Cora's Secret: A Vampire Ménage Urban Fantasy Romance (5 page)

Painting was physical work, but after twenty minutes and two walls, she realized that it wasn’t distracting her thoughts the way she wanted it to. She kept finding herself standing with the roller in mid-air, as that hateful kiss played out in her mind all over again, while her heart boomed and her body tightened. Or else it was the moment with Rhys, while his lips had hovered over hers and she would wonder all over again if he really
had
wanted to kiss her, or had she just dreamed up that glass-shattering tension as a by-product of her own want?

Annoyed, she made herself finish the last two walls, which had the door, closet and windows in them and needed finicky cutting-in detail. As soon as she was done, she wrapped up the roller and poured the excess paint back into the can with sharp movements.

She was going to have to settle for research into new projects after all. At least stray thoughts wouldn’t intrude so often if she was making decisions about annuals and fruit trees.

But thirty minutes later, as she clicked through images of French style courtyards, she found herself staring sightlessly at the screen, the mouse not moving, while her body throbbed. With a sigh, she got the mouse moving again.

It was going to be a very long night.

By morning, Rhys was ready to dismiss the whole thing at the casino with Cora as a momentary thing. Maybe it was age. His hormones acting up. He didn’t know and he didn’t want to hash it out anymore. He had spent all night doing that, while trying to ease the ache in his body. He had woken feeling more drained and tense than ever.

So he went into the office, even though there would only be skeleton crew on hand. It was Sunday and it was a perfect day and warm for mid-September. The lake was sparkling blue and the sky was cloudless. The leaves weren’t turning yet. It was like summer was lingering just for a little bit longer, which was fine by him. By noon, there would be hundreds of boats on the water and families on the foreshore barbecuing and picnicking.

The gorgeous weather helped Rhys push aside last night’s madness. In the broad light of the day it seemed stupid. The piled up issues in his in-boxed helped to send the matter to the far back of his mind.
Another
missing person, this time a mother in her forties, who had been on her way to date night with her husband, right here in Erie. The local police would be draining themselves looking for her…along with all the others who had disappeared lately. Chief Dobson had passed the data along as a courtesy and Rhys emailed him back and let him know the Sheriff’s department was ready to assist at any time. But Dobson was an independent soul. He wouldn’t ask for help.

Your problems are bigger than you realize
. That guy’s voice echoed in his head. Luke…Alvey. Rhys scowled at his computer screen as he remembered it. Then, with an impatient shove, he pushed the keyboard tray back under the desk and got to his feet.

Bishop, the deputy assigned to the front desk for the day, looked up as Rhys passed him. “Problem?” he asked.

“Breakfast,” Rhys said shortly. “I’ll bring you back a coffee.”

He drove to the diner, taking the longer foreshore route and trying to enjoy the sunshine and the sun-dappled water, the old trees whose branches shadowed the road and the air of lazy peacefulness that hung over the town.

There’s something wrong with this place
.

The thought popped into his head out of nowhere, making him draw a deep breath to control the fizz of surprise and the lurch of deep uneasiness that came with it.

There was a man standing on the verge between the road and one of the public parking lots on the shore. He wasn’t standing and facing the water like so many tourists did. Instead, he was watching the road and the oncoming cars, his hands down by his sides, held in tight fists.

There was something about him….

An invisible hand grabbed at Rhys’ gut, twisting it. He snapped on his indicator and wheeled the cruiser into the parking lot, before his brain could catch up with what he was doing.

There was nothing visibly out of kilter about the guy, but something had made Rhys’ instincts twitch. A few words with him wouldn’t hurt anyone and would maybe get his intuition to back down. He freely admitted that he was just a bit high-strung this morning. It was probably nothing.

He pulled the car right up alongside where the man was standing. The man had turned to follow the car’s progress across the lot, but didn’t move toward it.

So Rhys turned off the engine and got out. He moved around the back end of the sedan and up onto the verge. He gave the man a friendly nod. “Waiting for someone?” He got up close to him where he could check him out more carefully.

From farther away, the man seemed quite ordinary. Early to mid-thirties, close cropped black hair and three days’ worth of growth on his chin. He was barely six feet tall, but he was broad across the shoulders. Perhaps that was what had twitched Rhys’ instincts. But why?

Then he got closer. The guy was watching him, a fine line between his thick brows. Up this close, from a few feet away, Rhys could see that his eyes were black. They looked somehow….anonymous. Soulless? With the black brows and lashes, it gave his gaze an unsettling quality, like staring at a man wearing one-way sunglasses. Rhys couldn’t tell what was happening behind his eyes at all.

But the dark eyes were framed by thick brows and black lashes that wouldn’t look out of place on a girl. His skin was pale olive.

Bet he doesn’t have trouble getting woman
. The thought crossed his mind almost in passing. The guy was offensively attractive.

“You were watching the traffic,” Rhys said.

“I was,” the man agreed.

“Waiting for someone?” Rhys asked. “You were standing very close to the road.”

“Waiting…yes.” He spoke slowly, like he was trying to figure it out for himself. His gaze flickered toward the side of the cruiser, with the county badge on it. “You’re with the Sheriff’s department?”

“Are you in trouble?” Rhys asked. “Do you need help?” Maybe that was what had caused him to stop and talk to the guy. Maybe he had spotted some subtle signal that the man was stressed. But he didn’t seem overly wound up. He was staring at Rhys with the same puzzled air.

Rhys had a hard time pulling his gaze away from the man’s eyes. They were something else. But was he dangerous? Something was wriggling in Rhys’ gut, trying to make him pay attention. “You’re not a resident.”

“I’ve been staying in Cleveland.” The man spoke with the same slow deliberation, like most of his mind was on something else. “But I had to come.”

Rhys frowned. “
Had
to come?”

The man shook his head. “You should leave.” The deliberation had gone. Now he spoke with something like authority. Like he knew that Rhys getting out of there was good for reasons Rhys didn’t understand.

Rhys agreed with him. There was something completely whacked about this situation. He couldn’t name the oddness. All he knew was that his instincts were doing a banshee scream. He
wanted
to leave. But a deep reluctance to actually move back to the car weighed him down.

“Why should I leave?” he demanded.

“Because I can’t.”

The man’s answer made Rhys’ heart lurch and his belly to crawl. He lifted his hand an inch or so and realized he was going for his gun. He made his hand drop. “Why can’t you leave?” Why was he even humoring the guy? Put him in the back of the cruiser and take him to the nearest station and put him in one of their lock-ups. Figure it out later.

The man took a step closer and Rhys made a fist of his hand to keep it down by his side. The man looked at him.
Really
looked at him, like he was seeing him for the first time. “I don’t want to upset you,” he said softly. His voice was pleasant, too. His eyes…they were hypnotic.

Rhys blinked as he realized he really had been staring into his eyes. The man was even closer now. There wasn’t a foot of grass between them.

“Who the fuck are you?” Fear was trying to crawl up from the base of Rhys’ spine, but he still couldn’t look away.

“Aithan. My name is Aithan.”

Rhys gasped as he recognized the heavy tension gripping him. It was the same throbbing, almost overwhelming need that had pushed him to within an inch of bending Cora over the blackjack table last night. Except now the focus of his need…was this guy.

Rhys staggered backward. “Who
are
you?” The question came out hoarse and strained.

Aithan followed him. “I won’t hurt you.”

“The fuck you won’t.” Rhys watched him take another step, then another, then brought his hand up as if he was going to push him away. Aithan reached out to grab his hand, which was what Rhys had been counting on. He slapped the handcuff over Aithan’s wrist and held on to the other end of it grimly. “You’re coming with me. I’m going to sort this out when you’re standing behind bars.”

Aithan twisted his wrist experimentally, looking down at the cuff. “This isn’t necessary. I’m not dangerous.”

“Not in the back of the cruiser, you won’t be.” He opened the back door and stepped around Aithan, so he was at his back. “Get in.”

Aithan looked over his shoulder. “This isn’t a good idea.”

“Humor me. Get the fuck in.”

“You have no idea what is going on, do you?”

“I’m going to find out.” Rhys pushed on the back of the man’s head to get him to duck and climb in and to protect his head from the top of the door.

Aithan didn’t fight it. He settled on the back seat and looked up at Rhys. “You really don’t know, do you?”

Rhys attached the other end of the cuff to the iron bar that had been mounted at the top of the door frame, bringing his arm up. He didn’t answer the question. He wasn’t sure he had an answer anyway.

He got behind the wheel and turned the cruiser around, intending to head back downtown to the station there. He slid back out into traffic and tried to relax. His heart was thundering and his gut churning. He was over-reacting badly. The man had done nothing wrong.

Aithan leaned forward to speak through the wire grill that separated the front and back seats. “You can feel it, too, can’t you?”

“Sit back and shut up.”

“Why are you denying it? I can
feel
your tension. Your need.”

Rhys’ whole body seemed to jerk in reaction and he gripped the steering wheel harder.

“You don’t understand any of it,” Aithan murmured. “But your body knows.”

You have no idea what your problems really are
. Luke, another stranger.

Rhys swore under his breath and swerved sharply to the curb. Ginny Jacobs’ place was two houses away. It was time to ask some on-point questions. He turned his head to look at Aithan through the mesh. “Stay put.”

He almost ran up the garden walk to the gorgeous old Victorian house on the corner and rapped on the door sharply. His heart wouldn’t quit pounding and he couldn’t get rid of the sensation that Aithan was sitting in the cruiser, watching him carefully through the window. Carefully and patiently.

Ginny opened the door herself which was what made her one of the city’s most successful B&Bs. “Sheriff!” She sounded delighted. “How
are
you? It’s been…why,
months
since I saw you.” Her hair seemed grayer than the last time they’d spoken and her face a little more lined, but other than that, Ginny never seemed to change. She had been running the bed and breakfast since her husband had died almost twenty years before.

“It’s business, Ginny, sorry. I sent a customer your way last night. Did he stay here? Name is Luke. Tall and white hair.”

“Mr. Alvey. You sent him? You’re so sweet. Mr. Alvey did stay here last night.”

“He’s not still here?”

“I know where he probably is,” she said. “He was asking about the park on Presque Isle. I told him about the old fire tower on the east end. He thought he’d hike out to it and have a look around. I packed him a thermos of tea.” She wrinkled her nose. “Green tea,” she added.

Trees. Rhys would have bet the guy would be on the lake somewhere. He’d mentioned the water at least twice. Only here he was, hiking among trees, instead. But there were a lot of lakes and ponds and still water in the park. Every summer they usually had to go search for someone who had stepped off the marked trails and managed to get themselves trapped by water barriers and couldn’t figure out how to get home.

Rhys gave Ginny a tight smile. “Thanks.”

“Did he do something, Sheriff?” Ginny asked. “He seemed very pleasant.”

“He hasn’t broken any laws I’m aware of. Yet.” Rhys winked at her. “The day is still young.”

She giggled, which was an incongruous sound for such an elegant and self-contained woman, and waved him away.

Rhys went back to the car, weighing up his options. The old fire tower could be reached by a seven mile hiking trail that wasn’t wide enough for vehicles. If Ginny gave Luke Alvey one of her thermos flasks, then she was expecting him back tonight. Rhys could wait for him to turn up.

But just waiting, when the lead weight in his chest was squeezing tighter with every passing minute, seemed intolerable.