Summit at Sunset (Sunset Vampire Series, Book 3) (27 page)

He was unsettled by her suddenly edgy demeanor, but anticipated that she was just trying to distract him. Instead, her comment only increased his chagrin over his current situation.

“Tell me about it,” he muttered while turning his back on her. “You vampires get all interested and friendly, and then suddenly you disappear or turn off like a damned light switch. And frankly, it just pisses me off.”

“Hey, what gives?”

“Aw, crap. Just leave me alone, Paige,” he fumed. He wasn’t in the mood to play games.

She was completely taken aback by his retort and froze in her tracks as her mind raced to understand.

What the hell?
Is it something I did?

She noted the tension in his body language and the fact that he had turned his back on her.

Okay then
,
rejection.
Problems with the old lady maybe? But that’s not all, I’d wager.

“Well, I’m here now. So why not talk to me?” she invited in a friendlier tone, all pretense of playing with him put aside for the moment.

Big sister’s on duty now.

He shook his head and walked a few steps away to sit on the edge of one of the large, fallen tree trunks. While he kept his arms folded before him, his eyes softened somewhat as he looked at her.

“Never mind,” he said. “You’ve got enough on your plate right now.”

She shook her head
.

Once again, tiger, you’re trying to shoulder everything yourself
.

Perching beside him, she placed a supportive arm across his shoulders. At first his muscles were tight, but then she felt him relax somewhat. She used her free hand to reach up and turn his face towards hers, insisting, “Hey, I’m your babysitter, your surrogate vampire. Talk to me, kiddo. Spill.”

He stared back at her as darkness continued to fall around them. Then he shrugged.

“Well, first, Kat’s been so distant with the conference distractions. Of course, that’s when she’s
actually
in the room. Most of the time, I never even see her. She’s obsessing over Alton’s latest project.”

Paige remained silent as she lightly ran the tips of her fingernails across his shoulders.

It’s a pretty big project, too
,
something not tried at this scale before. In the vampire world, this is “big time.”

“And I got a phone call today,” he continued. “It was from Dean Wright at the college. He said that the way the budget’s looking, I may not have my faculty contract renewed in July.”

Her eyes widened with surprise, and she began to realize how both of the things he mentioned were culminating to generate his bad mood.

He loves teaching
.

“Okay, that’s bad, I’ll admit,” she conceded while pulling him to her in a side-hug. “But it’s not the end of the world. There are other teaching positions out there. Time to go job hunting. I mean, you nailed the position at your current college. You can do it again.”

He incredulously stared back at her.

“You have no idea what you’re even saying,” he corrected with exasperation. “Do you know how lucky I was to land the job at the college in the first place? Think about it, Paige, isn’t it a little strange that I’m a twenty-six-year-old straight out of graduate school, and yet I’m a full-time college professor? That just doesn’t happen in the real world. Listen, it sucks to admit this, but I wasn’t exactly their first choice on the hiring list.”

Her eyebrow rose with surprise. “You weren’t?”

He looked away. “No, I was at the bottom of their list of finalists. Of the
four
finalists, I was
fourth
.”

“So, what happened there, then?” she asked.

He paused. “Dean Wright was pretty candid with me after I was hired. He said their first choice got a better counter-offer from another college. The second guy didn’t like the salary range, and the third candidate didn’t pass the pre-hiring drug test. So, that only left me. It sounds like I was just a name to pad out the finalist’s sheet. Although I think Paul told me the story right off so I’d buckle down from the start. Yeah, as if I needed any incentive to do that.”

Okay, that’s pretty surprising
, Paige admitted.
Not that it changes my opinion about him, though
.

“Does Katrina know that?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“Are you kidding?” he chortled. “It’s not something you go bragging about to your five-hundred-year-old, supermodel-looking, successful vampire-mate, now, is it?”

She winced at the pain evident in his voice and immediately regretted asking. Her mind searched for the right thing to say, but all she managed to do was increase her grip around his shoulders and hug him closer to her.

I wish I could fix this
,
but it’s a little out of my league.
It’s not like I can just bleed dry the people who fire him, right?

Then she evilly smiled before discarding the idea altogether.

“Red’s not going to think badly about you,” she reassured him. “Hell, she loves you more than life itself, and I should know. What I’m trying to say is it doesn’t matter in the end whether you’re a professor or a window-washer. She loves
you
, the same as I do.”

He peered into her bright blue eyes and noted her sincere look of sympathy. The edges of his mouth upturned slightly, and then his lips pressed together into a fine line again.

“But you see, it does matter,” he insisted. “It matters to
me
. Being a professor was the one thing I could claim as my own special talent, my own niche in life. Soon, that may be gone too.”

“Listen, if it’s about the money...”

“And yeah, it’s also about the money,” he interrupted. “Geez, I’m already feeling inferior that she pays for these trips we take. Then I don’t even pay more than the cost of groceries at the estate. Hell, if I lose my job, I’ll be complete dead-weight!”

She couldn’t help smiling a little bit at his retort, which he found infuriating.

“Just what’s so damned funny?” he demanded.

Her expression turned serious. “Listen, tiger, I don’t know if you’ve given it any thought or not, but a five-hundred-year-old vampire has had a lot of time to build up a nest egg. And consider that Alton, ‘Mister Capitalism’ himself, was her mentor. Doesn’t a little light bulb pop on in your head? I mean, look, I’m only about a century old, and I’m doing okay, if you know what I mean. Thanks to some financial tips from Katrina, of course.”

He appreciated all of that, but it really didn’t help to alter his feelings over the matter. In fact, it made him feel a little worse.

“Well, yeah, I see a light bulb coming on,” he sarcastically replied. “And it indicates that what little means I had to make my own way is about to go away. So, now I’m supposed to just completely mooch off all the wealthy vampires in my life?”

Paige’s eyes flared with anger, and she popped him on the back of his head with the flat of her hand in a manner that nearly knocked him off the tree trunk.

“Hey!” he barked. “Take it easy!”

But instead of apologizing, she stood up before him and glared back at him.

“You -- You’re just so full of crap, Caleb!” she admonished. “Do you think that you’re worth is in any way balanced by your ability to pay your own way? Let me tell you something, twerp, you’re being an idiot!”

He started to jump up from the log, but she moved in a blur and pushed him back onto the trunk.

“Dammit, Paige!” he shouted back at her while barely catching his balance from falling backwards. The effort twisted his still-achy back somewhat, causing him to wince slightly.

“No! You listen to me now,” Paige demanded. “Money is just a means to us, a necessary facet. It’s all just material stuff. It makes life easier. But it’s not what we’re about, Caleb. We’re mostly about the blood, and, trust me, you’ve got some good tastin’ blood for a human.”

Her mind easily recalled the smell and taste of his blood when she had helped heal his chest wound just prior to last Christmas. It had taken all her control not to drain him dry, actually. He tasted amazing to her.

His eyes suspiciously narrowed. “Just what the hell do you mean by that?”

She adopted an almost cruel expression and paused for a moment to consider him.

Time for a way-overdue dose of reality, young one.

“That wonderful red stuff running through your veins right now means more to a vampire than a truckload of money,” she pressed. “But it’s more than that. With you, Katrina gets a mate. She gets your love, your body, your devotion, your companionship, and your blood. Don’t judge us by conventional human values or goals. Money has no motivation for Katrina, or to me, for that matter. Hell, her savings practically compounds itself faster than you could ever spend it.”

He blinked with surprise, his mind trying to process everything that she was telling him. His heart raced in his chest as he tried to make sense of it all. Meanwhile, she crossed her arms in front of her and silently stared at him as if watching time pass before her eyes.

I just don’t want to be a mooch
, he fumed.

“Okay, so maybe I didn’t realize everything,” he stammered. “I just felt –”

“…sorry for yourself,” she interrupted him.

His mouth snapped shut, and he looked away.

Maybe a little bit
, he conceded.

“I just want to be useful for
something
,” he absently whispered. “I want to contribute.”

Her temper had abated somewhat, though she observed him with narrowed eyes before reaching out to grasp him firmly by the upper arm. He took notice of her hand before looking back into her eyes, which he gratefully noticed were no longer glowing.

“Your worth is determined by who you are as a mate, friend, and companion,” she stipulated. “Not by your bank account, credit score, career, or job title. There may come a day when all that would be useless to your circumstances anyway.”

He was taken aback by her comment and pressed, “What does that mean?”

“Play your cards right, and you may find yourself a little more than human someday,” she alluded.

His eyes widened at the mention of a forbidden topic between him and Katrina, one of the seven all-important rules he had promised to uphold.

But it’s not a forbidden topic between Paige and me
, he realized.

“You mean, I may actually be turned,” he ventured out loud.

Turned into a vampire.

Paige’s mood abruptly shifted from intense to off-handed, and she merely shrugged.

“Who knows,” she equivocated. “It’s not something that’s been discussed with me. But you never know, I suppose.”

Not my place to offer
, she silently berated herself.
He belongs to Katrina, not me.
The latter realization generated a momentary pang of both regret and longing in her.

A series of silent moments passed between them, and he realized just how dark the forest had become while they argued. If not for Paige’s pale skin, he might lose sight of her in her dark clothes. Most of the nearby trees were merely dark images around them. It was a little unnerving, and he was suddenly grateful for her proximity.

“Listen, I didn’t mean to piss you off,” he offered with resignation. “I’m just an idiot sometimes, like you said.”

She sighed. “Yeah, well, I didn’t mean to belittle your circumstances, I suppose. Just grow up a little bit, will you, tiger?”

“Yeah,” he acknowledged with a nod. “I get it.”

She flirtatiously smiled and added, “But don’t grow up too much, okay? I like a little occasional immaturity in my men. Keeps you playful.”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“I’m just sayin’,” she added, sensing his mood improve by the moment.

“Whatever,” he countered in his best Valley Boy impression.

She effortlessly watched him in the darkness with her vampire-enhanced vision and felt encouraged.

“Friends?” she softly asked.

The hint of a smile formed on his lips, and he nodded.

“Friends.”

She slowly moved forwards and embraced him in a tender hug, perching her chin atop his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her and appreciated both their closeness and the closure of their argument. Then she turned her face towards him and pressed her soft lips against the skin of his cheek in a gentle kiss.

“You mean a lot to me,” she tenderly whispered. “Love you, kiddo.”

He sincerely whispered, “Love you too, Paige.”

A warm feeling passed through him, and he momentarily wished that a similar experience could be shared between him and Katrina again soon.

One problem at a time
, he resigned.

“Don’t say anything to Kat about this layoff stuff, okay?” he stipulated. “It’s not completely a done deal yet.”

“Sure,” she conceded, though she wasn’t left feeling very hopeful.

It really doesn’t sound good for the poor kid.

After a couple of moments, she gently disengaged from their embrace. She playfully patted her hands against his body in a rapid flurry of slaps, demanding, “Okay, you moonlight-groper, back to the hotel already.”

“Yeah, probably a good idea,” he agreed and headed into the trees to their right.

Unfortunately, he was going in the wrong direction. Paige shook her head with disgust and darted forwards. She grasped him by the hand, pulling him after her as she stomped headfirst into the forest in a completely different direction.

“Come on, Daniel Boone, let’s get you back to civilization,” she half-teased, half-admonished.

As they walked among the trees, a wolf howled in the distance.

“Hey, that’s a wolf,” he said with surprise.

“See? Told you,” she muttered with satisfaction.

By the time they returned to the hotel, it was rather late in the evening. Paige agreed to sit with him while he ate dinner in the main dining room, during which time she noted something odd. The few human patrons in the room furtively glanced at Caleb, and some whispered to each other after doing so.

She carefully listened in on some comments from nearby people and discovered that one patron viewed Caleb and Dori’s recent experiences with the local police negatively. Another comment suggested they had brought it on themselves. It took her practiced sense of control not to rush over to give the person an earful over that.