Beauty Bites (9 page)

“But only for now.”

“For a whole bunch of nows, lover. In fact—why don’t you go get the bed warmed up? Synnove and I want a little girl time, but then I’ll be in to show you how much love happy-for-now can bring you.”

His lips curved, a small reflection of the giant smile that lit his eyes. We watched him glide off, our minds on all ten muscular acres of him warming up Twyla’s bed.

The door shut behind him.

I shook my head. “I have to say, Twyla, I don’t understand. You get a hunk like that, money and looks and brains, and loves you besides, and you don’t get a ring on his finger?”

Her smile disappeared. She sat. “What’s wrong with happily for now?”

“Nothing, if you’re not sure. But I’ve seen you two together. You click. That’s rare, and I’d think you’d grab onto it for as long as you could. Forever, if possible.”

She leveled me with a steady brown stare. “That decision is mine to make.”

I leaned over and touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry, hon. It’s your life. I only want you to be happy.”

“Thanks.” She set down her glass and smiled briefly. “We were talking about Holiday. You have to go back.”

“Go back? I can’t.”

“We need Holiday. He’s the best.”

“What part of ‘he said no’ are you missing, the
nicht
or the
nein
? I’m telling you, it’d be an exercise in futility. I might as well try to herd chickens or avoid chocolate over the holidays. Ric’s not the kind of guy who changes his mind.”

“Ric? You know him that well?” The implications were hot in her voice.

“No! Well yes, but not how you’re thinking.” I remembered his kiss and flushed. “Well, sort of how you’re thinking.”

“Progress!” Her delighted smile said she meant more than snaring Holiday for ad campaigns. “Synnove, you’ve got to go back. You owe me.”

“I
owed
you. I tried; it didn’t work. Favor done. Besides, what you’re asking is so much bigger than lending me a suit.”

“Problem is, Camille’s entered the picture. Shit got real. I need your help, and I need it all, everything you have to give. If you haven’t used every weapon in your arsenal, you haven’t tried hard enough.”

“All my
weapons
? What is this, an advertising jihad?” It echoed Holiday’s “you’ve got more arrows in your quiver,” which made me a little sharp. I winced, contrite. “Hon, I don’t want us to fight.” Though we were solid; we could fight passionately and still be okay after. Fighting with Ric Holiday would be like that, passionately hot but okay after—and passionately hot after
too… Crap. “I learned to sum up people quickly to get an accurate medical history. My doctor sense tells me Holiday’s made up his mind. We’ll find another advertising firm—”

“No. It’s
got
to be Holiday.”

So much for the olive branch. Exasperated, I said, “Why?”

Her cheekbones darkened. “He’s the best.”

The blush and the broken record. She did the same thing around Nikos’s aversion to sunlight, or his amazing strength. My psych rotation said she was resisting something. My intuition said it had to do with Holiday and Nikos being of the
vin rouge
persuasion. “I see. And that’s the only reason?”

She stared at the fire for a long while. A big snap, sparking red, broke her trance. As the logs resettled she sat forward. “I’d better be honest with you.”

At last. She was going to come clean about v-guys.

“If this gets out it might cause a panic, but you need to know—the Meiers Corners bank is under a consent decree.”

Not v-guys. But the tightness in her tone said she was honestly worried. I needed to listen up. “What’s a consent decree?”

“It’s when the feds take a closer look at how a bank’s being run. If the Sparkasse Bank doesn’t get more capital soon, or repayment on enough loans to rebalance their portfolio, well, they may get put up for sale.”

“And that’s bad, why?”

“Some very nasty people would like a toehold in our city.” Twyla rose and snagged the wine bottle from the kitchen. “Buying our main source of business loans would give them that and more.”

“But a white knight—”

“Synnove, I can’t go into it, but we’re being targeted, and all our defense eggs are in the tourism basket. Seemed like a sure thing at the time.” Returning with the wine, she topped off my glass, refilled her own and sat, curling her legs under her. Her dark eyes were serious. “We need to draw warm bodies with our Kinkadesque local color before our picture turns Gorey.”

“Hey. I like the drawings he did for MYSTERY!”

“You like cutting people open with a knife and digging through their guts. I question your grasp on charming and touristy.”

“Viscera.”

“What?”

“Viscera, not guts. Sounds better. Less slimy. See? I can do charming.”

“Lovely. The point is, after our great start with the off-Broadway musical, we need to get the word out or we’ll backslide. Which means Holiday.”

“Why can’t we tout our own fudge shoppes and luncheon nooks?”

She heaved a big sigh that said clearer than words that I was being a stubborn, short-sighted ass. “It’s not simply about pushing quainte shite. Research told me tourists are looking for walkability and multiday potential and ‘vibe’, whatever the hell that means. More than advertising, we need someone who
understands
advertising. We need Ric Holiday.”

“Okay, got it.” I tapped my glass against my lips, thinking. Twyla wanted Ric Holiday. I wanted to avoid Ric Holiday. How could I get both? Hey, sometimes doctors did the impossible. They were called miracles.

And I thought I might just have one. “This is more than wine can handle.” I set my glass down. “Where’s your chocolate?”

“S’mores?”

“No. Straight up.”

“You’re going to do it.” She smiled. “You’re going back.”

“Don’t sound so happy. You’re going to owe me so bad you’ll be my Favors Bitch for the rest of your life.” I rummaged around in the cupboards, caught the sting of cacao and found the giant extra-dark bars between a box of graham crackers and a bag of marshmallows. I cracked one in half without opening it, tore the paper in two and handed one to Twyla.

“Favors Bitch?” She took her half, unwrapped a corner and bit into it appreciatively. “Aren’t you forgetting the time I bailed you out of the principal’s office after you greased Anna Versnobt’s ‘back’ vibrator with heat rub?”

Should have kept the whole bar. “Not my fault. She went on and on about how she used it for sore muscles. I was only trying to help her.”

She ticked up fingers. “Your student loan paperwork, the tax returns I did for you, the time you ‘helped’ me with my new car by filling the tires with air except you’d only ever pumped 90-psi bicycle tires before—”

“Enough.” I sat and snapped off chocolate with my teeth. “Do you want to hear my idea or not?”

“Sure.” She smirked. She knew she’d won.

“Some day you’ll regret that smirk,” I grumbled. “You won’t know where or when, but it’ll involve bubble gum and hair curlers. I’m just sayin’.”

The smirk widened. “Why don’t you tell me your idea before I expire of ooh-I’m-scareds?”

“Nice one.” I chewed and swallowed. Ah, the healing properties of chocolate. “Holiday Buzz is one of those prestige firms where clients are ‘hired’ instead of the other way around. All I have to do is get the
agency
to take us on. Holiday has his touch on everything his firm does. I convince any account rep and
voilà
.”

“Once the firm takes the job, he’ll become involved?” She raised a brow. “You’re banking an awful lot on your assessment of his character. You’re sure?”

“My entire hometown’s fate rests on this. More—my Favor Balance rests on this. Of course I’m sure.”

Chapter Six

Ft. Dearborn on the Chicago River, 1812

The scrawny chicken scuttled across the settlement’s dirt road. Ric darted after it, ten-year-old arms stretched. He was scrawnier than the chicken. If he could catch the beast, he’d eat like a king, filling his belly for the first time since his parents died.

The chicken ducked around a wooden building—straight between a set of pants-covered legs.

Ric piled up short at the sight of two men arguing. One man wore a military uniform, and the other the costume of a prosperous trader. Both looked angry and concerned. Ric’s meal dashed away, forgotten.

The uniformed man’s eyes were narrowed against the bright morning sun. “I won’t go against orders, and we’ve been ordered to evacuate this fort.”

“It’s suicide to leave.” The second man kept to the building’s shadow. “Where are we supposed to go?”

“East. To Fort Wayne.”

Ric perked his ears. He seemed to remember his parents came from “out east”. That his grandparents lived there.

“I don’t like the idea of leaving the safety of the block-houses,” the trader said.

“The danger isn’t imminent. And I have my orders.”

“Always orders,” the trader muttered.

“My duty is clear. We will leave the fifteenth, at nine a.m.. You can come with us, or you can try to defend this place by yourself.”

Days went by. Anxiously, Ric watched the preparations in and around the fort. The uniformed men were given ammunition and supplies. Baggage wagons were made ready for the sick, and the women and children.

On the morning of the fifteenth, Ric slipped into one of the wagons, his sweating not all due to the August heat. Outside a band played martial music. He tried to feel brave and optimistic as the wagons rolled out.

But as they rode along, the temperature dropped. Ric’s sweat chilled. He could smell the lake when suddenly a shout went up, and another. The curtain was ripped aside and a man leaped into their midst. He looked like the trader, only something was wrong with his face. It looked like a living mask hacked out of wood, with red fire for eyes. Women screamed, children cried. Blood flew.

The last thing Ric remembered was the man smiling at him—with gleaming fangs.

The official report said twelve children were tomahawked in one wagon alone by a single savage. The truth was darker, more complex. The single killer was a white man, and the bodies were mutilated to cover the true atrocity.

Ric woke in the cool dark. He felt completely relaxed. Good. Strong. And starving.

No, he was
thirsty
. His mouth worked with a deep, abiding need to suck. His teeth ached to bite. He reached up to massage his throbbing gums but his arm was restricted. He wrestled against cloth bindings until they tore. He rubbed a thumb over his gums and nicked his skin on a sharp new fang.

The smell of his own blood kicked him into overdrive. He thrust hands through the windings, into soft dirt. It was easier than he expected, cloth tearing on his sharp little claws, arms digging powerfully. He was stronger than he’d ever known. He scrabbled up through the earth and burst from his grave into the bright light.

And promptly fell on his face.

His limbs, so potent in the ground, didn’t work properly in the air. He felt like a newborn, bursting from the womb only to find himself in a place where he was uncoordinated and unprepared. He lay there, blinking against the bright light, shocked when it resolved into the moon and stars burning like lamps.

A face wavered in his vision. Instinct took over. His claws snapped out toward the prey…who was gone.

“You look like a baby bird flopping around.” The face reappeared. Black hair, black eyes, straight nose. Red slash of a mouth, slightly curved in amusement. An older boy, maybe twelve.

Don’t stand there like a jerk
, Ric said.
Help me up
.

Or at least, those were the words in his head. What came out was, “Whuh wa wa.”

Surprisingly, the boy understood him. He snared Ric’s hand. “You bite me and I twist your head off.” The boy yanked Ric to his feet. Ric’s legs wobbled like milk-soaked bread. The boy got an arm around him, and between the two of them Ric managed a stumbling walk. A succulent artery pulsed mere inches away in the boy’s neck. Ric had to force himself not to bite into it.

“Good thing they didn’t drain your blood,” the boy remarked casually. “You’d have attacked anything that moved. Remember that, kid. Even stale blood in your veins is better than no blood at all.”

The name is Ric
, but what Ric said was “Ya wuh wih.”

“I’m Aiden.” The boy either knew what he was going to say or was almost omniscient. “The second thing to remember is never go out in the sun. You’ll burn like dry tinder.”

Aiden took Ric to a big house, the biggest he’d seen outside the fort. The cellar beneath the house was even bigger. It smelled of sweet bare earth. The older boy eased him to the ground with surprising gentleness. “This is your new home, kid. You’re one of the lucky ones who made it. This far, at least.”

Ric didn’t find out what Aiden meant until he’d been given a dead body to drain (the blood was stale but still tasted so good) and slept a couple days in the rich soil, much better than the stuff he’d clawed up through. When he finally woke feeling almost himself, the thought came to him that the dirt of his current bed wasn’t native. He opened his eyes to ask Aiden.