The Purity of Blood: Volume I (75 page)

I reached over
and grabbed Daniel’s hand, but looked the other way to stare into the fire.

“I don’t have to
be able to read your mind to know what you’re thinking,” he said with a sadness
in his voice.

I didn’t
respond.

“It’s not the
answer, Sara.”

Did he know?
 
I hoped not.
 

Needing to see
the comfort in his eyes, I turned to face him as he leaned over and gently
began to stroke my hair.

“I know – not
now, but maybe someday.
 
I couldn’t do
that to my parents.”

Reaching over he
pulled me close, allowing me to lie back on his chest while I put my feet up on
the arm of the sofa so I could watch the fire.
 

“I hope never,”
he said softly.
 
“I like the sound of
your heartbeat.”
 

Then he kissed
the top of my head as he wrapped his arms securely around me.
 
Without feeling the need for words to express
what we were feeling, we watched the crackling fire casting its warm glow on
the now quiet room, and just felt each other’s comforting presence.

SARA

Through
the bustling holiday traffic on the normally
quiet streets of my home town, I pulled off of 25A and headed down Wading River
Manor Road towards my parent’s house.
 
Thanksgiving was tomorrow and the supermarket and farm stands were full
of scurrying shoppers, buying last minute supplies for their holiday dinners
and weekend festivities.
 

As I turned onto
Overlook Drive, I passed the Ventura’s house.
 
Denise was out front chasing her grandkids around the front yard, but
stopped to wave as I drove by.
 
It was
good to be home again in a place seemingly untouched by the presence of
vampires.
 

When I pulled up
the driveway I saw my brother’s black SUV in the driveway.
 
Roger, Lauri and the kids must have driven
pretty fast to beat me home, which probably meant the kids had driven him crazy
on the car ride down from Connecticut.
 

I parked behind
him, pulled my duffle and bags of dirty laundry out of the back and walked into
the house through the open garage.
 
As
soon as I walked in the door I felt my niece Victoria grab hold of my legs,
wrapping her little arms around me tightly almost knocking me to the floor.
 

“Aunt Sara, Aunt
Sara!” she yelled in her high pitched little voice.

Dropping my
bags, I reached down and picked her up.
 

“
Ugg
, you’re getting too big for this, kid” I said under the
weight of her six year old body.
 

My nephew Toby
came around the corner and sat down at the breakfast table while I heard the
voices of the rest of the family coming from the living room.

“Hey, Toby,” I said as I dropped my dirty clothes on top of
the washing machine and walked into the living room.
 
Besides a slight acknowledgement of my
presence, he was too busy with his video game to take much notice of me.

The rest of the day was spent
catching up.
 
My mother kept pestering me
with questions about school and what kind of people my friends were.
 
Dad didn’t say a whole lot, but only because
she wouldn’t let him get much of a word in edge wise.
  
He may have been silent, but I could feel
his eyes on me as if he was trying to glean unspoken words from my body
language.
 
He was a hard one to hide
secrets from and I think he knew I had one.

When my mother
finally headed off into the kitchen with Lauri to start preparations for
tomorrow’s dinner, Dad took the opportunity to get a little peace and
quiet.
 
Getting up, he started towards
the back door, but not before giving me a glance over his shoulder and a nod of
his head that not so subtly asked me to follow behind him.

“Sure is getting
cold,” he said pulling his jacket on as we walked off the deck.

“How are you
doing, Dad?” I asked.

“I’d be better
if you called your mother more often.
 
She drives me crazy when you don’t.”
 
His tone was casual.
 
He was in no
mood for an argument or a lecture.

“Sorry about
that.
 
I’ll call her a lot more when I
get back.
 
I promise.”

“Well, I’d
appreciate that,” he said in his usual calm demeanor.
  
“So, classes are going well?”

“Yes, I’m
getting all A’s as far as I know.”

“Good girl. –
Now, what about boys?”
 

I rolled my eyes
before I could stop myself.
 

“Now, don’t give
me that look.
 
I was a young man once … a
long time ago.
 
You’re too pretty for
there not to be boys involved.
 
What
about that Ben guy?”

“We’re just
friends, Dad.
 
I actually don’t even see
him that much anymore.”

“
Humm
, too bad.
 
He
sounded nice.”

“He is
nice.
 
Just not the right one.”

“I hear the
words coming out of your mouth, kiddo, but your eyes are telling me a different
story.
 
Okay, be all coy about it if it
makes you happy, but just know that I know there’s more going on than what
you’re telling me.
 
The only reason I’m
letting this go is because if you’re mother had any idea, well, let’s just say
I’d never hear the end of it.”
 

He smiled a
reluctant smile then turned and walked back into the house.
 

I loved him so much for so many reasons, only one of which
was that he loved and trusted me enough not to pry into the details of my
life.
 
He was like Ben in that respect.

I told everyone I was going to
bed early, but really it was just a pretense so I could call Daniel.
 
I’d left my parents, Roger and Lauri in the
living room playing cards.
  
They’d be at
it for hours and I knew I couldn’t concentrate on the game anyway.
 
All I could think about was hearing the sound
of Daniel’s voice.

“Hey,” Daniel
answered after the first ring.
 
“How was
your trip?”

“Not bad.
 
Lots of traffic until I got out of the city.”

“Well, that’s to
be expected.”

“So you never
told me what you and Randall were doing for Thanksgiving.”

“Nothing
special.
 
He actually went back to
Hopkinton this afternoon to see Lois, but we had our Thanksgiving dinner
early.
 
We had Turkey.”
    

“What?”

“Instead of
pig,” he laughed.

“I get it.
 
Funny.
 
Does it feel any different?”

“Not really, but
a little.
 
You can usually tell the difference
between fowl and bovine.”

“I just can’t
imagine. – So you’re all alone for the holiday until I get back?’

“Don’t worry
about me.
 
I’ll keep myself
occupied.”
 
Something about the way he
said that sounded mischievous, but I let it drop.

“I don’t worry
about you so much as I miss you.”

“I miss you too,
Red.
 
But you must be tired from you
drive.
 
Get some sleep and call me in the
morning.
 
I love you.”

“I love you
too.”

With the sound
of his voice still ringing in my ears, I hung up and drifted right off to
sleep.

Mom was up early working in the
kitchen with Lauri.
 
Figuring I should
probably do something useful, I attempted to assist them, but was told that two
was more than enough in the kitchen.
 
In
an attempt to keep busy I sorted my laundry and started a load of whites.
 

As the day
progressed the smell of turkey began to permeate every inch of the house, and
to keep my mind off food, I sat down and played a couple hands of cards with
Roger and Dad.
 
I won every hand as their
attention was mostly on a football game on the television behind me.
 
Organized sports.
 
No, I just didn’t get that one.
 

Frustrated by
their inattention, I eventually gave up and set the table for dinner.
 
It took a while as I had to dig out the
extension for the table which was in the back of a closet down in the
basement.
 
Tori attempted to help me, and
I pretended that she had which made her very happy.
 

As I followed her bouncing blonde curls up the stairs, I
wondered about her blood.
 
How pure was
she?
 
I prayed she’d never have to know
the dangers that lurked in the shadows searching for people like us.
 
I hoped she’d be able to maintain the
innocence I’d so recently lost for the rest of my life.

It was about three in the
afternoon and the ladies were putting the finishing touches on dinner when I
heard the front door bell ring.
 
With a
peculiar, almost alarmed look on his face, Dad quickly got up from his chair in
front of the game and stalked around the corner to see who it was.
  

“Sara, it’s for
you” I heard him yell in an odd almost hostile voice.

Puzzled as to
who it could be, I got up and carefully stepped over Toby who was sprawled out
on the floor in front of the television.
 
I walked around the corner only to see Daniel standing in the doorway
offering his hand to my father.
 
I froze
in the hallway as I watched Dad stare at it for a long awkward moment.
 
Then he finally raised his eyes to give
Daniel a look I’d never seen before.
 
I
wasn’t sure what it was, but it wasn’t friendly.
 
Under my father’s relentless glare, Daniel
began to look almost ashen even for a vampire.
 
Figuring it was time to rescue Daniel, I walked over to them.
 
Daniel’s gaze turned towards me.
 
He looked almost helpless standing in front
of the imposing figure of my father, and all I could do was offer him a
reassuring, if not a puzzled smile.
 

What was he doing here?
 

Hearing my
approach, Dad glanced my way.
 
When our
eyes met he suddenly seemed to rouse from his trance and finally, reluctantly
shook Daniel’s hand while shooting a look at me out of the corner of his
eye.
 
There was a question there.
 
I think the deep blush that overspread my cheeks
must have answered it for him.

Dad started
toward the kitchen but not before giving me a sly look over his shoulder and
yelling “Set another place at the table, Vivy.
 
Looks like we’ve got one more.
 
I’ll be back, I gotta make a call.”

“What are you
doing here?” I asked, unable to decide if this was a good thing.

“I thought I
would surprise you,” he answered with a relieved smile.
 
Just as he reached over to kiss me, my niece
came running around the corner and smacked into his legs.
      

“Who’s this?”
Daniel asked, going down on one knee to her height.

“This is my
niece, Victoria.”

“Hi, there,” she
said thrusting her hand forward.

“This is Daniel,
Tori.
 
He’s a …friend of mine from
school.”

Daniel reached
out and shook her hand while looking up at me as if to inquire about my use of
the word
friend
.

“He’s nice, I
like him,” Tori stated staring up at me.
 
Turning back to Daniel she said “Your hand feels funny.”
 
Then she ran off chasing after the cat.

I shook my head
and asked again. “What are you doing here?
 
I thought you were staying in New Paltz.”
 

“One more?”
 
My mother’s voice echoed from the
kitchen.
 
“Who on earth is …”
 

She stopped mid-sentence
as she came around the corner and caught sight of Daniel standing in the
hallway.
 
I watched in horror as her
hands shot up to check her hair and then smooth out her skirt only to realize
she still had her apron on.
 
She quickly
pulled it off and threw it in a corner before walking over to us.

“Well,
hello.
 
Who’s your friend, Sara?” she
asked sweetly.
 
I was mortified.
 
Sometimes I still forgot the effect Daniel
could have on an otherwise reasonably intelligent woman.
 

“This is Daniel
Simmons. He’s a friend of mine from school.
 
Daniel, this is my mother Vivian Donnelly.”

Daniel held out
his hand.
 
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs.
Donnelly.
 
Sara talks about you all the
time.
 
Now I can see where she gets her
good looks from.”
 

Was he schmoozing my mother?
 
Like he needed to.

My mother
blushed “Oh you, flattery will get you anywhere, I warn you.
 
It’s nice to meet you, Daniel.
 
We’ve never met any of Sara’s friends from
New Paltz before.”

“Daniel was
driving through town and stopped in to say hello,” I interjected before she
could ask why a friend of mine would drop in unannounced, on a holiday no less.

“Well, you
arrived just in time to eat.
 
I hope
you’re hungry!
 
You’re a strapping young
man so I’m sure you are.”

“Daniel doesn’t
really eat much, Mom.
 
He’s – on a pretty
restrictive diet.”

“Oh, I’m sure
I’ll find something delicious in that kitchen.”
 
He sniffed in its direction.
 
“Something sure smells good.
 
I
should probably be okay if I just stay away from meat.”

I shot him a
look of surprise, but before I could say anything my mother grabbed him by the
arm and dragged him into the kitchen.
 
Instantly Lauri hurried out the other side muttering something about not
having put any make up on yet today.
 
As
happy as I was to see Daniel, I could tell it was going to be a long and
arduous afternoon of dodging questions and avoiding truths.