Praise for the novels
of Maggie Shayne

“Maggie Shayne is better than chocolate.

She satisfies every wicked craving.”

—New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Forster

“Maggie Shayne demonstrates an absolutely superb

touch, blending fantasy and romance into an outstanding

reading experience.”

—RT Book Reviews on Embrace the Twilight

“Maggie Shayne delivers sheer delight, and fans new and

old of her vampire series can rejoice.”

—RT Book Reviews on Twilight Hunger

“Maggie Shayne delivers romance with sweeping intensity

and bewitching passion.”

—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

“Shayne’s gift has made her one of the preeminent voices

in paranormal romance today!”

—RT Book Reviews

About the Author

Multiple New York Times bestseller MAGGIE SHAYNE is one of the hottest authors currently writing paranormal romance.

Her works are fresh and sexy, carrying the reader into a darkly compelling and fully realised world where vampires are creatures of the heart, not just the night.

Also available from Maggie Shayne

DEMON’S KISS

LOVER’S BITE

ANGEL’S PAIN

NIGHT’S EDGE

(with Charlaine Harris and Barbara Hambly)

TWILIGHT HUNGER

EDGE OF TWILIGHT

Blue
Twilight

Maggie
Shayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

To all of you fans of WINGS IN THE NIGHT who’ve been

following this series since the first “Twilight” book in 1993.

And to all of you more recent readers we’ve picked up along

the way, who’ve gone above and beyond in your journey to

collect the entire series. And to all you brand new readers who

are just discovering this collection for the very first time.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I truly hope you

enjoy the ride as much as I have.

Maggie Shayne

Prologue

The woman cowered on the brown velvet chaise in his parlor, her eyes wide with fear. Blue eyes. Flaming red hair. He would have preferred a blonde with eyes as black as coal—that stunning contrast in a female’s coloring never failed to stir his passion. Or his memory. But so long as they were in the parlor, in view of the portrait, any female would do. It had to be the parlor. He always took his victims there.

Fieldner had brought him a lovely morsel tonight. She was, perhaps, close to her thirtieth year of mortal life. Though she was lean and tall, and he preferred them petite, she was trembling in a way that aroused him. Her pale-skinned face was finely made, her lips bit on the thin side, nose a hint too straight, but the cheekbones were high and prominent. He loved good cheekbones in a woman. Yes, his drone had done well this day. The fear in the woman’s eyes, though, that would have to go.

It would be no trouble, he thought as he moved toward her, mustering a smile and hoping he appeared attractive to her. Women held less fear of attractive men. Foolish, of course, but true. It was difficult not being able to look into a mirror to judge his appearance and its impact on a woman. He knew his hair was long and dark, and that his eyes were deeply set and brown. But it was difficult to remember the precise structure of his own face, or to guess how much he could smile without revealing the unnatural length and razor sharpness of his incisors.

Even if he were frightening to behold, however, he could ease the fear from her mind. He held an entire town in his thrall—day and night. Asleep or awake. One frightened woman was hardly a challenge.

“You have nothing to fear,” he told her, moving slowly closer, infusing his words with power even while keeping his voice soft. “This is nothing more than a dream. A fantasy. Nothing can harm you here.”

Her wide eyes flickered. She drew a stuttering breath.

“Look into my eyes, lovely one. Hear my words. Feel them. You are not afraid. You are safe, and warm, and completely relaxed.”

He watched as some of the tension left her body. Her eyes were no longer wide but becoming heavy-lidded. He moved a little closer, reached out and touched her cheek. “Your mind is completely at ease now. You’ve relinquished all control, all responsibility—released it to me. You know only what I tell you. You feel only what I make you feel. You want only what I tell you that you want.”

Her eyes fell closed; a slow, deep sigh whispered from her lips. The tension eased from her shoulders. That was much, much better.

“Right now, what you want, my precious, is me. My touch. My caress. You want it more than you want to live. More than you’ve ever wanted anything. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, rubbing her cheek against his hand.

“You will know the most exquisite pleasure you have ever known this night. Perhaps for another night, as well, or maybe several more. Do you want that?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Very good.” To reward her, he let his hand drift across her cheek, over her jaw and neck, and down to brush across her breast. She shivered in reaction, and he smiled. It would be good for her. He would make sure it was good for her. He would plumb her mind, find her deepest fantasies and fulfill them all. And she would remember nothing when it was over. She would be returned to her home with no harm done to her. And he would be sated. At least for a little while.

She rose to her feet and unbuttoned the dress she wore, then slid it from her shoulders and let it lie on the floor. He watched her as she removed her bra and panties without a hint of inhibition, and he was careful to keep his attention on her body, not her face. The only face he wanted to see was above and behind her, gazing down at him with love in her eyes.

He drew the woman to him, touched and caressed her, using his mind as much as his hands to make her feel sensations everywhere at once. And he probed inside her mind to hear every desire. When she wished he would touch her breasts he did so, caressing until she wanted more, then tugging the responsive nipples, pinching and rolling them between his fingers. When she wanted his mouth, he kissed her, then eased her backward onto the chaise. When she parted her legs to him, he moved his hand between them, every touch infused with his power. He could make her climax without even touching her, but he preferred it this way.

When she was twisting and writhing against him, he lay atop her. He hadn’t undressed. He didn’t need to. She would feel him penetrating her even though he had no intention of doing so. She would experience him deep inside her, and he would take the satisfaction he so needed in his own manner.

From her throat.

“Call me ‘My Prince,’” he instructed.

“Yes, you are my prince.”

He tipped her head back, gently moved her hair away from her neck. She was moving now, her hips rocking to take him, even though he wasn’t there. Humping air and a fantasy he’d implanted in her mind. “Say it in my tongue, pretty one. Say ‘print meu.’”

She repeated the phrase, even as he gathered her upper body, lifting her slightly, so that he could keep his gaze on the portrait above. And then he lowered his head, pressed his mouth to the tender skin of her neck. She whimpered and clutched the back of his head, straining to reach her peak. But he wouldn’t allow that, not until he was ready. “Tell me to take you. To drink you into me.”

“Yes, print meu. Take me. Drink me. I need you to. You must!”

“Then I shall.” He parted his lips, closed his teeth over her throat and pierced her jugular, his eyes riveted to the ebony eyes of the portrait as the elixir, the stuff of life, flowed into him. He drank, and as he did, the woman shrieked and shuddered as the orgasm rocked her body.

Still staring at the portrait, he lifted his head, sated. The woman reached for him, but at a wave of his hand, she relaxed back against the cushions, her eyes falling closed. He curled up on the chaise and wrapped her in his arms, holding her gently against his chest. Gazing up at the portrait, he whispered, “Can you feel my love, where you are? I hope you can, my heart. It was you, you know that. It was you. They all are.”

1

White Plains, New York

“He’ll be here,” Maxine Stuart said as she smoothed packing tape over the flaps of a cardboard box. “There’s no way he’ll let me leave without coming to say goodbye. He’s nuts about me.”

Stormy leaned over the box with her black marker and scrawled Kitchen Stuff across the top. Then she capped the pen and put it back into her pocket. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s the last of it.” She picked up the box and started for the door.

Max snatched it from her hands. “I told you, no heavy lifting.”

“Knock it off, Max. The doctors say I’m fine.”

Subconsciously, perhaps, Stormy ran a hand over her short hair. It had grown back by now, short, spiky, platinum blond and overly moussed, just as it had always been. Her hair covered the scar where the bullet had rocketed through her skull only a few months ago, plunging Stormy into a coma and nearly killing her. But though Max couldn’t see it, she was acutely aware that the scar remained. She would never forget how close she had come to losing her best friend. It shook her still, to remember.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Stormy said.

“Like what?”

“Like those coppery curls of yours are going to catch fire from the intensity. I really am fine.”

“You’d better be.” Max shook off the melodrama, knowing Stormy hated it. “Get the door, would you? My arms are breaking here.”

Stormy opened the door, and the two walked out of the cozy white Cape Cod, down the concrete front steps and around to the back of the bright yellow rental van that waited in the driveway. Its back doors were open. Max climbed aboard and crammed the final box into the one remaining spot, near the top of the pile. Her whole life, she thought, was in that van. Sighing, she jumped down and closed the doors.

“Excited?” Stormy asked.

“To be starting a whole new life, yeah. I am. Are you?”

“If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have agreed to come with you. Besides, what’s not to be excited about? We’re moving into a restored mansion, for crying out loud. Hanging up our shingle. Starting a new business.”

“Think it will succeed?”

“I think it will kick ass,” Stormy said. “What with those flyers we sent out with both our pics on them, full color, no less? They made us sound like the best detective agency since Sam Spade’s. And besides, we’re hot.”

“We are hot,” Max said.

Stormy pursed her lips. “You don’t look very excited, Maxie. You look as if your heart’s breaking.”

Max leaned back against the van and eyed the house where she’d grown up, its neatly trimmed hedges and freshly mown lawn. “I’m a little bummed we’re going to have to make two trips. I mean, if I trusted myself to drive this van with the car behind it, I’d use the tow bar that came with the thing. But I’m not that confident.”

“Uh-huh.” Stormy crossed her arms and tapped her foot, giving Max a look that said she knew perfectly well that was not what was bothering her.

Max nodded and gave in. “I really thought Lou would agree to go into business with us. I mean, you and I have two P.I. licenses and some pretty powerful contacts—”

“Even if they are mostly dead,” Stormy put in with a wink.

“But none of that adds up to a retired cop with twenty years under his belt.”

“I think there’s other stuff under his belt that interests you more.”

“Yeah, well, short of bashing him over the head and attacking him, I don’t think I’m going to get within a mile of his belt. Much less what’s under it.”

Stormy tipped her head to one side. The sun caught the rhinestone in her nostril and winked. She’d given up the eyebrow ring. During her coma they removed it and the hole had closed up. But to celebrate her recovery she’d added the nose stud. Personally, Max liked it better. It was petite and daring, just like Stormy.

“Are you telling me,” she asked Max in a tone of disbelief, “that during the whole time I was in the coma, and you two were up in Maine saving your sister from notorious vampire hunters and tracking down the bastard who shot me, that you never once—”

“Like you don’t think I’d have told you if we had?”

“You’d have rented a billboard,” Stormy said with a sigh. “So now you’re giving up?”

Max pursed her lips. “If I’m living in Maine and Lou insists on staying here in White Plains, I don’t see what choice I have.”

Stormy looked at her, a mix of pity and skepticism in her vivid sapphire eyes.

Slowly, Maxine straightened off the van, looked down toward the road and smiled. “I’m not beaten yet, though. Here he comes.” She nodded toward the oversize rustmobile that was pulling up to the curb, since there was no room in the driveway. The small square of blacktop held the rental van on one side and Stormy’s little red Miata on the other. Max’s green VW Bug was in the garage.

The noise level dropped to zero when Lou shut off his engine; then the heavy driver’s door swung open. Lou got out, and Max drank in the sight of him. God, he was something. Oh, he tried real hard, especially for her, she thought, to pull off the saggy, burned out ex-cop routine. With his loose-fitting suits and always crooked ties, and slow-talking, slow-walking ways, he tried to be the living proof that forty-four was over the hill. And way too old for a twenty-six-year-old. But she saw through the act. He wasn’t too old; he was just too damn wary. The only thing burned out about Lou Malone was his heart, though she didn’t know why. She’d always intended to fix it, whether he liked it or not. Now, she thought she was about to run out of time.

He came across the driveway to where she stood, glancing at the van, then at her. His eyes met hers, held them, and she thought she saw something sad in them before he covered it with a smile. Could he be sorry to see her go?

He broke eye contact and nodded hello to Stormy.

“Hey, Lou,” Stormy called. “We’d just about decided you weren’t coming to see us off.”

“Wouldn’t miss it. How are you feeling, Stormy?”

“Fine, except for being sick of everyone asking how I’m feeling.” She softened the words with a smile. “You?”

“Can’t complain.” He eyed the van, his glance tripping over Max’s tummy on the way. Good, she thought. It would have been a waste of good low-rise jeans and a cropped-short T-shirt if he hadn’t even noticed the bared section of skin in between.

He cleared his throat, nodded at the van. “Are you going to have to make a few trips with that thing, Max?”

“Nope. Everything that’s going is packed up and ready. Except my car, anyway. I’ll have to come back for that.”

“Everything?” He lifted his brows. “You couldn’t have fit furniture in there.”

“You’ve been to my sister’s house, Lou. Morgan’s will left me everything, furniture included.”

“Still, seems like you’d want some of your own.”

“Most of the stuff in this house isn’t my own, anyway. It’s nearly all hand-me-downs from my parents.” She never qualified the word parents with the word adoptive, even though it was true. “Besides, what do I have here that would fit there? That place is … opulent.”

“Yeah, but it’s not you.”

She planted her hands on her hips and frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not opulent?”

He lifted his brows. “It wasn’t an insult, Maxie, just an observation. Morgan’s house is—hell, it’s Morgan. Dramatic, dark, rich. You should be in a place that’s … I don’t know. Cute, quirky, fun.”

“Sexy?”

He sent her a quelling look.

Maxie sent him back a wink. “That’s what you meant, and you know it. But don’t worry, Lou. Once I get settled in, I’m going to redecorate a suite of rooms just for me. I can’t exactly do the whole place, though. It’s not like Morgan’s really dead, after all.”

“No, I suppose not.” He lowered his head, shaking it slowly.

“What?” she asked.

“We talk so matter-of-factly about it. Like it’s nothing. And then every once in a while it hits me. Everything that happened. Everything we saw. Stuff I thought was nothing but superstition, turning out to be real. The fact that one of Mad Maxie Stuart’s conspiracy theories turned out to be dead on target.”

He said it with a teasing smile that made her want to lean up and kiss it right off his face. Instead, she only shrugged. “I wish you were coming with me.”

“Yeah, well, I told you, I didn’t retire from the force with the goal of going back to work fulltime.”

“Right. Instead you’re going to buy a fishing boat and spend your time lying around, smelling like bait and growing a beer belly.”

“Sounds like paradise, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, for a seventy-year-old in failing health, maybe. Not for you.”

He eyed her, maybe seeing a little beyond the words she said out loud, so she averted her eyes. She hadn’t meant to sound petulant or pouty. Childish was the last way she wanted him to think of her.

“I’ll visit, I promise.”

She shot her eyes back to his. “When?”

“When? Well … I don’t know.”

“How about now?”

“Now?”

“Today.”

“Maxie, sometimes I don’t even know how to follow your conversations.”

She rolled her eyes. “Hell, you’re going to make me admit it, aren’t you?”

He held up both hands, shaking his head, as if she’d lost him.

“I’m not sure I can drive that … thing.” She nodded toward the van. “It’s huge, and I can hardly see over the steering wheel. It steers like a truck, shifts like a tank, catches every breeze like a sailboat. It wobbles and rocks, and I can’t see behind me with those stupid mirrors.”

He looked again at the van, then at her. Stormy said, “I’m going back inside, make sure everything’s locked up, shut down, turned off, you know.”

“You drove it here from the rental place,” Lou said, as if he hadn’t even heard Stormy’s announcement. Stormy shook her head, sent Max a surreptitious thumbs-up and hurried back into the house.

“Of course I did,” Max admitted. “How do you think I know how hard it is to drive?”

“I think you’re trying to twist my arm to get me up there.”

“I can think of a lot of men whose arms wouldn’t require any twisting at all,” she said.

“Then have one of them drive you.”

“I don’t want one of them. I want you.” She let the double entendre hang there.

He pretended not to notice. It was damned infuriating. He responded to all her flirting that way, either pretending it sailed over his head—when she knew damn well it hadn’t by the flash of fire it sometimes evoked in his eyes—or by changing the subject. She was beginning to think he didn’t take her efforts at all seriously.

“I’m going fishing for the weekend,” he said. “Leaving from here, in fact. Got my bag all packed in the car, and a friend with a big boat waiting for me at the pier.”

“God forbid I interfere with that,” she said.

“You’ll do fine on your own, Maxie. You’re the most capable woman I know.”

She drew a breath, sighed. “Fine. Just fine. Will you at least hang around until I get the beast backed out of the driveway? You can pretend you’re a traffic cop again.”

“Aah, the good old days.” He looked toward the house. “You gonna wait for Stormy?”

“She’s driving her car up. And she knows the way.” She dug in her jeans pocket for the key, then climbed up into the van and cranked the engine. Through the windshield, she saw Stormy step out of the house and close the door. She sent her friend a secret smile. Stormy frowned, looking worried.

Max shifted the van into Reverse and looked in the side mirrors. She saw Lou standing in the road, making hand motions at her, probably to tell her to back out. She popped the clutch. The van bucked and then stalled.

She started it again, and this time backed up a little before the bucking and heaving began. She kept that up—start, stop, start, stop, jerk, cough, sputter, start—until a car came along the road and Lou changed his hands to a “stop” position. Then and only then did she back up smoothly and quickly, over the mailbox, aiming dead into the path of the oncoming car.

A horn blasted. Tires squealed. Stormy shrieked, and Lou shouted.

Max stalled the van again and got out, leaving it sitting there, with its ass-end poking out into the road. The car had skidded to a stop five feet short of the van, and the driver, a neighbor she recognized, got out, looking scared half to death.

“Sorry about that, Mr. Robbins,” Max called, sending the man a sheepish wave and walking behind the van. Lou and Stormy joined her there. She looked sadly at the crushed mailbox and shook her head. “Okay, this isn’t so bad,” she said. “I’ll just pull in and start over.” She looked ahead at the driveway, where Stormy’s car was parked. “Um, you might want to move that.”

Mr. Robbins was muttering, shaking his head and stomping back to his car. He got in, pulled a K-turn and drove away. Stormy went to move her car.

Lou said, “Didn’t you hear me tell you to stop?”

“I did. I just hit the wrong pedal. I’ll do better this time, promise.” She went to the driver’s door, reached up and put her foot on the step.

Lou’s hands closed around her waist, picked her up off the step and set her back down on the driveway. She had to forcibly resist the urge to moan in pleasure, because she loved his hands on her. Anywhere, anytime. She really hadn’t tried hard enough with him, she thought. Flirting was flirting. But men could be awfully bad at picking up hints. Maybe she should have set him down and told him flat out. She visualized it in her mind. Her looking him in the eyes and saying, “Lou, I want you. I want you in my life and in my bed and in every other way that matters. What do you say?”

He probably wouldn’t say anything, she thought. He would probably go speechless with shock. No, she really hadn’t tried hard enough. And now it was pretty much too late—unless her hastily devised plan worked the way she intended.

She just blinked up at Lou, her eyes wide with innocence and questions.

He sighed, lowered his head. “You win, Maxie. I’ll drive.”

Ye-e-es!

“Don’t be silly, Lou. You don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah. I do.”

“But your fishing trip …”

“Will wait for another time.”

She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him. Lou put his hands on her waist after a moment, though instead of pulling her closer he seemed more interested in keeping her hips a safe distance from his. She didn’t resist, because she needed to take things slowly and carefully this time. This was a second chance—she couldn’t blow it.

Demurely, she said, “Thank you, Lou.”

“I’m not staying, Max.”

God, how did he manage to see right through her like that?

He took her arms from around his neck, held her wrists in his hands as if to keep some distance between them and looked her squarely in the eye. “I’ll drive the van up there, help you unload, and then I’m coming right back. Understood?”

“Well of course it is.” She nodded toward his car. “You can leave your car in the garage. I’ll drive you back whenever you’re ready. Better bring that weekend bag you have packed, though.”

He blinked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. “Honey, I just told you, I’m not staying.”

“I know that. But hell, Lou, it’s an eight-hour drive. At the very least you’re gonna want a shower and a change of clothes before you head back.”

He watched her through narrow eyes. “I won’t need the bag,” he said. “I’m not staying.”

“All right, all right. Whatever you say.”

She walked up the driveway, hauling open the garage door. “Hey, if you’re driving, then we can use the tow bar and bring my car along, can’t we?” she called, as if she’d just had a brilliant idea.

He looked at her car. “There’s a tow bar?”

“Yeah, mounted underneath the van.”

He nodded, went back to the van, got in and moved it out of its precarious position, parking it safely along the shoulder of the road, on the opposite side of her driveway from where he’d parked his car. He left room behind the van for Maxie’s Bug. When he got out, he moved behind it to mess around with the tow bar.

Stormy came walking over to join Max in the garage. “He’s coming with us, isn’t he?” she asked.

Max smiled. “Well, he couldn’t very well let me drive, once he saw how likely I was to get killed on the way. Could he?”

“That was pretty risky, Max. Suppose Mr. Robbins had smashed into you?”

“He had plenty of room to stop. I’m not stupid.”

“No, no, you’re far from stupid,” Stormy said, shaking her head.

Max tossed her a set of keys. “Do me a favor and pull my car out of the garage and around behind the van, so Lou can hook it to the tow bar? “

“Sure.” Stormy got into Maxine’s car and pulled it carefully out of the garage, past her own and into the road. Then she pulled it along the shoulder, behind the van.

Max went out to where Lou’s car was parked and saw that the keys were still in the switch. She started it up and drove it into the now-empty spot in the garage. When she got out, she glanced into the back seat. There was a big satchel there, stuffed to bursting, along with a cooler of beer and plenty of fishing gear. She glanced outside.

Stormy and Lou were busy behind the van, hitching up Max’s car.

Licking her lips, Maxine reached into the back seat and snatched the satchel. She took it into the driveway and tucked it into Stormy’s car. “Quick and sly as a fox on a caffeine high,” she muttered. Then she went back to the garage to close it up. By the time she finished, Lou had her car ready to go. She waltzed out to the van and handed him his keys.

“Your Buick is in my garage, Lou. It’ll be safe and sound there until you get back.”

He looked at her suspiciously.

Stormy tapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t lose me. I’ll be right behind you guys, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Keep the cell phones turned on.”

“Will do,” Maxie said, wondering why Stormy seemed nervous about the trip. “Honey, are you worried about something?”

Stormy denied it a little too quickly. “I have the directions and everything, I’m just worried I’ll get lost. So don’t drive too fast.” She hurried to her car and started the engine. As far as Max could tell, she didn’t even notice the extra bag behind the passenger seat. Not that she would say anything if she did. Storm was on her side in this.

In everything. She was Max’s best friend—which was why Max knew her well enough to be worried about the drive. Storm was not herself, and hadn’t been, not since the coma.

Max reached for Lou, deciding to take advantage of another opportunity for physical contact. “Help me into this thing?” she asked, standing next to the passenger door.

He pursed his lips, but she didn’t care, because he put his hands on her again to do as she asked.

“I’m not staying, Maxie,” he said, one hand on the small of her back, the other bracing her forearm as she climbed into the truck.

“Quit saying that, Lou. I got it already.”

Lou walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in. Maxie fastened her seat belt, settled in for the long ride, and told herself she had the next eight hours to figure out how she was going to convince Lou to stay with her in Maine.

Failure was not an option she even bothered to consider.

2

Stormy drove along behind the yellow van and told herself everything was going to be fine. She visualized a bright future, she and Max with their own private investigations agency: SIS. Supernatural Investigations Services—because that would be their specialty. Max had assured her, though, that they wouldn’t turn down ordinary types of cases. The acronym “sis” was, Max said, as much in honor of her own newfound twin sister, Morgan, as it was in honor of her relationship with Stormy. The two were far more than best friends—always had been.

God, it would be just like the old days, just like when they’d been in their teens and snooping into things that didn’t concern them. They’d been kids then, amateurs, usually digging for proof of one or another of Max’s far-fetched conspiracy theories and most often finding none.

Until that day when the “research lab” in White Plains had burned to the ground. Max had always insisted there was something more going on in that place than met the eye. And that time, for once, she’d been right.

The building had housed the headquarters of the DPI—the Division of Paranormal Investigations—a super-secret government agency dedicated to the study and elimination of vampires. The repercussions of what Max had learned while snooping through the debris that night almost six years ago were still reverberating through their lives. She had found proof of the existence of vampires. It still rattled Storm’s brain when she tried to process everything that had happened since. But it had all been leading up to this. Max and Stormy, professional snoops now. Licensed professional snoops, specializing in things beyond what most considered “normal.”

But it wasn’t quite the same, was it? Back in the old days, there had been three of them. Stormy, Max and Jason. Gorgeous, chocolate-skinned, studious, conservative Jason Beck. He’d provided a counterbalance to Storm’s fearlessness and Maxie’s impulsiveness. But he’d moved away, never knowing what Max had found in the rubble that night. Hell, she hadn’t even told Stormy until a few months ago.

Stormy often wondered what might have happened if she hadn’t turned Jason down when he’d asked her out back in college. Or if he’d stayed, instead of moving away, going to law school. She missed Jason.

Jason.

Pain. A red-hot blade plunged deep into her head. White light blinded her, and noise—radio static like a thousand stations fighting for a frequency—exploded inside her mind.

She pressed a hand to her head and jammed both feet on the brake pedal, since she could no longer see the road.

Jason.

The light in her mind took form, and she saw his familiar profile in her inner vision. Harder, more angular than she remembered him. Older. Brown eyes, shaved head, drop-dead handsome as he’d always been.

Facing him, also in profile, was another man’s face. A chiseled face with full dark lips and deep brown luminescent eyes with paintbrush lashes and brows so full they nearly met. His hair was long, perfectly straight and raven-wing black. And he was as familiar to her as her own reflection in the mirror. And yet a total stranger.

Dragostea cea veche îti sopteste la ureche, a woman’s voice, strange and exotic, whispered. And though the words were in some language she didn’t know, Stormy realized that the voice she had heard was her own. Only … not.

It frightened her that she understood those words she had uttered. “Old love will not be forgotten,” she whispered.

The pain faded. The light dimmed. The noise went silent. She opened her eyes. Her car was sitting cockeyed on the shoulder of the road in a cloud of dust. A glimpse behind showed black skid marks on the pavement. A look ahead told her the van had pulled over, as well. Max and Lou were getting out, running toward her.

Stormy closed her eyes. Yes, things were different now. She was different now. Had been, ever since she’d come out of the coma.

She hadn’t stayed in that hospital bed the whole time. She’d left the hospital. She’d left her body. She’d gone somewhere … else.

And she couldn’t shake the feeling that when she’d come back, she hadn’t come alone. Something had hitched a ride. The owner of that voice that didn’t even speak her own language, perhaps. She didn’t live alone in her body anymore.

Max was tapping on the glass of the driver’s side window, and Stormy rolled it down. “I’m okay,” she said.

“What happened? Stormy, you just went out of control for no reason! What is it?”

“Nothing. Really, I.I fell asleep. That’s all.”

Max wasn’t buying it. She searched Stormy’s face, then paused, and her eyes widened. “Stormy, your eyes!”

“What? What about them?” Stormy reached for the rearview mirror and stared into it. An ebony-eyed stranger stared back at her. But even as she looked, the color changed from ebony back to their normal vivid blue. She quelled the full body shiver that moved through her and turned back to Max again, schooling her expression to a picture of calm. “There’s nothing wrong with my eyes, Max. Must have been the way the sun was hitting me,” she said.

Max squinted at her. “But …”

Lou put a hand on Maxine’s shoulder. “There’s a diner up ahead. Maybe we need to stop for a rest.”

“Good idea,” Max said. She nodded to Stormy. “Shove over. I’m driving.”

Stormy knew better than to argue. Max was worried. And she’d seen something. Hell, Stormy was surprised she’d been able to keep her strange symptoms to herself for as long as she had—keeping secrets from Mad Maxie was not easily done. She’d had a few episodes similar to this one: blacking out, seeing strange flashes, hearing incoherent murmurs. But never before had an image come clear, the way this one had, nor had any of the murmurs taken on the form of words, foreign or otherwise. Whatever it was, it was getting worse. But dammit, she couldn’t tell anyone about this, not even Maxie. Not until she knew what it was—what it meant.

She flipped down the visor, looked in the makeup mirror there, and was relieved to see her own eyes looking back at her.

Maxine was pulling her car into motion. “So you gonna tell me what’s up?”

“Honestly, Max, I don’t know. I was tired, and I guess I nodded off.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

Max thinned her lips. Time to change the subject. “Hey, Max, you remember those flyers we had made up, announcing the new business?”

“Sure do.”

“Did you send one to Jason Beck?”

Max frowned at her. “Yeah, I did. A business card, too. I sent them to everyone I could think of. Why?”

“I don’t know. I’ve just been thinking about him lately.”

“Yeah?”

Storm nodded, then pointed ahead. “There’s the diner. Lou’s pulling around back.”

“Probably more room to park that tank back there. We’ll pull around, too.” She drove Stormy’s car into the parking lot.

Subject successfully changed, Stormy thought slowly. She wanted to rub her head—it didn’t hurt, exactly, just felt tender. Sensitive, or something. But she didn’t dare. If she gave Max any sign she was in less-than-perfect health, Max would hover like a first-time mother.

“I really am starved,” she said. Max always saw an appetite as a sign of good health.

“Me, too.” Max pulled Stormy’s car to a stop next to the van.

“How’s the ride going?” Stormy asked. “Any progress with Lou?”

“Hell, no. He put the radio on some country music channel to limit opportunities for conversation.”

“You sure you don’t want to ride the rest of the way with me?” She tapped her CD collection. “I have Disturbed.”

“You are disturbed,” Max told her with a wink. Then she frowned as she looked at Stormy again. “Despite that, I think I will ride with you for a while. Give you a break from driving for the next couple of hours.”

“I was kidding, Max. You need to ride with Lou. Maybe he’ll hit a bump and you’ll wind up in his lap. You can’t miss an opportunity like that.”

“Hell, I’ll have plenty of opportunities once we get him installed in the mansion.”

“But I thought he wasn’t staying,” Stormy said.

“So does he,” Max replied. “But I stashed his bag in your car, just in case.”

Stormy looked behind her seat and saw the black leather satchel that she hadn’t put there or even noticed up until now. “How observant am I?” she asked. “Could have been a serial killer squatting back there for all I noticed.”

“No room for a whole serial killer,” Max observed.

“Hey!” Lou tapped on the roof of the little car. “You two getting out or what?”

Grinning, Max opened her door and got out of the car.

Stormy did, too, but her legs felt oddly weak and her muscles, shaky. As if she’d worked out to the point of muscle fatigue. Only she hadn’t.

When it had happened before, the weakness had soon passed. But it had never been this clear or this powerful before, nor had it ever left her this shaken. She’d asked her doctor about it after the first attack, but though he had run a battery of tests, nothing abnormal had shown up.

Whatever it was, Stormy was convinced it wasn’t physical. It didn’t feel physical. She couldn’t describe why, exactly, or what it did feel like.

They walked into the diner, Max watching her every move.

3

“Here they are, my lord.”

He stepped through the open doors into his parlor. It had been weeks since he’d fed. He’d learned to do without for long periods, and Fieldner had been whining that no woman had passed through Endover in all that time.

But tonight, tonight, he would feed his body and, more important, his soul with the memory of his beloved.

He looked at the female Fieldner had brought to him. Mocha skin, brown eyes, hair like mink that curled to her shoulders. Beautiful. She stood trembling and wide-eyed at his approach. “You needn’t be afraid,” he said, staring deeply into her eyes, working to ease her mind with the power of his own.

He frowned and moved closer, and when she backed away, he said two words. “Be still.” And he waved his hand to direct his power more fully.

She didn’t move again. Just stood there, still afraid. He could hear her heart fluttering as madly as the wings of a trapped dove.

No matter. He would calm her soon enough. He moved nearer, and when he was right in front of her, he touched her chin with one hand and studied her face.

Anger flooded him, though he was careful to keep his voice gentle. “How old are you, child?”

“S-s-seventeen.”

He lowered his hand and turned away from her, disappointment washing through him as his hunger stabbed more deeply. Free from the hold of his mind, the girl stumbled backward as if suddenly released from a powerful grip.

“A child?” His eyes sought out those of his servant. Fieldner stood in the shadows, cowering now. “You’ve brought me a child, Fieldner?”

The man cringed into himself but didn’t back away. “Seventeen is hardly a child. And I brought two of them, master.”

“Two?” He turned again, noticing the second girl. Caucasian, blond and apparently unconscious on the chaise. He moved to her side, bending over her, touching her, his long fingers sending messages to his keen mind. Then he shot another look at Fieldner. “You’ve drugged her?”

“B-both of us,” the other girl said.

He shot her a look, turned to face the girl again. “What is your name, child?”

“D-Delia. Delia Beck. She’s Janie.” Her lip trembled. “Is she going to be all right?”

“Yes, I promise you she’s fine. Don’t be afraid, Delia Beck. You have nothing to fear from me.” He took a moment to ease her mind, reaching out to it with his own until she relaxed visibly. “Sit there with your friend,” he told her. “While I deal with this.”

She went to the chaise and sat upon it, taking her friend’s hand in her own, speaking softly to her.

He walked across the room to Fieldner, who started babbling at his approach. “I—I had to drug them. I did! There are two of them, and they would have fought me. I didn’t want to have to hurt one of them. You got angry the last time I hurt one of them.”

“And what good did you think it would do to bring me tainted blood, you idiot?” He looked back at the girls.

The one called Delia was staring at him as if she couldn’t look away, her heart still racing, though she wasn’t as afraid as she had been. She was mesmerized and terrified all at once. The other one, Janie, moaned, shifting restlessly on the chaise.

“I cannot feed on tainted blood,” he said to Fieldner. “And I will not feed on children.”

“I’m sorry, master.”

“The damage is done. There’s nothing for it but to keep it from getting worse. They will be missed, surely.”

“No! They were traveling alone.”

That, at least, was a point in his favor. “Good. I’ll command them to forget and send them on their way. But I need sustenance, Fieldner. And I won’t take it from them.”

“The emergency stores, sir?”

“I don’t think so.”

Bowing his head, the drone—who was also the police chief of Endover—moved across the room to the hardwood bar, a modern contrivance but one he liked. Fieldner removed a velvet case and set it on top. Opening the lid, he extracted a beautiful cut-crystal wineglass and then a jeweled, razor-sharp dagger.

“I apologize for the girls, sir. But there is something else. Something you should know before I proceed.”

“You wouldn’t be trying to stall, would you, Fieldner?”

“No, master.” He held his wrist over the wineglass and, clasping the dagger in his other hand, laid the blade against his own skin. He would do as commanded. But his blood would be gamey. Male blood always was. And the blood of a man as weak-minded as Fieldner would lack spark and power.

The vampire sighed. “Go on, then. Tell me what it is I should know.”

“That one. The dark one,” the chief said with a nod of his head toward Delia. “She managed to make a call on her cell phone.”

He lifted his brows. “And how did she manage that?” he asked.

“Cowering in the back of my car. I didn’t realize what she was doing.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple swelling and receding like a wave. “Her brother is in town.”

The girl gasped. “Jason?”

Fieldner sent her a quelling look. “You shouldn’t ought to have made that phone call, girl. What happens to him now will be on your shoulders.”

The vampire felt her panic returning, and glanced again at the child. “No harm will befall your brother, Delia. Trust me.”

“But what about him?” she cried. She pointed a finger at Fieldner. “He kept us locked up in the bottom of some lighthouse for hours! It was dark and we—”

“Calm,” the vampire said. He drew the word out, aiming more power at the girl. Teenagers—God, but their minds were so much more difficult to control than those of adults. “Relax, child. Everything is fine.”

She gulped back a sob and sat on the chaise once more.

Turning to Fieldner again, he said, “Perhaps you’d better begin at the beginning.”

The other man nodded. “The two girls were passing through town. Stopped at the old visitor center. While they were looking for rest rooms, I pulled a couple of the plug wires, so their car wouldn’t start. Then I offered them a ride to the nearest diner, where they could wait for a tow truck to arrive. They trusted me.”

Of course they had, he thought. Fieldner was a policeman. He wore a uniform and drove a marked cruiser. Any woman would trust him.

“That was this morning. I couldn’t very well bring them out here then, so I locked them up in the lighthouse. But on the way there, that one caught on that something wasn’t right and called her brother. I don’t know how she even got through, with the reception being as bad as it is. There must be a hot spot on the highway somewhere.”

“And why didn’t you hear the phone call?”

“By then they were making a fuss, demanding I stop the car, let them out. I.I put on the radio to drown out the noise.”

Disgusted, the vampire rolled his eyes.

“So she told her brother where she was.”

Fieldner nodded. “He was in my office not an hour ago, asking if I had seen her.”

“Her car?”

“I’d already hidden it.”

The vampire nodded slowly. “That makes one smart move you’ve made this week,” he told Fieldner. “Where is he now?”

“He’s staying at the North Star. I think he suspects something.”

“Of course he suspects something, if he’s less than a complete moron.” The vampire heaved a deep sigh. Complications. God, how he hated them. He’d created an idyllic life for himself here, one where he was in complete control. Anytime unexpected complications crept in, they put his entire lifestyle at risk.

He would have to deal with this as quickly and cleanly as possible. “I’ll speak with these children, and then you may return them and their car. Leave them far from the shores of Endover. They will remember nothing, of course. This brother of hers will not find them here, and he’ll go on his way to discover them safe and sound.” He nodded at the man’s wrist. “Proceed.”

“There’s more.”

Closing his eyes slowly, the vampire sighed. “What more?”

“This,” Fieldner said. He took a paper from his pocket, unfolded it and handed it over.

He took it, skimming the glossy flyer, which advertised some sort of detective agency. But then he went as still as if he’d suddenly turned to stone. His eyes were riveted to the photographs of the women on the front. One of the women, to be more precise. It was impossible. Impossible.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked, and his voice was no more than a whisper.

“The resemblance is amazing, isn’t it, master? I thought the same.”

As he said it, the police chief looked up. So did the vampire. He looked up at the portrait of the woman with the delicate facial features of a porcelain doll and beautiful blond hair flowing over her shoulders. She wore a gown from an era long, long ago, and her wide, expressive eyes were as black as the night.

He kept looking from the face on the flyer to the face on the wall. “Tell me what you know of these two women,” he whispered.

“The girl’s brother—Jason Beck—he had this flyer in his wallet. It fell out when he took out his sister’s photo to show it to me. As to the women, I know only what’s on the flyer, sir. Their names are Maxine Stuart and Tempest Jones. They’re some kind of investigators for hire, who work, apparently, out of an office in Maine. When I asked who they were, Beck said they were old friends of his.”

Another good move on the chief’s part. One that might keep him alive a little bit longer, the vampire thought. He paced closer, removed the blade from the police chief’s hand and returned it to the case. “I’ll need you at full strength, Fieldner.”

“I await your command, my lord.”

He drew a deep breath, moving back to the girls. The second girl, Janie, was sitting up now, watching the men with unfocused eyes. She was confused and frightened.

“I’m afraid you two will have to be my guests for a short while.”

The blonde found both her voice and her courage. “Don’t put us back in that cell. Please. We haven’t done anything to you.”

He pursed his lips, shook his head. “No, no cells for you. My servant has treated you grievously, but I will make up for that. You are my guests, my cherished and honored guests. No harm will come to you in my care. You have my promise.”

They seemed to absorb the mental commands he was sending. Delia had already relaxed to a great degree, and Janie’s fear began to ease, as well. He leaned closer to Fieldner, spoke softly. “Take them up to the guest rooms. Lock them in.” Then he turned to the girls again. “My man here knows now that he was mistaken in his treatment of you. You have no more to fear from him, I promise. And if all goes well, you’ll be home with your families in a day. Two, at most.”

He nodded to Fieldner, again lowering his voice. “Photograph them, and then hurry back here, Fieldner. There is work to be done.”

4

Maxie couldn’t hide her excitement from Lou—he thought there wasn’t a hell of a lot she could hide from him—when she jumped out of Stormy’s car in the curving, white gravel driveway and stared at the beautiful house. He didn’t blame her. The place was a freaking dream house, a pristine white mansion resting on the rugged coast of Easton, Maine. She was racing up the white flagstone walk to the front door with its tall, oval stained-glass inset even as he parked the van. He smiled as she used her new key to let herself in.

Then he shut the van off and sent a look back at Stormy. She was fiddling with some things in the trunk of her car, obviously not as eager as Max was to rush inside. Preoccupied, perhaps. Maybe Max’s worry about her wasn’t as overblown as Lou wanted to think.

He climbed out of the van and joined Max in the house. She stood in the great room, taking it in. The chandelier in the domed ceiling above. The gleaming hardwood floors and the rugged, almost Norse-looking furniture. The way the stairs widened at the bottom so that they seemed to spill down from above, like a waterfall flowing into the room. She loved this place—it practically glowed from her eyes. Mostly, Lou thought, she loved it because it was her sister’s. It seemed filled with Morgan’s presence, her touches, even when she wasn’t here.

“Aren’t Morgan and Dante here to greet you?” Lou asked.

“No. They’re traveling. A delayed honeymoon, I guess.” She smiled up at him. That smile hit him in the solar plexus every time she flashed it, and this time was no different. “Besides, I think Morgan wanted to make sure I understood the place was really mine now. Give me time to settle in, get comfortable here. You know?”

He nodded, looking around. “So where’s the office going to be?”

“Oh, we already started setting up—took a drive up here last weekend. It’s the room Morgan used for her writing when she was here. I think it was originally a den.” She walked as she spoke, glancing over her shoulder once. “Stormy …?”

“She’s going through some stuff in her car,” he said. He saw the way Max’s eyes clouded with worry. “Was she okay the rest of the way here?”

“Seemed to be.”

“But you’re still worried.”

She sighed. “You think I’m being dumb.”

“I think it’s great the way you worry about her, Max. You’re the most loyal person I know.”

“Yeah?” She smiled again. “That’s sweet, coming from a guy who’s as miserly with compliments as you are.”

“Am I?”

“You’d think they were an endangered species.” She looked toward the door again. “Lou, something’s wrong with Stormy.”

He frowned, a little shiver tingling up the back of his neck. “She said she fell asleep.”

“She lied.” Max shook her head and paced back to the entryway to stare out at Stormy, who was still picking through the luggage in her trunk. “I think she’s been keeping something from me for a while now. Since the coma.”

“Any idea what it’s about?”

Max shook her head. “Back there, when she went off the road, I could have sworn for just a second that her eyes were jet-black.”

Lou frowned at her. “What color are they usually?”

“Blue,” she said. “You telling me you never noticed the color of Stormy’s eyes?”

“It’s not the kind of thing I notice. So shoot me.”

“You’re a cop. You notice everything.”

“Ex-cop,” he corrected.

Max flattened a palm over her eyes. “What color are mine?”

They were green, he thought. Huge, sparkling green eyes like a pair of emeralds in the sunlight. Aloud, he said, “I haven’t got a clue.”

She lowered her hand, looking partly hurt and partly skeptical.

“So you’re saying Storm’s eyes changed color?”

“It was more than just the color, Lou. It was like—like they weren’t even her eyes.” She rubbed her outer arms as if she were suddenly cold.

“You wanna know what I think?”

“Of course I do.”

He nodded. “Good, because I was going to tell you, anyway. I think you’re overly worried about her. And you’re overwhelmed with this move, the new business, the new house.”

“In a good way, though.”

“Doesn’t matter. Max, it was only a few months ago you found out your birth mother was a reformed prostitute and that you had a twin sister. You located Morgan, only to learn she was terminally ill and apparently being stalked—by a freakin’ vampire, of all things. Then you found out the vamp was the good guy, after damn near getting him killed.”

Max shrugged and averted her eyes. “So shoot me for thinking undead meant evil. It seemed like a logical assumption. Besides, it all worked out okay. He changed her. She won’t die now. Ever.”

“Still and all,” Lou said. “You’ve barely had time to digest all that. You’re suddenly unsure about everything you ever believed. What’s real and what’s not. The lines that used to be clear are all blurry in your mind.”

Max looked at him intently. “That’s pretty good.”

“I know it is. Don’t think I haven’t been going through a lot of the same stuff, Max. But here’s the thing. With all that fueling it, your imagination is bound to be stuck in high gear. Even more so than usual.” She sent him a smirk but he kept on talking. “So Stormy—after damn near dying on you a few months ago—goes off the road, scares the hell out of you, and you rush back there, your emotions heightened to the breaking point, and the sun hits her eyes in a certain way, and bam! There you have it.”

She tilted her head. Her copper-red curls brushed past her shoulder on one side, fell behind her neck on the other. He tried not to notice, and noticed, anyway. “You really think that’s all it is?” she asked.

“I really do.”

Max sighed, nodding slowly. “I suppose you could be right.”

He almost gaped in surprise, until she added, “But I doubt it.”

Yep, that was the reaction he’d expected. The two of them were so opposite it was predictable. “I suppose you have a theory of your own?”

“I’m working on one.”

“And I suppose it’s something flaky.”

“By flaky you mean …?”

“Paranormal. Supernatural. Otherworldly. Extra—”

“Yeah, something flaky.”

He sighed, disliking the way this conversation was going. Now that one of her far-fetched theories had been proved correct, there would be no talking her down from the next one. “I’m afraid to ask.”

“Then don’t. It’s still in development.” She shrugged, dropping the subject. “I’m really sorry I made you miss your fishing trip.”

“No you’re not.” Hell, he wasn’t, either. He would rather spend time with Max, far-fetched theories and outrageous flirting and all, than in a boat with a fishing pole. But he would be damned if he’d admit it. It would only encourage her.

“You’re right, I’m not.”

At least she was honest. For the most part, though he had no doubt she was even now plotting ways to get him to stay longer than he intended.

Stormy came in then, a suitcase in each hand. “Isn’t this the best place in the universe?” She dropped the cases inside the door. “Are the phones turned on yet? We’re supposed to call my parents when we arrive.”

“I haven’t checked,” Max said. Then the two of them headed across the great room and through the double doors off the right of it, into the office.

Lou watched them go. Watched Max, mostly. The girl was hell on wheels. If he thought for one minute her constant flirting was a sign of serious interest he would …

He would what? he asked himself. He wouldn’t do anything but brush her off as gently as possible and head for home. He liked Max too much to subject her to a relationship with him. He was hell on women, and he knew it. A miserable failure at that sort of thing. Every woman he’d dated in the past decade had dumped him in short order, most of them accusing him of being about as emotional and romantic as a dying trout. Then again, he hadn’t really tried with any of them. Hadn’t ever tried since his divorce.

He hadn’t wanted to. He still didn’t. And Max deserved better.

Sighing, Lou followed them into the office. It was pretty much as Morgan had left it, furnished in her elegant style. A computer was already set up on the antique mahogany desk. Stormy was replacing the telephone receiver on its hook when he came in. “Got a dial tone. Phones are up and running.” Then she frowned at the telephone’s base. “Hey, the message light is blinking. Think we got a customer already?”

“No way, not yet,” Max said. “We haven’t even unpacked.”

“Maybe all those flyers announcing our grand opening are already paying off.” Stormy hit the Play button and sank into a chair to listen. The voice that came from the answering machine was male, and her eyes widened a little when she heard it.

“Max, Storm, it’s Jason. Jason Beck. I know it’s been a long time, and now I’m only calling because I need your help. I feel like a jerk, but—look, something’s going on—I think my sister’s missing.”

Stormy shot Max a horrified look.

“There’s something wrong,” Jason’s voice went on. “She was on a trip with her best friend. Spring break, her senior year. I got this odd phone call. Really broken up—bad connection. But I know she’s in trouble. There’s just—there’s something off about this whole thing. I need you guys. So call me back. Uh, the cell phone won’t work out here, but I have a motel room. Call me, okay?” He gave the number. There was a distinct clicking sound as Jason hung up, and then another. The machine beeped to signal the end of the message.

“Jason Beck—hell, I remember him,” Lou said. “Third part of the gang of three, wasn’t he?”

Max nodded. “He moved away, went to law school. What time did he leave that message?” she asked Stormy.

Stormy looked at the machine. “At 7:10 p.m. Less than an hour ago.”

“Play it again,” Lou said.

“Lou?” Max must have seen something in his eyes, because she leaned closer to look into them. “What is it? What are you—”

“Just play it once more.”

Stormy hit the Play button, and they listened to their old friend’s worried voice. When the message ended, Lou said, “Did you hear that? That extra clicking sound?”

Max nodded. “What is it, Lou?”

“I can’t be sure, but it sure as hell sounded fishy to me.”

“Fishy how?”

“Fishy like someone was listening in.”

Stormy jumped out of her chair. “You think his phone is bugged?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Lou shrugged. “Or maybe it was just a glitch in the line.”

The vampire sat comfortably in the overstuffed chair in the cheap motel room’s darkest corner. Jason Beck, standing near the bed, hung up the telephone; then Fieldner hung up the extension on the other side of the room.

Jason turned to face him. His lip was split, but it had stopped bleeding. The eye, on the other hand, was already beginning to darken. It would be purple by morning. He was still angry with Fieldner for that. The man had become carried away when young Jason Beck decided to fight rather than comply. A foolish decision. Fieldner might look as if a stiff wind would blow him over, but occasional sips of vampiric blood made him strong. And utterly obedient.

It was a shame the man was also an imbecile.

“I did what you asked. I called them,” Beck said. “I want to see my sister now.”

“You left a message on an answering machine,” the vampire said slowly. “That’s not precisely what I told you to do, now is it?”

“They’ll call back. When they do, I’ll get them down here. I swear.”

“How can you be so certain they will come?”

“They will,” Beck said, lowering his head to stare at the photograph that lay on the bedside stand beside the telephone. “They’re my friends. They’ll come.”

“They’d better. And when they do, you would do well to follow my instructions to the letter. Do you understand, Mr. Beck?”

Jason met his eyes. “No. I don’t understand any of this. Who the hell are you? What do you want with Storm and Maxie? If you’re going to hurt them—”

“I’m not. Not that you could stop me if I were. You have one mission here, Beck, and that is to do as you’re told. So long as you obey, there will be no harm done—to the women or to your sister. Or to you.”

Jason’s eyes lowered beneath the vampire’s steady, penetrating gaze. He had a brilliant mind, this young man. His intelligence was great, his love for his sister even greater. But he had a deep affection for the two female detectives, as well. It could prove to be a problem if not properly controlled.

“Since you’ve acted in good faith,” the vampire said slowly, “I will take you to see your sister now.”

Stormy dialed the number, was connected to Jason’s room and waited. Then she slowly shook her head. “No answer.”

As she put the phone down, Max frowned at her, recalling their earlier conversation, right after she’d gone off the road. “You were thinking about Jason on the way here,” she said.

Stormy nodded. “Yeah. Odd, isn’t it?” She didn’t meet Max’s eyes.

“What was it, some kind of premonition?”

“Please,” Stormy said, loading the word with sarcasm. Then she turned the subject right back to the telephone call. “No answer, and no voice mail. Must be one nice hotel.”

“Motel,” Lou corrected. “He said motel, not hotel. It’s probably nothing fancy.”

“We should go there,” Stormy said, and now she did meet Max’s eyes, her own imploring.

Stormy did have a feeling about all this; Max was convinced of it. “Go where?” she asked. “We don’t even know where Jason is.”

“We could run some kind of trace on the call.” Stormy shot her gaze to Lou’s. “You still have friends on the force. You could do that, couldn’t you?”

Lou nodded. “Yeah, but there are easier ways. You got the phones here turned on, how about the Internet?”

“It’s ready to go,” Max said.

“We can do it online, then.”

Maxie moved behind the computer to make sure the cable was plugged in, while Lou took the chair in front of it.

His cop juices were flowing; Max could tell by the light in his eyes. He had a real passion for his work. And when he immersed himself in it, he forgot to play the worn-out, burned-out role he seemed determined to play for her benefit. The mask fell away, revealing him as he truly was. A man in his prime, with a sharp, determined mind and a keen sense of justice. This was the Lou Malone who turned her on like no one else ever had. She watched his long, powerful fingers move over the keyboard, licked her lips at the way his strong hand cupped the mouse.

Several keystrokes later, he looked up. “The call came from a town called Endover, in New Hampshire.”

Max held his eyes. “You’re gonna have to show me how you did that.”

“What, you weren’t paying attention?”

“Sure I was. Just not to the right things.” She winked at him and saw him squirm. It was his usual reaction to her flirting, and far from the one she wanted.

“We should go,” Stormy said softly.

Lou seemed to have trouble breaking the hold Max’s eyes had on his, but he finally did, and focused instead on Stormy. “Look, he said we should call him back. Let’s wait it out. He can tell us what he wants us to do when we get him on the phone.”

Max hid a secret smile at his use of the words “we” and “us.” He might think he was still planning to hightail it back to White Plains, but deep down, Max thought, he already knew better.

“Lou’s right,” she said. “Besides, it’ll give us time to unload the van.”

“How old would Delia be now?” Stormy asked. “What was she last time we saw her. Ten? Twelve?”

Max nodded. “She must be all grown up. Sixteen, seventeen by now. He did say she was in her senior year.”

“Hard to imagine,” Stormy said. “God, where did all the time go? He didn’t mention his older brother, did he? Mike?”

“Last I knew, Mike had a wife and kids and was living somewhere in California,” Max said. She put a hand on Stormy’s shoulder. “We’ll keep calling until we get him. Then we’ll take it from there, okay?”

Stormy closed her eyes, sighing deeply. “Okay, we’ll wait.”

5

He hadn’t left, Lou told himself a few hours later. He kept telling himself he was going to, right after the next little job, or the one after that. But he hadn’t left.

Of course he hadn’t left. He’d been fooling himself to think he was going to get out of this place if Maxie wanted to keep him here. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for her—and no, that had nothing to do with anything other than the fact that he liked her and seemed to have developed a soft spot for her, despite her being his polar opposite in every way.

She was also his biggest pain in the ass, and he personally thought she ought to be voted the girl most likely to get herself dead before her time. Which was a large part of the reason why, when she got into trouble, he tended to want to stick around and help her out of it.

So he’d said he would hang around to help her unload, and he did. And then she declared they needed to eat, so they ordered pizza from a place in town and ate it on the patio outside the office. It was nice. Three friends, munching pizza and ignoring the herd of elephants currently dancing in the parlor.

Stormy’s odd symptoms. Max’s worry for her. Max’s mad theories. Lou’s skepticism about them. Max’s constant flirting. Lou’s phony don’t-care attitude toward it. His lie about wanting to get home. Max’s lie about intending to let him go. And the fear for an old friend that hovered over all of them.

Yep. A herd of elephants.

But the patio was nice, white fieldstones smooth as glass, wicker furniture, glass-topped table, an umbrella for shade, white with a pattern of green ivy, like the cushions on the chairs. It was a warm evening. Sitting out there in the starlight, smelling the sea breeze, citronella torches ablaze, it felt just fine.

When it got too cool to remain, Lou decided to make coffee, which meant unpacking cups and things. And that task turned into unpacking nearly every box marked Kitchen. The three worked in synch and had the job done in under an hour. Max’s blender and toaster and coffeepot were on the counter—the pot half-full. All the dishes were put away except the cups they’d been drinking from. Those he stacked in the dishwasher.

He liked the kitchen here. Of the entire place, he thought he liked it best. It was clean, efficient, not overly fancy. And the pink-and-gray marble was perfect. Tiny squares of it covered the walls, and a huge chunk formed the surface of the island in the middle of the room. Now, that, he thought, was Max. Pink swirls. Soft on the surface, but tough as rock underneath.

Fortified with caffeine, kitchen unpacking all done, Lou next carried some boxes up the stairs to the bedrooms the girls would be using.

Maxie’s room—formerly Morgan’s—was huge, with an attached bathroom that included a sunken tub and a shower with multiple heads. It had a balcony with French doors, and filmy white curtains, and it was fully furnished.

He set Max’s boxes of clothes and toiletries in the bedroom and took a look around. The room was dark and dramatic. It wasn’t Maxie. But when he tossed her ladybug-patterned beanbag chair into a corner, he thought that she might transform it, given time.

“There are a half dozen other bedrooms, besides mine and Stormy’s,” Max said.

He turned to see her standing in the doorway. She moved into the room past him, scooped a box off the floor and set it on the huge bed. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I’ve been here before, too, you know.”

She nodded. She was pulling items out of the box now. Nightgowns. Underthings. She held each one up as if to inspect it before folding it and dropping it into the top drawer of the bureau beside the bed. “So which room do you want to use?”

“Max, hon, I told you, I’m not staying over.”

“Oh, come on, you don’t still mean to leave. If you did, you’d be gone by now. At this point, you’d have to drive all night.” The item she was holding up now was a sheer black teddy. He looked at it, then at her, and then he was imagining her wearing it, which was a stupid thing to think about. And yet he couldn’t shake the image from sneaking through his mind. The nightie was short, and her legs were long. He’d seen her in shorts in the summer, so he knew about her legs. Hell, she’d made sure he knew. Maxie seemed to live for teasing him, though most of the time he managed to believe she didn’t mean anything by it. She was young, probably thought it was safe to flirt with him. He was too much older than her to take her seriously, and too good a friend to be dangerous. She thought he was safe. Comfortable.

She ought to be right. He felt like a pig for the images of her prancing around in that skimpy teddy that were currently filling every corner of his mind.

“Lou?”

He shook himself, snapped out of it, looked at her again.

She smiled at him. “You like this one, huh?”

“What?”

“The teddy. You were kind of staring at it.”

He shook his head. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Sure you were.”

“I was lost in thought, that’s all.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

“You damn well should,” he muttered, turning away to leave the room.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing. Back on topic, kid. I can’t stay the night. Plain and simple. I’ll stay until you get hold of your friend Jason, just so I know what you’re up to, but then—”

“Will you be reasonable, already?”

He knew she was right. He was being utterly unreasonable. Why drive all night when there were vacant bedrooms for the taking and an open invitation?

Because he didn’t trust himself to spend the night under the same roof with Maxie, that was why. He searched his mind for a reasonable argument and latched on to the first one he found. “I didn’t bring anything with me,” he said.

There. She couldn’t very well argue with that. He kept walking along the hall toward the stairs.

She popped into the hallway behind him. “Yes, you did.”

Lou stopped and turned slowly to face her.

She was standing with one hand braced on the door frame of her bedroom, and she turned her green eyes up to their most innocent setting. “You were being stubborn. I was afraid you’d end up stranded here with none of your stuff, so … I tossed your overnight bag into Stormy’s car before we left White Plains.”

“You …?” He couldn’t even form a sentence, he was so stunned.

“You can use this room here,” she said, striding down the hall toward him and flinging open a door. “This is a nice room. One of my favorites. I think it’s the one Morgan’s godfather, David Sumner, used when he came out here to visit. It’s all earth tones, greens and browns. Very masculine.”

It was also, he realized, the room right beside her own.

She read that observation on his face and said, “Besides, you’ll be close to me. In case I need you.”

He stared at her. God, why wouldn’t she lay off him with this constant flirting and teasing? He was human. He was not a gelding. He was a red-blooded man, and he could only take so much. And it didn’t matter to his libido that she was his opposite in every imaginable way from personality to phase in life. She was just starting out, ready to take on the world and whip it into submission. He was ready to slow down, lie back, relax a little. She wanted marriage, long-term commitment—kids, for crying out loud. And she deserved those things. He wanted none of the above. Wasn’t capable of any of them even if he did want them.

“Maxie, maybe you and I need to sit down and have a talk.”

“It’s about time,” she said. “My room or yours?”

He opened his mouth, but before he got a word out, Stormy was calling to them from the bottom of the stairs. Max clenched her fist. “Curses, foiled again!” Then she started down the stairs. “What’s wrong, hon?”

“I’ve got Jason on the phone.”

Max glanced at Lou, and he got the distinct feeling he’d just had a narrow escape—he couldn’t be exactly sure what from. More of her teasing, more than likely. Sure as hell wouldn’t have been anything more. But damn, if he ever slipped up—lost the iron grip he held on his self-control.

Showed her I’m not a gelding after all …

He slammed the door on that kind of thinking. “On our way, Storm.”

He walked behind Max down the broad, curving staircase that belonged in lifestyles of the richer than he’d ever be, and tried not to notice the curve of Maxie’s butt in the tight little jeans she wore. Her butt was none of his business.

They hit the ground floor, and she practically ran into the office. He took his time, just to give himself a second. He had to shake off the entire past ten minutes, everything about Maxie, her cute ass, her sexy teddy and her big bedroom. All of it. Wipe it out. Zip. Done.

God, he was getting good at it.

The vampire watched and listened as Jason Beck made the phone call.

The young man’s reunion with his sister had been exactly what had been needed, he decided. He’d stood just inside the closed door of his mansion’s most opulent bedroom suite as Beck’s little sister rushed into her brother’s arms. The young man held her, then opened his arms to include the other girl. After a moment, he held them away from himself and looked them over. “Are you all right? Have you been hurt?”

“We’re okay,” Delia said. “But God, look at you. Look at your face. Jason, what happened? Did they—was it …?”

“It was an accident. Honestly, it’s fine.” He ran a hand over his injured face. Black eye. Split lip. Silently, the vampire cursed Fieldner for his overdeveloped violent streak.

Delia didn’t look convinced, but she wanted to be. She said, “We’re fine, too. This guy—he’s been … decent.”

“That other one wasn’t,” Janie muttered.

Beck looked at her sharply. “You mean the police chief? Fieldner? Did he hurt you?”

“No.” Delia put a hand on her brother’s arm and shot Janie a dirty look. “He was gruff and bossy, and he kept us in a—a cell of some kind for a while. But now that we’re here, we’re fine. Honestly, Jay. I don’t want you to worry. We’re okay. Besides, you’re here now. It’s over. We can go home with you.”

Jason licked his lips.

“Jay? We can go with you, can’t we? You did come here to take us home….”

Lowering his head, Beck said, “Not just yet. But it won’t be long.”

Delia’s face fell, until the vampire thought she would cry. Janie pouted, looking petulant. “What is it the bastard wants you to do?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Jason asked, giving nothing away.

Smart, the vampire thought. The boy didn’t want to upset the girls with any details. He only wanted to protect them and get them out of here safely. He was as intelligent as the vampire had taken him to be, then.

“He wants something,” Janie said. “He’s holding us to force you to do something or give him something. What is it? Money? Help with some legal problem? You are studying for the bar after all.”

Delia caught her breath. “I hadn’t thought of that. Jay, don’t do anything that would ruin your chances—your future—”

“It’s nothing like that. I promise you. I’m going to have you out of here in a day or two. I swear.” He looked back toward where the vampire stood. “He’s given me his word on that.”

“Indeed,” said the vampire. “And my word is my bond.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Jason promised. “You’ll be safe here until this is over.”

“Time is short. You have that phone call you’re expecting, Mr. Beck,” the vampire said.

Jason nodded, but Delia snapped her arms around his neck. “He is making you do something. I know he is. What is it, Jay?”

“It’ll be over soon.” He gently took her arms from his neck. “It’ll be done before you know it, and you’ll be home with me, hon. I promise. You’ve gotta trust me on this.”

She let him untangle her arms, but her tears were flowing. The vampire found himself actually touched by the obvious affection between the two, the heartbreak this separation was causing them. He felt it, of course. Every bit of it, every emotion, from the fear to the sadness to the stubborn determination on the part of the young man to do whatever it took to save his sister. Whatever it took.

He almost regretted having to put them through this.

And yet, he had to see the woman for himself. He had to know …

“Come, Jason,” he said. “We have to get you back to the mainland now.”

The young man obeyed, hating to, hating the vampire with everything in him. The only emotion stronger than his hatred was his love for his sister. The vampire was counting on that.

He took Jason back through the halls of his home and outside into the beauty of the night. But all the way along the paths of his island, he was acutely aware of the soft crying coming from that bedroom, the tearful sobs of those two young girls.

He could easily kill Fieldner for getting him into this. And yet now that he’d seen that face—he had no choice but to follow through.

Soon they were back in Beck’s motel room. And he was, at last, on the telephone with the girl-detectives, rather than their answering machine. Fieldner was listening on the other line, but the vampire had no patience for that. He crossed the room, held out a hand, his command unspoken but clearly understood. Fieldner handed him the receiver and backed away, stationing himself near the door without being told.

The vampire brought the telephone to his ear and closed his eyes in a mingling of hope and despair at the sound of the woman’s voice. It wasn’t the same.

“Jason, thank God. We’ve been trying to call you for hours.”

“I had to go out,” he replied. “Sorry about that.”

The vampire sighed. The voice was not the same, but that didn’t mean he could let this go. He looked at Jason Beck and sent his words directly into the young man’s mind, without ever parting his lips to speak them aloud.

You will tell them to come here. Immediately.

Jason Beck’s eyes widened as he stared at the vampire.

Do it! Need I remind you what will happen to your sister if you disobey?

Beck closed his eyes slowly, nodded to tell the vampire he understood, and turned his attention to the woman on the telephone.

By the time Lou joined them in the office, Stormy was hitting the speaker button and setting the receiver down. He found himself a chair and waited, listening to the conversation.

“Jay? I put you on speakerphone, hon, so we can all get the full scoop. Now, just be calm. We’re here for you. Tell us what the hell is going on.”

She listened. So did Lou. He came up out of his chair when Jason spoke, because he could have sworn there was a thickness to the other man’s voice. As if his throat were tight, the way it would be if he’d been crying.

“I don’t know exactly, Storm. But damn, it’s good to hear your voice.”

“Yours, too.” She sent Max a searching look. “Are you okay, Jason? You sound—”

“Fine. I’m …” He sniffed. “Is Max with you?”

“I’m here, Jay,” Maxie called. “And so is Lou. You remember Lou Malone?”

“Your cop?”

Lou shot Max a look. Since when had he been considered her cop?

“Jason, what’s happened to Delia?” Maxie asked quickly.

“I don’t know. That’s just it. She was on a trip with her best friend, Janie. Headed up the coast to celebrate spring break. Senior year, you know? Then I got this call from her. She sounded terrified, Storm. Said she was in trouble. We got cut off after that. And to be honest, the entire call was broken, full of static, I could barely hear her most of the time. But I’m sure she said the name of a town—Endover, New Hampshire.”

“And that’s where you are now?” Stormy asked.

“Yeah. It’s like a freakin’ ghost town here.”

“You’ve tried to call her back?” Max asked.

“That was the first thing I did. First through hundredth. No luck. It’s freaking weird, Max.” He sighed, a broken sound. “But I believe she’s here—I think they both are.”

“When did you get that phone call, Jay?”

“Earlier today,” he told her.

“And you haven’t heard from her since?”

There was the slightest delay before he said, “No. Not a word.”

Stormy looked up at Max. Lou saw that they’d both heard the hesitation. Jason had started to say something else, then thought better of it.

“I need you guys to come down here. Immediately.”

Stormy opened her mouth, but Lou spoke first.

“Have you called the police?”

“Hell, Lou, you know as well as I do they wouldn’t take this seriously. Not when she was out on a road trip with a friend. They’d think I was being overprotective, melodramatic, alarmist.”

“Are you sure you aren’t?” Lou asked.

Max sent him a furious scowl and mouthed “Knock it off.”

“It’s all right, Jason,” Stormy said. “Look, this is what we do for a living now. Right, Max?”

“Right,” Max said. “Jason, you’re in Endover now, correct? “

“Yeah. The motel where I’m staying is at the north edge of town on 1-A, on the right. The North Star Motor Lodge. You can’t miss it.”

“All right.”

Stormy had turned to the computer and was typing rapidly as Jason spoke. Lou looked at the monitor over her shoulder to see she had punched the information into an online map-making program. She hit Enter. About three seconds later the driving directions appeared, and she hit the print button. “Jay, it looks like it’s about four and a half hours from here. Allowing time for us to pack a bag or two, we can be there by 5:00 a.m.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Lou said. “Jason, these two have already driven close to eight hours today. And not without incident,” he said with a sharp look at Stormy and Max when he sensed they were about to object.

Max sighed. “He’s right. We shouldn’t be driving without a few hours’ sleep.”

She didn’t surprise him. He knew her concern for Stormy would be the one thing that would outweigh her rush to help out an old friend.

“How about we get a decent night’s sleep and leave first thing in the morning? We could still make it by noon.”

Lou hadn’t realized he’d said “we” until he felt Max’s eyes on him, and by then it was too late. Then Jason voiced the question he was already asking himself.

“What do you mean, ‘we’? Look, Lou, I don’t want the police involved in this.”

“I’m not the police. Not anymore. Retired a few months ago, kid. Any other reason you don’t want me in on this thing?”

The suspicion and the hint of inexplicable animosity in his tone were not entirely unintended. He couldn’t seem to keep them out, and he didn’t particularly want to. This guy on the phone was sending up so many red flags, Lou could hear them flapping in the breeze.

“Of course not,” Jason said. “The more help I have on this thing, the better. Noon tomorrow will be fine. Thank you, guys.”

“You’re welcome, Jason,” Maxie said.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Stormy added.

Jason hung up without a goodbye. Stormy reached to hit the disconnect button, but Lou held up a hand. Sure enough, the second click came, just as it had before. They both heard it, and he saw their eyes widen. Then he nodded, and Stormy hung up.

Stormy looked at Max, then at Lou. “Something is wrong with him.”

“His sister’s missing,” Max said. “It’s like he said, it’s amazing he can form a coherent sentence. You know how he adores her.” She snatched the pages off the printer and took a look at the driving directions.

“Seemed like more than that,” Lou said.

“Hell, Lou, you barely know him.”

“That makes me more objective. Besides, I’m a cop, remember? “

“Ex-cop,” she corrected.

“Once a cop, always a cop. And I’ll tell you, kid, after twenty years, you get to know when something’s off, and something about your friend Jason is definitely off. Way off. And then there are the monitored phone calls.”

“You can’t be sure that’s what that extra click was,” Max said.

He nodded, conceding that. “Can’t be sure it wasn’t, either.”

She shrugged. “I can be sure of one thing, though.”

“Yeah? What’s that, Nancy Drew?”

She met his eyes and smiled the most triumphant, smug little smile he’d ever seen her wear. “You’re planning to come with us.”

He couldn’t even argue with her. Instead, he sighed and lowered his head.

“I need more pizza,” Maxie said. She walked out of the office, a little bounce to her step on her way to the kitchen, where they’d left the extra slices in a box on the island.

Lou watched her go and tried to quell the little voice that told him it was a mistake to give in to her yet again. But there was an even bigger feeling, one that was far more important. It sat like a brick in the pit of his stomach, and it told him that something very bad was waiting for Mad Maxie Stuart in Endover.

6

Lou didn’t follow Max to the kitchen right away. He didn’t like the way Stormy looked: pale, shaky, shielding her eyes with a hand, as if the light of the computer monitor was too bright to bear.

Except for the kitchen, every other room in the place was cluttered with still-packed boxes and crates. Not this one, though. It was huge, fireplace on the far wall, French doors with the small patio just beyond, overlooking the rolling lawn all the way to the cliffs and the sea far below. It held two desks, though they’d all been gathered around one. The second one faced it from the opposite side of the fireplace. Its surface was still empty. No computer, no phone.

On the wall was a large oil painting of Max’s twin sister, Morgan, and her beloved Dante. She wore a scrap of gossamer with thin straps, and sat in a fur-covered chair with her legs folded beneath her. He stood behind her, hands on her shoulders. Lou got lost while staring at the portrait for just a moment. Morgan’s facial structure, her deep-set green eyes, coppery-red hair and her smile—so much like Maxie’s. And yet she was pale, had been even before the change. Skin like porcelain. Hair straight and sleek. A body so waif-thin he wondered if she actually cast a shadow. Not that she would be spending any time in the sun from now on. She was frail. A hothouse orchid. Max was a wild rose. Tough, thorny, strong.

“Hard to believe they’re twins, isn’t it? I can’t think of two women more different,” Stormy said, looking over his shoulder.

“I was thinking the same.” He dragged his gaze from the portrait to Stormy. “You all right?”

“I’ll be fine. I just … I hate waiting.”

“You’re exhausted. Why don’t you get some sleep? Give yourself a break.”

She nodded. “Yeah. I will.” She hit the keys that would shut down the computer, then slid out of her chair as the machine whirred and clicked and finally went dark. “So I take it you’re staying over?”

“Max isn’t giving me much choice.” He drew a breath, sighed deep and long. “My bag still in your car?”

“Nope. I brought it in.” She reached under the desk and hauled out the black satchel. “Are you mad?”

“Hell, what’s to be mad about? Even smuggling my bag couldn’t force me to stick around with you two if I didn’t want to.” He shook his head. “Max thinks she’s playing me, but I’m only here because I want to be.”

“She’d sure love to hear that.”

“No way. I’m not giving her any more ammo to fire at my head.”

“I’ve got news for you, Lou. It’s not your head she’s firing at.” She studied him, tilted her head to one side. “How do you feel about her, anyway?”

“How do I … feel about her?” He shrugged, averting his eyes. “I like her. I’ve always liked her.”

“As a friend?”

He shrugged. “More like a guardian.” Stormy’s eyebrows shot up so high he thought he must have shocked her, so he tried to explain. “I always feel as if she needs looking after, you know? She tends to just charge headlong, straight into trouble, without thinking first.”

“So you see yourself as her … protector.”

“That’s one way to put it. Sure.”

“Like a big brother,” Stormy said.

“More like an uncle. I’m too old to be her brother.”

Stormy put a hand on his shoulder. “Lou, she doesn’t want you to be her uncle. You do realize that, don’t you?”

He frowned at her. “Oh, come on. You’re not telling me you take all her teasing and flirting seriously, are you?”

“Don’t you?”

“Not on your life. She’s half my age.”

“Twenty-six is not half of forty-four.”

“Close enough.”

“That’s bullshit. What’s the real issue here, Lou?”

He met her eyes, then had to avert his because she was probing a little too deeply. “This is getting kind of personal, Stormy. If you don’t mind …”

“Nope. Don’t mind a bit. I’m going up to bed, but I’m setting my alarm. I want us to get an early start.” She picked up his bag and swung it into his chest. “And just in case you didn’t notice, Lou, there’s room in this office for another desk. Hell, that spot over there almost looks bare without one. Don’t you think?”

He looked where she was looking, at a large, vacant section of the room. “You’ll find something to put there.”

“Or someone. ‘Night, Lou.”

“Good night.”

She left. Lou didn’t waste a hell of a lot of time wondering where she got her crazy ideas. Instead, he wandered through the vast house, crossing the dramatic formal dining room, heading all the way to the kitchen in the rear of the mansion. Maxie was sitting on a stool at the pink marble island, scarfing down a slice of cold pizza. For a second he marveled that anyone could look as good as she did while chewing. And then he stared a little longer, mentally contrasting her with her wisp of a sister. Where Morgan was whisper-thin, Max was curvy. He didn’t often allow himself to think about her breasts, but they were nice ones. Full, rounded, bouncy. Her waist was little, and the curve of her hips just right. She had a round backside that filled out a pair of jeans in the nicest possible way. Her skin was pink, and her hair thick and riotously curly.

Her attitude matched her looks. She was feisty, impulsive, fun-loving, restless.

Stormy was right. Two women couldn’t be more different.

She turned and caught him looking, swallowed her latest mouthful and sent him a smile.

“I’m going to get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll check the locks before I go up, make sure the place is all buttoned up. Thought I’d say good night.”

She eyed the bag in his hand. “So you meant what you said to Jason on the phone? You’re sticking with us for this one?”

“Looks like.”

“I’m so glad.” She hooked her foot around the stool next to her own and pulled it out. “Sit. You want a piece?”

“No thanks, I’ve had enough pizza.”

“Who said I was talking about pizza?” She sent him her trademark smile, full of mischief and danger.

He sighed, nodded. “Fine. I’ll sit. I need to talk to you, anyway.”

“‘Bout what?” she asked.

He sighed as he lowered himself onto the stool. “The truth is, kid, I want to go with you to Endover. I like working with you, and I’m scared shitless to think what kind of trouble you might get yourself into without me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Your faith in me is overwhelming.”

He lowered his head, searching for the right words. “The thing is, while I like working with you and I want to watch out for you, I don’t like some of the things you do.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “You don’t?”

“No. Now, don’t go getting all hurt and wounded on me, hon, but—”

“Ooooh,” she said, drawing the sound out into a sexy purr. “I just love when you call me ‘hon.’” As she said it, she leaned closer, so her breath warmed his neck.

Lou shot to his feet, slammed his palms on the marble. “Goddammit, Max, that’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

She jumped and stared at him, wide-eyed.

“Look, this isn’t easy for me. It’s goddamn embarrassing, as a matter of fact, but I don’t know how to do this except to just come right out with it. I’m not a gelding, Maxie. I’m not a monk. When you play those games with me, I react, okay? My body—reacts. I’m a healthy, red-blooded man. I’m not too old to feel …” He let his words trail off, unable to finish the sentence.

“Lou?”

“I need you to stop, Max.”

She blinked at him.

He was sure he’d just fallen off whatever pedestal she’d placed him on. God, to confess to having sexual thoughts about her—sexual desire for her—it was mortifying. He wouldn’t blame her if she threw him out of here once she had time to digest his words, to understand what they implied. “I’m going to bed,” he told her. “I just … had to get that said.” He turned and walked away. “If you still want me to come with you in the morning, I will.”

“Lou?”

He stopped, but he didn’t turn to face her.

“You’ve got it all wrong, you know.”

“No, I don’t. Good night, Max.”

Maxie paced her bedroom most of the night. Hell, she’d been nuts about Lou since her first year of college, when she’d taken a self-defense class he’d taught. But she’d kept her flirting minimal back then. Since he’d come back into her life, she’d turned it up several notches.

But she hadn’t realized until now how her efforts were being received.

There was a tap on her door. She hurried to yank it open, half expecting to find Lou there, ready to admit defeat and sweep her into his arms for a passionate kiss.

Instead Stormy was standing on the other side, framed by an elaborately tooled, walnut-stained casing.

She took one long look at Max’s face and said, “Lou talked to you, didn’t he?”

“How did you know?”

“Told me he was going to. Then I heard you pacing. Slamming doors or drawers or whatever. Figured I’d better come in before you broke something.” She smiled, a teasing sort of almost-grin. “So what did he say?”

Max pursed her lips. “He claims to think I’ve just been teasing him, that I see him as harmless. A gelding. He actually used that word.”

Stormy sighed, crossing the room and hopping onto the foot of the giant four-poster bed, where she folded her legs underneath her and sank into the softness of high-piled mattresses and bedding. “So, did you set him straight?”

“I was just so stunned. I mean, he caught me off guard. I didn’t know what to say. Hell, I still don’t.” Max padded across the thick carpet to stand at the French doors, where she stared outside at the stars, twinkling from a velvet canopy of midnight-blue sky.

“Well, clearly you have to tell him you’ve never thought of him as a gelding. I mean, if he really believes that, it can’t be good for his ego.”

Max gnawed her lip for several seconds. “I know what I ought to do. I ought to put on that black teddy and march right into his bedroom and show him just how serious I am.”

She strode away from the gorgeous view, yanked open the top drawer of the dresser that took up fully half of one wall and pulled out the teddy. A crescent-shaped mirror framed in scrolled wood was mounted to the dresser, and she held the teddy to her chest and stared at her reflection.

“You sure that won’t send him running back to White Plains at the speed of sound, Max?”

Max frowned and licked her lips. “I can’t have him thinking what he’s thinking.”

Stormy slid off the bed, came behind her and put a firm hand on her shoulder. “I have my doubts he really believes any of that crap, anyway. Deep down, I mean.”

“Then why would he…?”

“Maybe it’s just easier that way,” Stormy said. “Telling you to stop teasing him is way easier than telling you to stop wanting him, don’t you think?”

Max turned slowly. “You think he knows I’m serious, and just … isn’t interested?”

“I know it’s a possibility you’ve never considered, hon, but don’t you think you have to?”

“But … but how could he not want me?” She blinked away the stupid, ridiculous moisture that had gathered in her eyes.

Stormy squeezed her shoulder. “Might not be about you. Might be about him.”

“Now you sound like a goddamn man.” Maxie crammed the teddy back into the drawer, then slammed it closed.

“Look, Max, you know the age difference bugs him.”

“That’s an excuse, not a reason. It’s only eighteen years.”

Stormy shrugged. “He’s been married before. Maybe he was burned so bad he’s sworn off women forever.”

Max paced the bedroom. “Okay, that could be a possibility. At least that’s within the realm of reason.”

Stormy nodded. “You know anything about the wife? What went wrong? “

Max shook her head. “He never talks about it. If I ask, he changes the subject.” “See? Doesn’t that sort of prove it was bad?” “Maybe it just proves he doesn’t want to talk about it. The question is, what am I supposed to do next?” Max stopped pacing, spun to face Stormy. “How can I overcome whatever it is that’s keeping him from even thinking about me as a—a love interest?”

Stormy blinked slowly. “Because giving up is not an option, right, Max? “

“Of course it’s not an option. Lou is mine.” Max paced across the room in one direction, then turned and started back again. “He’s meant for me. I’m certainly not going to let a little thing like his unwillingness to cooperate get in the way of that.” She stood still and smiled then. “Now that I think about it, he basically admitted to wanting me, too. He said I had to stop because he was a normal red-blooded man, and that his body reacts to my flirting.”

Stormy sighed. “I suppose he might really believe you aren’t serious about him, and that would make him feel guilty for having feelings for you.”

“Well, I’ll get that out of the way first and proceed from there.”

“Have you decided how you’re going to get it out of the way?”

Max eyed the dresser drawer. “I suppose the teddy’s out of the question?”

“I think if you show up in his bedroom wearing that teddy, he’ll be gone when we get up in the morning. The man’s gun-shy.”

Max sighed. “I suppose I could just tell him.”

“That might be best.”

The vampire’s mind was his most powerful tool. He knew that others of his kind shared many of the same abilities—to control the mind of another, to communicate without speaking, to hear private thoughts, to invade dreams, to enslave. But none, to his knowledge, had honed those skills to the degree he had.

The woman, for example.

She wasn’t even here, not yet. She was somewhere to the north, asleep in her bed. But he could reach her, even there. He would reach her…

He stared at the photograph on the glossy flyer. Stared into the eyes that were, he reminded himself, the wrong color. He probed and sought, and, eventually, he felt her. She was there, far away, but he could touch her.

He slipped inside her mind. She felt him there, stirred in her sleep.

Who are you? he whispered, and his mind searched hers for answers. Tell me who you are.

He didn’t expect the question to generate the violent response it did. He felt a struggle as she searched her mind for the correct reply. There was a tearing, a tug-of-war going on, as if for control.

I am—

No! I am—

Get out. Leave me alone, dammit!

Never!

Help me. God, Jesus, help me—what’s happening to me?

Tears. He heard and felt them. Racking her. Quaking through her.

Just let go. Let go and let me—

“Nooooooo!”

The shriek was so pain-filled, so desperate, he withdrew immediately, then sat very still, holding his head in his hands. Maybe he had made a terrible mistake in seeing to it the woman came to him here. She was not, he realized, entirely sane.

Lou felt like slime. He’d hurt Max’s feelings, he knew that. And he’d probably convinced her he was just like every other man she’d ever known in the process. He’d always loved that she saw him differently. That she trusted him when she didn’t trust many of the others. That she felt safe around him.

He hoped he hadn’t blown that.

He couldn’t sleep. He’d tried a cold shower, then a hot one. He’d stripped down to his shorts and T-shirt, and pulled on a robe over them just in case she came wandering in wanting to talk to him. Though he doubted she would. He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to make things okay between them again.

He was still pacing the floor when he heard the scream.

Max!

He flung his bedroom door open and ran to hers, whipped it open as well without knocking, and strode inside, ready to do battle.

Max wasn’t in her bed. The bathroom door was open, and a light shone and music wafted from within, so he lunged inside.

Maxine lay in the giant sunken tub that sat at the top of a dais in the room’s center, with three ceramic-tiled steps going up to it on each of the four sides. He’d come to a stop on the second step, his eyes riveted to the tub. It was full of steaming water. And Max was sound asleep inside. The water was clear. Not cloudy, no bubbles. She lay there, knees bent slightly and rocked over to one side. He couldn’t stop his eyes from drinking their fill. Her breasts, small, round, perfect, just beneath the water. Her smooth torso and soft belly, and the sleek curve of her hip and rounded buttocks.

The sight of her crawled into every crevice of his mind, burning her image there. He felt as if his muscles had turned molten. God, she was beautiful.

Then the scream came again, louder this time, jerking him out of his trancelike state. Not Max, his mind told him. Stormy.

Max’s eyes flew open at the sound, met his, widened.

He ran down the steps, snatched the robe that hung from the back of the door and tossed it in her direction. “It’s Stormy. Something’s wrong.” Then he turned and ran from the room and down the hall to Stormy’s.

Max sprinted down the hall, damn near slipping because of her wet feet. She tied the robe as she ran and burst into Stormy’s room to see Lou leaning over her bed, his hands on her shoulders.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” Max shouted.

Both Lou and Stormy looked at her. Stormy said, “Bad dream.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know. It didn’t make any sense.” She sat up in the bed, pushed her hands through her short blond hair. “There were all these voices, one asking me who I was. Another trying to answer for me. I felt like my head was going to split open.”

“Are you okay?” Max moved to the other side of the bed and stroked Stormy’s hair.

“I’m fine. But it hurt so much in the dream. And once it started, the splitting just kept going—tearing my body in half, splitting my head down the middle, and then my chest, my heart, my belly. I couldn’t stop it. It was so real, Max, this sense of being torn in half.”

Max frowned at her. “Are you in any pain now? Your head, is it …?”

“No, no pain. It was all part of the dream, I swear. I’m fine.”

Max took her hands. “I don’t think you’re being honest with me.”

Stormy’s eyes widened and met hers.

“Something’s different—since the coma. Something’s wrong, Storm, and it’s about time you come clean about it.”

Stormy shook her head slowly. “Never could fool you, could I?”

“So what is it?”

“I don’t know. I just know I don’t feel the same.”

“That’s not an answer,” Max said.

Stormy rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. “It’s the only one you’re getting tonight. I’ll be okay. Go back to bed.”

“Are you sure? I can sit with you if you—”

“Lou, make her go to bed, will you?” Stormy muttered, snuggling more deeply into her pillows.

She looked fine, Max had to admit. And it didn’t seem there was a damn thing she could do for her friend, anyway. She sent Lou a helpless look. He only shrugged, then leaned over to pull Stormy’s blanket up over her shoulder. “Call if you need us,” he said.

“I will.”

He nodded at Max, and they both left the room. In the hallway, she looked up at him. He licked his lips and averted his eyes. “I’m sorry about busting into your room. When I heard her scream, I thought—”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s really not.”

She reached out to him, closed her hand around one of his and then studied it as her thumb ran over his knuckles. “I gotta tell you, Lou, it does me a world of good to know you’d come on a dead run if I were to cry out in the night.”

“I know.”

She nodded. “I’m scared to death there’s something wrong with Stormy. Something big. Major, you know? And no matter what you say, I know I’m right about that. That’s topmost on my mind right now. You catching a glimpse of me in the bathtub is barely a blip on my radar compared to my worry about her.”

He nodded. “I think you’re overreacting.”

“So what’s new? You always think I’m overreacting.”

He sighed, lowering his head.

“Even so, Lou, the only thing keeping me from going off the deep end over this is having you here. Knowing you’ve got my back even if you don’t agree with me. You’ll hold me together if I start to fall apart. I trust you like no one else. I trust you with my life. And with Stormy’s. And I can’t even tell you how glad I am that you’re coming with us tomorrow. Because I’ve got a bad, bad feeling about all this.”

He turned his hand in hers and squeezed. “You, too, huh?”

She met his eyes. “Yeah. Why? Don’t you feel good about it, either? “

“I don’t know why, but my gut’s telling me we’re walking into the lion’s den.”

He sighed. “If I thought I had a snowball’s chance in hell of talking you out of going down there, I’d try. But I know you too well.”

She nodded.

He released her hand. “We should get some sleep. Get an early start.”

“Yeah. Just … one more thing first.”

He looked down at her. She swallowed hard and gathered up her courage—drew it straight up from her ovaries, she thought. “I never thought of you as a gelding, Lou. I don’t believe for one minute you’re too old to react to a little flirting.”

She watched his brows go up. He seemed to be searching for words, so she shook her head. “I’m not trying to put you on the spot for a response to any of that. I just—I thought you needed to know.”

With a firm nod, she turned and walked down the hall to her bedroom and just left him standing there.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.