Sunset Rising (Sunset Vampire Series, Book 5) (21 page)

I glanced at Kat, whose brow arched
inquisitively.

“
Perhaps,” I said. “Though
I’m not exactly sure when we’re leaving.”

“
Likely sooner than
later,” Kat interjected.

“
Oh,” said Bel. “Well, if
I don’t see you again, Caleb, it was very nice meeting
you.”

I shook her hand. “The pleasure was all
mine.”

I held open the front door for her.

“
By the way,” she said,
lowering her voice as she stepped beside me. “Kevin brought over a
check for the most current child support payment. He promised to
get together what he’s overdue on very soon, too. I can’t thank you
enough.”

I waved goodbye to her before closing the
door.

“
Aren’t you a regular
Prince Charming,” Kat said. “She’s very pretty.”

“
There’s no need for
jealously,” I said. “She’s a lovely lady and it was nice to make a
friendly acquaintance on my journey.”

“
So, you haven’t met many
other friendly people along the way?” she asked.

“
Some here and there, I
suppose.”

I decided not to mention the night at the
hotel in Buffalo when the drug dealer stopped by my room.

“
I realize now that it’s
not necessarily always better somewhere else,” I said. “It doesn’t
seem to matter much where you go; everyone has problems of some
sort…”

“
That’s very true,” she
said. “You’ve gained a bit of wisdom during your trip, I
see.”

And I had Bel to thank for it.

* * *

We stayed at the cabin for the remainder of
the day just talking more about things. Kat and I discussed
thoughts and feelings that had been on my mind, including our lack
of time together.

To her credit, she said that she would work
to ensure that our visits were more frequent.

We also spent more romantic time together,
which was definitely the highlight of the day for me.

By mid-afternoon, I had eaten half of Bel’s
apple pie, which tasted amazing, and had eaten the remainder of the
cold cuts in the refrigerator.

By early evening, just past sunset, I was
ready for something more substantive. Kat had engaged in a number
of phone calls and was busy coordinating activities on her notebook
computer, which was set up on the dining room table.

“
How do you feel about
dinner out tonight?” I asked.

She looked up from her email while holding
her mobile phone to her ear.

“
Um, I just have to
finish—”

I nodded. “Sure thing.”

Some things never changed.

As I wandered into the living room, I heard
her in the background.

“
Listen, I’m placing this
project in your more than capable hands,” she said. “I have other
more pressing matters to address.”

I felt a swoosh of air around me followed by
her arms wrapping around my chest from behind.

“
We’ll enjoy a nice dinner
together,” she said.

I smiled. “Sounds great. And I have the
perfect café in mind, too.”

“
Um, I believe it’s
the
only
café
around,” she said.

“
Too true,” I
said.

Kat and I went alone, and Bel was ending her
shift as we arrived. Since I was planning to leave later that
evening, I was grateful to be able to say goodbye to her, as well
as thank her for the tasty apple pie that she had baked for me.

I noted that Kat observed us with a curious
expression.

“
Safe trip home, Caleb,”
Bel said. “But I better get going. I have to pick up my kids from
my parents’ house. They’re going to an Elks Club function
together.”

“
They sound like veritable
socialites for around here,” I said.

She shook her head. “You’d think that. Dad
always talks about civic involvement, but Mom said he just likes to
talk to people. She said that she endures it just to save wear and
tear on her ears.”

It was refreshing to hear about someone
else’s life; something that sounded charmingly ordinary.

“
Don’t worry though;
Candace will take excellent care of you again. Hey, be sure to
check in with us here if you’re ever in this part of the country
again,” she said.

“
You bet I will,” I
said.

“
Incidentally, where do
you and Katrina call home?”

“
We’re in New Haven,
Connecticut right now.”

She appeared surprised. “Wow, you really
were off the beaten track then.”

“
Yeah,” I said. “I’m all
about finding the most remote places possible, it
seems.”

“
He has quite a knack for
it, in fact,” Kat said.

After a quick hug, I watched Bel walk away
before reseating myself across from Kat.

“
You shameless flirt,” she
said. “And doing it right here in front of your mate.”

I flushed. “What? I wasn’t flirting!”

She adopted a sly expression. “You’re so
cute when you’re flustered.”

* * *

Back at the cabin, I tossed my two backpacks
of belongings into the back of one of the SUVs. Then I turned to
look at the mud-splattered moped still leaning against the wall on
the front porch.

“
So, about my scooter,” I
said.

“
No,” Kat said. “No way
are we taking that with us.”

“
I could use it back in
New Haven. I don’t have a car yet,” I said. “Honestly, I’ve grown
sort of attached to that scooter.”

She rolled her eyes as a number of other
vampires stood nearby observing our exchange. Someone snickered and
Kat turned her attention toward them with a baleful gaze.

Everyone fell silent.

“
Fine, we’ll take it with
us,” she said. “My team can secure it to the top of one of the
SUVs.”

Kat turned to the group of vampires.

“
Yes, General,” they said
in unison.

As the scooter was secured, I walked out
toward the nearby line of trees and took a deep breath of the cool
night air.

I was definitely going to miss the serenity
of the place.

Warm arms enveloped me from behind.

“
How do I compete with
such beauty?” Kat asked.

I leaned my head back against her shoulder.
“As if you had any real competition.”

Her breath tickled the skin of my neck and
she kissed me on my jugular vein.

I turned my face toward hers.

She gazed into my eyes in that piercing
fashion that always unnerved me, even while sending a shiver of
pleasure down through my body.

“
Am I still enough to keep
your attention, Caleb?”

My throat felt tight and dry as every fiber
of my being wanted nothing less than to kiss her squarely on the
lips.

“
Of course you keep my
attention,” I said. “You’ve always mesmerized me, ever since the
first time I laid eyes upon you.”

The edges of her mouth turned upward
slightly. “That first night in history class.”

I swallowed hard. “That, and then the other
first time.”

She frowned at me.

“
You know, the first time
that wasn’t ‘the first’ until my memories were returned to me by
Dr. Guilhelm,” I said.

“
That memory was only one
day,” she said. “And you were so very young.”

The memories and emotions of that day
flooded through my mind all at once, like a giant wave crashing
down upon me; fresh as if only months old. Rather, only remembered
for just a few months after nearly a couple of decades of being
blocked.

The day that my bastard of a father was
killed before my young eyes.

“
It was a big day for me,”
I whispered, my throat practically too tight to speak.

Her features softened and a sympathetic
expression formed. “We won’t dwell over that day. Our first day was
the one in your history class. That’s our first day; at least, for
who we are now.”

“
I know. But the other one
was also…important.”

She took my face in her warm, soft hands and
kissed my forehead. “Yes, my love. It always was, and it always
will be. And I’ve never regretted it.”

“
And that’s yet another
reason why I could never, ever, be less than smitten with you,” I
said.

I never wanted to ever feel differently
about her, either.

I looked up into her eyes. “Look, I know
you’re unhappy with me right now, but do you think there’s a chance
you’ll go back to feeling the way you felt about me before I
left?”

She stared into my eyes in a piercing
manner. “Oh, you silly man,” she said, shaking her head. “I never
stopped.”

She took me into her arms, tightly hugging
me against her. I embraced her with all the strength in my arms,
conveying everything that I couldn’t quite say in the way it
deserved to be said.

“
I love you,
Kat.”

I felt her hand reach up and massage the
back of my head and neck.

“
I love you so very much,
too, Caleb,” she said.

Our lips met in a passionate kiss.

I wanted that kiss to last forever.

Finally, I relaxed my arms. She pulled away
from me slightly and stared down into my eyes. Then she tapped me
on the end of my nose with tip of her forefinger.

“
Ready to go?” she
asked.

“
Not really,” I replied.
“I’d much rather just stay here and set up house with
you.”

She chuckled. “Here? In this little cabin in
the middle of nowhere?”

“
I could get used to it.
It’s peaceful enough.”

“
Yeah, I can see that,”
she conceded while taking a long sweeping look around her. “But if
we stayed, the world won’t just forget about us.”

I inhaled a deep breath and slowly let it
out. “Probably not. The world seems to interfere with us a lot
lately.”

She gave me a sympathetic look. “I
know.”

“
There’s absolutely
nothing we can do about it, is there?” I asked.

An edgy expression formed on her face. “Oh,
I may not be able to make the world stop interfering with us, but I
can sure as hell make it regret doing so.”

I smiled. “I’m okay with that.”

She took me by the hand and led me toward
the front door. “Come on, then. Let’s go make the world regret they
ever set eyes on us.”

As I held the hand of the woman I loved,
perhaps the fiercest woman I’d ever known, I couldn’t have agreed
more.

* * *

PART III

NEW REALITIES

* * *

Chapter 17

Caleb

It had only been a week since Kat and I had
returned from Tar Hollow, but I already wished that we were still
there.

Though Kat was warming to me more and more
with each passing day, everyone else was still rather put out with
me.

Roman wasted no time letting me know how
much he disapproved of my leaving in the first place.

“
You’re a real dickhead,
Caleb,” he said. “And that was a real dickhead move, too. Let’s
face it, for someone like you—”

“
For a dickhead, you
mean?” I asked.

“
Exactly,” he said. “At
least you stayed true to your convictions at the time. You made a
tough decision and took a chance.”

“
Thanks.”

“
Of course, you’re also a
putz.”

I ignored that. “I’m going down to the
basement to work out,” I said, anxious to be anywhere else.

Suffice to say, some things hadn’t changed.
My college home still wasn’t the most relaxing of refuges.

Hell, relaxing refuge aside, my house didn’t
even feel the same.

It’s wasn’t quite complete. Something was
missing.

Or, rather, someone.

Paige was gone. She’d removed most of her
clothes from her bedroom, though some random articles of clothing
still hung in her closet. A handful of discarded personal effects
lay scattered atop her dresser, including some perfumes and
gaudy-looking fashion jewelry.

However, she was nowhere to be seen. And
when I’d last phoned her, the number was no longer in service.

Even more unsettling was that not even Kat
had an updated contact number for her.

I called Ethan, but he said that he hadn’t
actually seen her. He conceded that, during his most recent phone
conversation with her, she had pointedly refused to talk about
me.

“
I don’t suppose you’d
share that number she called from?” I asked.

“
It wasn’t on the caller
ID, and she didn’t bother leaving one for me,” he replied. “Caleb,
she’ll probably turn up when she’s ready.”

“
I hope that I haven’t
complicated things between you and her,” I said. “I mean, she
wouldn’t have gone off the radar if it wasn’t for me.”

“
Yes, well, it’s a good
thing that I’m busy here in Atlanta with the hospital,” he said.
“Or I might consider coming up there to see to you myself. I’m
still a little surprised over what you did.”

I winced. “Yeah, I probably deserve that.
Listen, I can’t apologize enough for everything, Ethan.”

“
Do you want to try to
make it up to me?” he asked.