” she said.

“
Ha! Too easy,” I
said.

Her eyes narrowed as she thoughtfully tapped
the end of her chin with her ink pen. “Meatloaf with mashed
potatoes and gravy?”

I shook my head. “Cheeseburger, well done,
and fries.”

“
You got me there. Still,
the fries are deep fried, so I was close,” she said. “Iced
tea?”

“
Coke,” I
replied.

“
Well, you’re just full of
surprises today, aren’t you?”

I shrugged. “I can be.”

“
I bet,” she said. “I’ll
get this started for you.”

I didn’t have to wait long for my meal,
which was good because my stomach was already growling.

After checking on a handful of other
customers, Bel returned to my table.

“
How is it?”

“
Great,” I
replied.

“
Are you enjoying your
stay at the cabin?”

I considered how to answer that.

“
What? Are the fish being
really mean to you?” she asked with a feisty expression.

“
Yeah, but it’s really
relaxing, too,” I replied. “I’d like to come back again during the
spring or summer sometime.”

“
I know it’s not really my
place, but I have to ask about something. Candace, Jim, and I have
been trying to guess what brought you to Tar Hollow,” she
said.

“
Oh? Is there an office
pool for it?” I asked.

“
No,” she replied. “Jim
says he’s not much on gambling. Although I say that’s strange
because he loves bingo night at the Baptist church in
town.”

“
Ah,” I said, nodding my
head. “So, what’s been guessed so far?”

Bel sat on the end of the booth seat across
from me and leaned across the table. “Well, Jim thinks you’re on
the run from the law, but then he watches too many legal dramas on
television, which is where he gets most of his ideas.”

I chuckled at that.

“
As for Candace, she
thinks you’re an introverted author who’s traveling the country
seeking inspiration as you work on your next big novel,” she
said.

“
That’s actually an
enticing thought,” I said. “What about you?”

She smiled. “I think it’s a little bit of
both.”

“
Oh, really?” I asked with
a penetrating look. “Do tell.”

“
I don’t know why, but I
get the impression that you didn’t plan to come here,” she
said.

“
Why would you say
that?”

“
Well, you expected to
rent a cabin,” she said. “But you didn’t seem all that
knowledgeable of the area, and you didn’t arrive with any luggage
to speak of, much less any means of transportation. If you had been
planning this for some time then you’re either highly disorganized
or a really bad planner.”

“
What if I simply enjoy
living life spontaneously?”

“
Maybe,” she conceded.
“But I’m not convinced.”

“
Bel, order up!” called
Jim from the kitchen area.

“
Great timing, as always,”
she muttered. “Hold that thought.”

She quickly made her way to the small window
behind the counter that separated the kitchen from the front part
of the diner.

I realized that I had better come up with a
plausible answer before she returned to the topic. It would seem
overly suspicious if I tried to remain elusive about my reasons for
being in Tar Hollow. Sometimes simple truths are the most
believable.

In retrospect, I liked Candace’s idea of
being an author seeking writing inspiration. Unfortunately, it
couldn’t be further from the truth, and the truth was far too
strange, and potentially dangerous, for the average person to
discover, much less understand.

Bel brought me a fresh glass of cola and
looked like she intended to continue our previous conversation.

“
Hey, Bel,” Jim called
from the kitchen. “Company.”

We both looked up to see a twenty-something
bearded man wearing a faded denim jacket walk in through the
entrance.

“
Hey, Bel,” he said. “Got
a minute?”

She appeared none too pleased to see
him.

“
What? I told you not to
bother me at work, Kevin,” she said.

“
Aww, get off me,” he
said. “Can we talk outside?”

“
Only if you’re bringing
the check that’s two weeks late,” she said, folding her arms before
her.

He scanned the dining room before looking at
her. “Look, let’s take this outside.”

I watched as the two of them went out
through the front entrance and moved away from the doors. From my
vantage point, I could see them talking at the far front corner of
the building.

After a few minutes of what appeared to be
arguing, she pointed her finger in his face in accusatory
fashion.

He slapped her hand away from him and shoved
her shoulder, causing her to lose her balance and fall backward. He
walked away toward an older model Ford pickup parked nearby.

A flood of bad childhood memories washed
through me as I watched.

Before I fully registered it, I had risen
from my seat and purposefully walked outside, flinging the front
door open as I went.

“
Who the—” the man started
to say.

I didn’t cease my momentum toward him and
caught his forearm as he opened the driver’s side door to his
truck. I swung him around into an arm bar while propelling him face
first against the side of the vehicle with a heavy thud.

“
Asshole, what is
your—”

“
Shut up!” I said. “So,
you like to push women around, do ya?”

“
Mind your own damned
business!”

“
Wrong answer,” I said,
rotating his arm into a more painful position.

“
Hey, ow, OW!”

“
I don’t
ever
want to see or hear
that you’ve laid a hand on Bel, you got me?” I demanded.

“
All right, all right
already!”

I used my free hand to slip his wallet from
the back pocket of his jeans and flipped it open.

“
Well, Kevin Truitt, now I
know where you live,” I said. “And I don’t want to hear about you
giving Bel any trouble, period. Got it?”

“
Yeah, yeah, got it,” he
said.

I released him from the arm bar and shoved
him away as I stepped backward.

“
Oh, and one more thing,”
I said, making sure that my hand gravitated toward my nearest
concealed combat knife, just in case he did something
stupid.

He looked at me wide-eyed as he turned
around, gingerly rotating one of his shoulders.

“
What’s that?” he
asked.

“
Pay your damned alimony
and child support on time,” I said flatly.

“
Yeah, I’ll do
that.”

“
When?”

“
Tomorrow,” he said. “I
can get the money to her by tomorrow.”

“
Good,” I said. “Because
I’ll be checking to make sure you do.”

“
Wha— Who the hell are
you?” he asked. “You a cop?”

“
No, I’m much worse,” I
said, anger welling inside me.

I’m someone who remembers someone like you
growing up; someone who knows what men like you can become. And I’m
not about to endure people like you anymore.

He must have read my features because he
jumped inside the cab of this truck and had scarcely started the
engine before he slipped his truck into reverse and backed out,
momentarily burning rubber against the pavement.

I watched him pull out onto the street and
then turned to see Bel staring wide-eyed at me.

“
Are you okay?” I
asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, thanks.
Who
are
you?”

“
I told you already,” I
said. “My name’s Caleb.”

“
Oh, well yeah, but I
meant—”

“
I’m just a guy who’s
trying to escape his own problems on the open road,” I said. “Just
trying to find a little peace, really.”

She considered me for a moment. “A little
peace.”

“
That was the idea,
anyway,” I said.

A gusty wind blew in from the north and I
looked up at the darkening sky. It looked like a storm was moving
in.

When I looked back at her, she was staring
at me.

“
It doesn’t matter much
where you go, everyone has problems of some sort,” she said. “The
difference isn’t whether you have problems; it’s how you choose to
confront them.”

I was struck by the stark logic in what she
said.

“
You know, you’re pretty
wise for someone living out in the middle of nowhere.”

“
Nah, that’s just
something my dad has said since I was a little girl,” she said,
rubbing her arms against the chill in the air. “I suppose it stuck
over the years. That and I’ve learned over time that it’s actually
true.”

I considered what she had said as I politely
guided her toward the diner’s entrance and held the door open for
her.

Everyone looked up at us as we entered, and
even the cook, Jim, had stepped out into the dining room to see
what had taken place.

“
You okay, Bel?” he
asked.

“
Fine, thanks,” she said.
“Kevin’s not usually so…physical…when we argue. Is it any wonder
he’s my ex?”

“
Who could blame you?” I
asked.

“
There’s a heavy storm
moving in from the northwest,” Jim said. “Hey, you’re the guy with
the moped, right?”

“
Jim, you
know
that he is,” Bel
said. “And his name is Caleb.”

Jim appeared slightly uncomfortable. “Well,
just didn’t want to seem too familiar. Anyway, you better get going
soon so you don’t get caught out in the really bad stuff before you
get back to your cabin.”

“
Thanks, I’ll do that,” I
said, pulling out a large bill from my wallet and handing it to
Bel. “Here, this should cover it.”