One Foot in the Grave (6 page)

He smiled wryly. “You can hear my heart pounding, can’t you? When I drank that blood in Ohio, I could hear yours. I could smell you on my hands.”

“You’re my friend.” My voice quavered a bit, because the rawness in his face alarmed and—on a baser level—aroused me. “But we
work
together. I can’t give you more than that.”

He blew out a sigh through his nose and nodded shortly. “I know you don’t feel the same way about me.
Yet
.”

That single word made me draw back and head toward the door. It was too loaded with meaning for me to stay another minute.

“Answer me one thing before you go. One thing, and tell me the truth. Have you ever been in love?”

This stumbled me and I sputtered my reply. “Tate, I—I don’t think this is something we should discuss—”

“Bullshit,” he cut me off. “I just laid myself open here. Answer the question.”

Perhaps I also thought he might not remember this conversation in the morning, or maybe it was just his honesty. Either way, I answered him with the truth.

“Once. Years ago, before I met you.”

Tate didn’t blink, and his eyes bored into mine. “Who was he? What happened?”

I turned away, because now I was going to lie. When I answered him, it was as I walked out the door.

“You know who he was. He was the vampire I’d been sleeping with who wrecked your car the day we met. So you also know what happened to him. I killed him.”

W
ORK HAD BEEN HECTIC.
I
N SOME WAYS
that was good. The frantic schedule over the last two weeks kept the awkwardness with Tate and me down to a minimum. It was hard to be gawky when your lives were constantly on the line.

Things with Noah weren’t rosy, either. Despite his best efforts, my frequent absences strained our already tenuous dating relationship. And lately he’d started to drop hints about wanting to “deepen” things between us. Not that I blamed him for trying—we’d been going out for over two months, but it wasn’t going to happen.

I already knew we wouldn’t work, no matter how great of a person Noah was. There were too many lies between us, all mine, of course, and the bottom line appeared to be that I still wasn’t ready to let go of my former doomed relationship. Hey, at least I’d tried. Now I had to let Noah down gently. I’d already told him I understood if my schedule was too difficult for him to
handle. Either Noah was stubborn or he wasn’t taking the hint. I had to start employing more concise methods, but I wasn’t about to just say,
We’re through!
and hang up on him. I liked Noah, and I hated the thought of hurting him.

Then on a Tuesday, abysmally early, my phone rang. I vaulted up to answer it, already looking for clothes and cursing whatever pulseless creature was causing trouble before eight in the morning, when I heard Denise’s voice.

“What’s wrong?” I asked immediately.

“Nothing! I’m sorry to call so early, but I couldn’t wait to tell you. Oh, Cat, I’m so happy. I’m getting married!”

I didn’t go through any of the “Are you sure? It’s so sudden!” objections with Denise. She’d only been dating her new boyfriend, Randy, for two weeks, but Denise wasn’t normally impulsive and she’d said that she knew she loved Randy and he felt the same way about her. Seeing the bowled-over look in her eyes, I knew anything I said about rushing, waiting, or caution would fall on deaf ears, anyway. Besides, she had enough to deal with. Denise’s parents refused to even meet Randy, since he was Catholic and they were Jewish. His parents weren’t wild about their extremely short courtship, either. Who said falling in love was easy? Certainly not me.

I was planning a little chat with her parents. For years I’d been trying to harness the power in my eyes. They weren’t as potent as a vampire’s, but I was going to give it my best shot. Denise deserved a happy wedding,
and I would do my damnedest to give it to her. What could go wrong? They couldn’t be more opposed to the wedding than they already were.

I insisted on buying the flowers, the photographer, and the cake. They were taking on the expense for the rest of it. Denise tried to decline, but I threatened her with my knives and my PMS. In my nonworking hours, we scrambled to pick out her dress, the bridesmaids’ dresses, the flowers, and the invitations. It wasn’t until four days before the wedding that I met Randy. To my selfish relief, he was moving into her house, not the other way around. Denise said he was an independent software consultant—a computer
genius
, she’d gushed—and therefore it was easier for him to relocate than her with her local nine to five job.

Denise enlisted me to help unpack, and when Randy pulled up in a U-Haul, I got my first look at him. He was five-ten with light brown hair, rimless glasses, and a slim athletic build. He was handsome in an easygoing way, but I liked his eyes the most. They lit up when he looked at her.

Randy held out a hand after kissing Denise hello. “You must be Cat. Denise can’t stop talking about you. Thank you for all of your help with the wedding.”

I ignored his hand and hugged him instead. “I’m so glad to finally meet you! And don’t worry about the help. I’ll probably never get married, so I’m living vicariously through her. Let’s get you unloaded. Denise has her final fitting tonight, and she can’t be late for it.”

Randy coughed. “Um, honey, didn’t you say we’d have enough help? There’s just the three of us.”

Denise laughed. “Don’t worry. Cat comes from a long line of farmers. Believe me, we could sit and watch, but that wouldn’t be polite.”

Randy looked doubtfully at me. Denise, true to her word, hadn’t told him a thing about my bloodline. He thought I just worked for the government.

Randy followed me to the back of the truck. “Are you sure about this? I’m meeting my friend tonight, one of the groomsmen, and he offered to help. I told him we didn’t need it because of what Denise said, but I could call him. You don’t want to strain yourself.”

“Randy, that’s sweet, but don’t worry. We’ll be done in no time.”

Half an hour later, Randy gaped at his furniture neatly arranged in Denise’s pretty two-story home. Sometimes being half dead didn’t all suck.

“Farmers?” he asked in disbelief, looking at me.

I smiled. “Farmers. Back five generations.”

“Right,” he said. Denise hid her giggle.

“Go shower,” I urged her. “We have to leave.”

“Randy, what time will you be back tonight? Should Cat and I grab dinner?”

“Yeah. I’m meeting my friend, so I’ll be a while.”

I cleared my throat with mock menace. “Okay, I’m going!” she relented.

“Thank you for all of your help,” Randy said again. “Not just the moving today. Or the wedding. Denise told me how you’ve always been there for her. It’s rare to have a friend like that.”

He stared at me without pretense, and I knew why Denise felt a connection with him. There was something very direct in his gaze.

“You’re welcome.” I didn’t say more than that. Somehow, I didn’t need to.

“I’m ready,” Denise chirped several minutes later.

I gave Randy one last hug goodbye. “It was great to finally meet you.”

“Likewise. Take care of my girl.”

“Oh, she does,” Denise assured him. “She does.”

Four hours later, after Denise’s fitting and then an uninterrupted—for once!—dinner, I dropped her off at home and arrived back at my house. It was nearly one
A.M
. Almost an early night for me.

I froze as I got out of the car and felt a faint charge in the air outside. There were no unusual sounds, just the background noises of people in the surrounding houses, and I didn’t sense anyone. Still, I stretched my hands and felt the empty air of the driveway like it had form. There was the barest impression of inhuman energy, not strong enough for the source to still be there, but something had been. Maybe it was just some creature who’d passed by. It wouldn’t be the first time. Something about the residual aura didn’t feel threatening. Vampires or ghouls gave off a different vibe when they were hunting to kill.

Mentally I shrugged. If some evil dead thing had found me and had malicious intent, they would be waiting inside. To be safe, I entered cautiously, then checked all the rooms. Nothing.

I took a shower and climbed into bed. No monster was under it—I’d checked as a stupid precaution—but still, that odd feeling lingered. I could have sworn it felt like someone had been in my house. But that
was stupid. Jeez, I was getting as paranoid as Don.

I closed my eyes with finality, trying to shut out the memory of that old childhood bedtime prayer…
If I should die before I wake…

I slept with one of my knives under my bed, telling myself I wasn’t being paranoid. I was just being cautious.

Yeah, right. I didn’t believe it, either.

D
ENISE, IT’S ALMOST TIME.”

We were sequestered in our own private room of the country club to avoid running into the groom. The ceremony and reception would be held on site. Denise beamed at me as I adjusted her veil.

“I don’t know
what
you said to my parents. You must have drugged them, but I don’t care!”

In all innocence I hugged her. No need to tell her I
had
drugged them, with the essence of vampire hallucinogenic in their iced tea, then practiced mind control with my eyes. It had worked, to my astonishment. While they still were dismayed over the religious differences, they were here.

Felicity sauntered into the room. I didn’t like her, but she was Denise’s cousin and one of the bridesmaids, so pleasantness was required. While I’d been helping Denise get ready, she’d been scouting out the guests for any single males. The woman was perpetually in heat.

“That last groomsman finally showed up,” she remarked.

I sighed in relief. Now we wouldn’t have to delay the wedding.

“He’s yummy,” she continued. She thought anyone able-bodied with a dick was yummy, but I kept that to myself. “I only saw him from behind for a second, but what an ass.”

“Um, Felicity, could you get the flowers?” I suggested, rolling my eyes at Denise.

Denise grinned. “Good news, Felicity. He’s the one you’re paired with tonight. I’ve never met him, but Randy said he’s single.”

Denise had segregated the bridal party to a long rectangular table with every seat boy-girl-boy-girl. I thought it was a bit odd to have the bridal party segregated like that, but this was her show, not mine.

“Yummy,” Felicity purred again.

I pitied the man. She’d probably feel him up under the table before the toasts even began.

Randy’s brother Philip poked his head in. “Are you ready, Denise?”

She turned to me with barely contained excitement.

“Let’s go get me married!”

I smiled at Philip. “We’ll meet you in front.”

Denise eschewed the traditional wedding march for a lovely instrumental ballad. Instead of the ushers escorting each bridesmaid down the aisle, Randy and the groomsmen were waiting in front. The bridesmaids would walk down one at a time in pecking order. As the maid of honor, I was last before Denise. I fluffed
the train of her dress one final time before taking my place in the entranceway.

As I stepped into the room where the forty-five family and friends were gathered, I felt a wave of pure inhuman power.
Motherfucker, one of the guests was a vampire.
They’d better be planning on only eating cake, or I would have to get real frisky with the silverware. That would be a neat trick, slaughtering a guest at the reception without anyone noticing. My eyes swept the crowd from right to left, seeking out the source.

My mother sat next to Noah, whom Denise had invited before I could tell her that I was trying to break things off between us. Noah smiled at me as I walked down the narrow aisle. I smiled back and took inventory in a military manner.
Bride’s side of the room, clear. Groom’s side of the room, clear.
For some reason, it didn’t occur to me to look at the front where the wedding party stood. Even when I did, it took a second for recognition to register in my suddenly paralyzed mind.

His hair was different. Honey-brown instead of the platinum blond from my memory. It was also longer than before, curling over his ears instead of hugging his head like a sleek helmet. Pale skin glittered against the ebony fabric of his tuxedo, such a creamy breathtaking contrast. Eyes so deep brown they were nearly black bored into mine with none of the shock I felt.

Objects in motion stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. I proved Newton’s Law of Inertia, because even though my breath caught and my heart skipped a beat, I somehow managed to keep walking down the aisle.

Bones’s gaze devoured mine. Inside me a completely unfamiliar sensation exploded, taking my lagging mind a second to diagnose it.
Joy
. Pure, unadulterated joy flooded me. I was actually about to spring forward and hurtle myself in his arms, when I stopped myself.

What was Bones doing here? And
why
didn’t he look surprised to see me?

That froze me from any craziness, like flinging myself at him as I’d been tempted to do. If Bones wasn’t surprised to see me, then he knew I’d be here. But
how
did he know that? And the most important questions—
How did he find me? What did he want?

Now wasn’t the time to find out. This was Denise’s wedding. I wouldn’t ruin it by causing a scene.
Thank God and all his saints
, I thought,
that my mother isn’t looking closely at the groomsmen.
She’d have no hesitation about ruining Denise’s day in a spectacular way. Whatever Bones had in mind, I’d deal with him after the wedding.

Or I’d pass out. Whichever came first.

Without further drama, I took my place by Felicity. She leaned over and hissed in my ear as Denise began her walk down the aisle.

“Don’t even think about the hottie; I call dibs.”

“Shut up,” I replied, too low for the guests to overhear. My palms were sweating and my knees felt like jelly. How was I ever going to make it through this wedding? Bones’s nearness was unbelievable. For four and a half years I had dreamed about him, and now I could reach out and touch him. It didn’t even seem real.

Randy took Denise from her father’s arm, and they
held hands. The appointed justice began the modified version of the wedding vows sans religious references. Bones turned and faced the man when the rest of the groomsmen did.

The ceremony was a blur. I had to be nudged by Felicity to accept Denise’s bouquet when it was time for the ring exchange. When the justice finally pronounced them man and wife, I was relieved. How terrible of me. This was my best friend’s wedding, and all I wanted was for it to be over so I could have a moment to pull myself together.

Denise and Randy ascended back up the aisle, and I nearly ran when it was my turn to follow them. Philip tried to restrain me to a sedate walk, but I yanked on his arm to speed him up.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I lied in desperation. What I had to do was take a moment alone to recover my blasted equilibrium. “Tell Noah not to wait for me; I’ll go straight to do the pictures afterward.”

As soon as we left the sanctuary, I bolted for the ladies’ room, my flower bouquet forgotten on the ground where I’d dropped it.

The bathroom was on the other side of the club. Once inside, I sank to the floor by the sink. Oh God, oh God, seeing him made every emotion I’d tried to forget come roaring back with pitiless intensity. I had to get control of myself. Fast. My head fell onto my bent knees.

“
Hallo, Kitten
.”

I was so preoccupied with my breakdown that I didn’t hear Bones come in. His voice was as smooth as I’d remembered, that English accent just as enticing. I snapped my head up, and in the midst of my carefully
constructed life crashing around me, found the most absurd thing to worry about.

“God, Bones, this is the ladies’ room! What if someone sees?”

He laughed, a low, seductive ripple of the air. Noah had kissed me with less effect.

“Still a prude? Don’t fret—I locked the door behind me.”

If that was supposed to ease my tension, it had the opposite result. I sprang to my feet, but there was nowhere to run. He blocked the only exit.

“Look at you, luv. Can’t say I prefer the brown hair, but as for the rest of you…you’re luscious.”

Bones traced the inside of his lower lip with his tongue as his eyes slid all over me. Their heat seemed to rub my skin. When he took a step closer, I flattened back against the wall.

“Stay where you are.”

He leaned nonchalantly against the countertop. “What are you all lathered about? Think I’m here to kill you?”

“No. If you were going to kill me, you wouldn’t have bothered with the altar ambush. You obviously know what name I’m going under, so you would have just gone for me one night when I came home.”

He whistled appreciatively. “That’s right, pet. You haven’t forgotten how I work. Do you know I was offered a contract on the mysterious Red Reaper at least three times before? One bloke had half-a-million bounty for your dead body.”

Well, not a surprise. After all, Lazarus had tried to
cash a check on my ass for the same reason. “What did you say, since you’ve just confirmed you’re not here for that?”

Bones straightened, and the bantering went out of him. “Oh, I said yes, of course. Then I hunted the sods down and played ball with their heads. The calls quit coming after that.”

I swallowed at the image he described. Knowing him, it was exactly what he’d done.

“So, then, why
are
you here?”

He smiled and came nearer, ignoring my previous order.

“Not happy to see me after all these years? Do you know why I wanted to catch you unawares? So I could see your eyes, and know what you felt in that very instant.”

Danger. Danger.
Less than a foot separated us. I’d never been able to resist him touching me, and I wasn’t about to test my willpower now. Frantically I tried to think of a way to distract him.

“Have you met my boyfriend?”

There. That was a doozy. His eyes narrowed, and his lips thinned into a tight line. Yep, Noah was a mood kill for both of us.

I pressed my advantage. Peril before passion; it was safer. “Just how did you weasel into Randy’s life to become a groomsman in this wedding, anyhow? Find out my best friend was marrying him? You must have mind-fucked him quick. They were only engaged a month.”

He pointed a finger near my face. “Your man Randy
I’ve known for six months. Long before Denise met him. Unusual bloke, don’t you agree? You know what his first words were to me, after we sat side by side for an hour in a bar? He said, ‘I hope this won’t be engraved on my headstone, but you haven’t breathed this whole time. Care to tell me how you do that?’”

I blinked. Denise had once said Randy thought outside the box. Way outside the box, it appeared. And I’d underestimated the size of his balls.

“He knows what you are?”

Bones nodded. “I gave him a peep of the eyes, you know, with the green lights on, and told him he hadn’t seen anything. He blinked at me the same way you just did and asked me if that was supposed to work.”

Now I was
really
impressed. Randy had a natural immunity to vampire power, even from someone as strong as Bones.

“Obviously that was unexpected. I struck up a conversation with him and we became chummy. It wasn’t until this week,
after
I’d accepted my position in his wedding, that he met me at a bar with your scent all over him. You’d helped him move furniture that day.”

I was relieved, yet at the same time hurt to think seeing Bones was only due to happenstance.

“So running into you is just a coincidence? You’ve, ah, gotten over what happened before?”

He locked his eyes with mine. “Wouldn’t you like to know? But I don’t believe I’m going to tell you. You can stew about it, like I’ve had to stew ever since I got your bloody Dear John note. I will tell you this, though—we have unfinished business between us. And we’re damn
sure going to sort it out no matter how much you’d rather avoid it.”

Oh
shit
. I’d left him with a note before because I knew I couldn’t face him and tell him goodbye. Now four years later, I still didn’t think I was strong enough.

“Cather—, er, Cristine! Are you in there?”

My mother knocked loudly on the door, and I sagged in relief. For once I was glad she was there.

Bones’s mouth twitched. “I think I’ll just pay my respects to your mum, Kitten. Been a while.”

“Don’t you—!”

The threat I’d been about to utter died on my lips as he opened the door. She looked at him in bewilderment for a second before recognition dawned. Then her face went purple.

“
You! You!
”

“Lovely to see you again, Justina,” Bones said devilishly. “You look very fetching in that shade.”

“You filthy
animal
!” she raged. “Every night I prayed that you were dead and rotting in hell!”

“Mother!” I said curtly. Absence hadn’t made her heart grow fonder.

Bones shrugged. “You should have spoken up a bit. The Almighty must not have heard you.”

I pointed a finger at the door. “Bones, whatever you want to say to me can wait until this wedding is over. That’s my friend and yours out there, waiting for us to get pictures with them, and that’s what we’re going to do. Mother, you make one fucking peep to trash Denise’s wedding, and I swear to God I’ll let him bite you.”

“Happy to oblige, Kitten,” he assured me.

I jerked my head at the door again. “Out!”

“Ladies.” He nodded and sauntered off.

I watched him leave before going to the sink and splashing water onto my face. After all, I had to look pretty for the pictures.