Unspoken: Shadow Falls: After Dark (26 page)

For the next few hours, they sat at Chase’s large French farm table, sampled food, and laughed. At one point, Della realized that while they were four vampires sitting at this table, this was the most normal—human-normal—evening she’d had in a long time. There seemed to be something comforting about sitting around a dinner table with food.

The thought hit her that she probably hadn’t tried hard enough to fit in with her parents. Instead of dreading dinners she should have found food she could stomach and cooked them for her family. She should have passed dinnertime encouraging conversation instead of feeling like a monster and hence coming off as one.

If only …

Her chest felt heavy when she wondered if she would get a second chance to make things smoother?

Della finally looked at her watch. It was after eight. “I’d better get back, or Burnett is gonna have a shit fit.”

“Yeah,” Chase said. “We’d better go. It’s been fun. Thanks.”

“No, thank you,” Natasha said. “For everything—saving our lives, letting us stay here. It’s been just what we needed.”

“Well, you’re welcome to come back anytime. Take the key with you,” he said to Natasha, but he reached over and held a chicken finger to Della’s lips.

Della was so surprised, she ate it. And it wasn’t half bad. Then Chase ran his finger over her lip.

Della felt the blush hit her cheeks, and she realized Liam and Natasha were watching and smiling. Didn’t Chase know she could feed herself?

“Aren’t you going to move back in?” Natasha asked.

“Not for a while. I think I’ll hang out at Shadow Falls.”

“What?” Della shook her head. She’d thought he’d been staying at the school because Liam and Natasha were here. “This place is ten times better.”

“Yeah, but Shadow Falls has something this place doesn’t.” Natasha grinned.

“No,” Della said. “You’ve seen the cabins there.”

“It has you,” Natasha answered.

Della glanced at Chase. He didn’t deny it. And he winked at her. Winked?

First he feeds her and then he winks at her?

“You’re crazy,” she said.

“Here’s to being crazy,” Liam said and picked up a glass of blood for a toast.

They walked out on the porch. Natasha pulled Della to the side. “Is my mom…? Do you still see my mom?”

Della nodded, and decided not to mention that Holiday wanted to perform an exorcism to send her packing. “Yeah.”

“Can you tell her that I’m happy? Really happy.”

“I’ll tell her.”

Her cousin hugged her. “Chase is a good guy,” she whispered in her ear. “Stop fighting it.”

Della didn’t answer that, but the thought hit her that if she
was
fighting it, she was doing a piss-poor job of it. Every damn day he got closer … not even just physically, but emotionally. And what was this feeding-her crap?

She glanced over at the guys.

Chase shook Liam’s hand. “Hey,” Chase said. “I just noticed your shoes. Are those the Nike foamposite shoes?”

“A knockoff, I’m sure,” Liam said. “My mom got them. She couldn’t afford the real thing.”

Della looked down at his bright blue shoes with weird soles and … bam. Just like that her world flipped. She wasn’t even standing. But lying flat on her back on a … cold, bloody, concrete floor.

“Della?” she heard Chase say her name. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” She blinked and things slowly came into focus. His face, and then the missing piece of puzzle just slipped into place. “We gotta go.”

She waved, jumped off the porch, and started jogging.

Chase kept up with her. “What is it?”

“I know what I forgot about the vision.”

“What?”

“Shoes.” Della continued to run.

“Shoes?” His footfalls fell even with hers in the darkness.

“One of the killers had on a pair of very strange shoes. Red, and they looked like snakeskin. I could be wrong, but for some reason I don’t think a badass were would wear a pair of knockoffs. He probably bought them. And if I’m right and they are as expensive as I think they are, then there may be only a few places that sell them. If we can find out who sells them, we might be able to find out who bought them. And we’ll have at least one of the killer’s names.”

She took off in flight, dodging the tree limbs and trying to hurry to get back to do her Internet search. While it wasn’t about her father’s case, it still felt good to think she was closer to catching Mr. and Mrs. Chi’s killers.

Chapter Thirty

Della and Chase landed in the parking lot of the school and walked through the gate. Voices, laughter, and music came from the dining hall. It smelled like a pizza party. Having stomached more food than she’d eaten in weeks, she headed straight to the trail. Chase moved right beside her. Occasionally, his forearm brushed against her shoulder.

Was he purposely doing that?

While her mind worked on the thought of identifying that mystery shoe, her heart seemed stuck on the things she’d learned about Chase tonight. He’d seen his parents’ bodies in a morgue and it still hurt him. He occasionally drank cold beer. He associated snickerdoodles with love, and was staying at Shadow Falls just to be close to her.

She recalled holding his hand, offering him emotional support after he’d told her why he’d wigged out at the morgue. She remembered waking up in his bed next to him, being overjoyed that he was alive. She even recalled how it felt that brief second when he’d fed her that damn chicken finger.

Then came the reminder of how she’d sort of been happy when he’d been embarrassed being in his underwear around Holiday, but not around her.

And that last thought led to her remembering how good he had looked in his underwear. All that skin showing. The muscles rippling down his torso.

Oh, hell!

Remembering all that stirred up things she didn’t want stirred.

She thought of Natasha and Liam. She’d bet those two were already in their underwear, or perhaps naked and in each other’s arms.

Could she ever find that … again?

She took in a deep breath and repeated two words in her head.
Not now.

Maybe.

Perhaps.

She might at least entertain the idea after she got her dad out of trouble.

And found Mr. and Mrs. Chi’s killers.

When she trusted that what she felt was … real, and not just because of shared blood.

She glanced at Chase. He glanced at her. He smiled.

Her heart dipped.

It hit then. She’d felt this before, before she’d known he was still lying. She’d put on black underwear thinking …

Would she … could she trust this … trust him again?

Then she pushed all that aside. Why in Hades was she thinking about this?

Two weeks.

“Have you come up with a plan for tomorrow?” Della asked.

“A plan?” He sounded as if he’d been lost in his own thoughts.

“Where are we going first? Should we see if we can find this so-called girlfriend or should we go check out the addresses of the Douglas Stones?”

“I haven’t thought about it yet.”

She got a feeling the reason was because, like her, he’d been thinking of other things.

They arrived at the path that led to her cabin, and she started down it. Chase spoke up, “Do you want to come to my place and do this? My computer is ten times faster than the one at your cabin.”

The thought of being alone with him—alone with no worries of Miranda or Kylie appearing—sounded dangerous.

“I like my computer.”

“You like it?” He looked confused.

“Yeah,” she snapped. “And if you ever try to feed me again, you’ll be sorry.” She took off.

Three minutes later, Della was on the computer at the small desk in her kitchen. She did a search on expensive snakeskin tennis shoes.

“Bingo!” She glanced at Chase standing behind her. “That’s them.”

“Okay.” He looked impressed. “Now run a search to find out where they are sold in Houston.”

As she typed in the question, she felt him lean in to see the computer. His hand came down on the back of her chair and his knuckles touched her shoulder. Tingles slow-danced down her spine and she misspelled “Houston” three times.

She would have snapped at him to move his hand, but then he’d know. Know that his touch did crazy—and wonderful—things to her skin.

Finally, she typed it in right. She waited for the computer to search.

“See, your computer is slow.” His words stirred in her hair.

“What’s a few more seconds?” Right then her computer dinged with a new email.

She ignored it and waited for the computer to finish its search.

It finally spit out the information. Della pushed the thoughts of Chase’s touch away.

“Four places.” She glanced back with a smile. “And look!” She pointed to the screen. “This one is about a mile from the park where the murders happened.”

“Do you want to call Burnett?” Chase asked.

“You do it,” Della said. “I’m going to make a list of these addresses, so we’ll have them for tomorrow.”

While she collected data on her slow computer, she listened to Chase give Burnett the lowdown. More than once, Chase gave her credit for finding the lead. Once or twice, she felt him staring at her. She looked back and found she was right. He leaned against the fridge, looking so at home there, his phone to his ear, but his eyes on her.

“You got anything on the gang or the number Sam gave you?” Chase asked.

Della heard Burnett’s answer. “Not yet.”

Turning back, she got the rest of the addresses copied to a Word document and then hit print. While she waited for the computer to wake up her printer, she jumped over to her email to see if she had anything from her sister.

Chase hung up and she heard his steps moving to her. He leaned over her shoulder. “Burnett said to email him a list of the stores.”

As she opened her new email tab, and copied and pasted the info into the document to send, she felt Chase breathing down her neck again. That soft whisper of his breath made her mind go to mush.

She hit send. Or tried to. The computer had to think about that as well. Trying not to react to Chase’s nearness, she stared at the screen without seeing anything. Then she felt Chase edge closer and heard him inhale.

“Are you smelling my hair?” she asked, hoping her tone came off as irritated, even though right now, the thing that irritated her was her lack of irritation.

In her mind’s eye, she saw Liam brush back Natasha’s hair and kiss her neck.

“Yeah,” he said, and his smile came across in that one word.

“Then stop,” she said.

“But it smells so good.”

She felt him sweep her hair to one side, just like Liam had done to Natasha. The brush of his fingers felt like feathers.

“And your hair is so soft.”

He pressed his lips against the back of her neck. “Your skin tastes … sweet.”

She closed her eyes. “You should … probably stop.”

“Probably?” he asked and then said, “How about if I do this instead?” His lips shifted to kiss the side of her neck, sending all kinds of wonderful tingles down her back, her arms, to her breasts, and even lower.

“Stop,” she said, a little firmer.

He stopped, but he didn’t move away. “Why, Della?”

“I’m not ready for this. I’m still…”
I put on my black underwear for you last time and look what happened.

He shot up. Something about how quick he pulled away, felt … wrong. She looked back over her shoulder.

“Not ready? Because of him?”

She just stared. “What?”

“He wants to talk to you,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

“The email. Your damn email! Look at your screen,” he snapped. “You’ve got three emails from Steve. All with the same subject line. “‘We need to talk.’ What the hell does he need to talk to you about?”

She frowned, faced the computer, and clicked off the screen.

“Oh, hell,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He started for the door.

She let him get halfway out the door before she spoke. “Don’t,” she snapped.

He swung around.

His bright green eyes expressed his anger. “Don’t what, Della?”

“Don’t be like that,” she said.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Like … like I’m doing something wrong. Like … you’re jealous.”
Like you have a right to be jealous.

“I’m not jealous,” he said and lifted his arms behind his head, and the muscles in his arms bulged.

She was so caught up in his muscles that she almost missed that little hiccup of his heart. And she wouldn’t have wanted to do that. Because this was the first time she heard his heart jump to a lie.

So the amazing Chase occasionally couldn’t hide the truth. She liked knowing that.

He must have felt or heard his heart skip, because his expression tightened. “Okay, I’m jealous. But how would you feel if we turned this upside down?”

“Upside down?” she asked.

“How would you feel if I told you Cindy was calling me and asking me to meet up with her?”

She stood up and before she could decide what to say, she’d said it. “That depends. Who’s Cindy?”

“She’s nobody. Just a name, just a name of a girl. A girl who wants me for my body.”

For some reason that struck her as funny. She felt her lips twitch. “You’ve got girls wanting you for your body?”
Not that I blame them
.

He stared at her for several seconds and she saw the anger fade from his eyes. “Of course I do. Look at me.”

A laugh slipped from her lips. “You don’t have an ego problem, do you?”

“No,” he said, smiling, but then sighed. “Just a Della problem.”

He walked closer and stood right in front of her. He stared right into her eyes. “I want to touch you. I want … what Natasha and Liam have. I want to kiss you when I want to kiss you, I want to check and make sure you’ve got on the panties with the right day of the week, I want to make love to you, I want to wake up with you in bed like I did this morning. Do you have any idea how good that felt?”

She looked away and in her heart she heard those two words from earlier.
Not now.

She faced him. “Not now.”