He pinched his nose, testing it for broken cartilage. “No, I did not.”

GIMME SHELTER

9

The rain stopped, which was the only nice thing I could say about our long, silent walk to the nearest house. The road was broken and muddy, and the only thing that kept me from tripping or falling into ditches was Collin’s keen eyesight. He tried to help me, catching my elbow when it looked as if I might topple over, but I jerked away from him. I didn’t need his pity. I didn’t need his help. I needed him to get a time machine, so we could start this whole trip over again.

We walked until my ankles ached, finally finding a cozy little farmhouse with a green roof and yellow shutters. It looked like something out of a Thomas Kinkade painting. The kitchen light was on, but the rest of the house was dark. In the distance, cows lowed, and chickens made little night noises. As we cautiously approached the front steps, I snagged a tomato from the garden and ate it like an apple.

“OK, what’s the plan?” I asked as we closed in on the house. “Because a lot of scary movies and dirty jokes start out like this, and none of them bodes well for the lone female in this scenario.”

“What does your intuition tell you about the owner?” he asked.

“You’re the one with the gift, not me!” I whispered.

“You have a gift, too.” He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me toward the house. “I feel one heartbeat in that house. But I don’t know anything about the person inside. What do you see? What does the house tell you about this man?”

I shrugged him off, stepping away as I scanned the house and the yard. “There’s a truck in the driveway that’s used regularly, lots of road dust, wear on the tires. But that pretty little champagne-colored sedan has been sitting in the carport for a while. See where the pine pollen and debris have formed a sort of chalk outline around the car? The wash line is worn, but it’s sagging, as if no one has taken the time to wind it up tight for use in a while. The curtains in the kitchen window are in good condition but a couple of years out of date. And they’re dirty. Someone who used to care about these things recently stopped caring. There’s an empty case of beer by the garbage can, not to mention a bulk-size box of TV dinners. So I’m thinking the good farmer’s wife died a while ago, and he hasn’t had the heart to sell her car or take down the curtains. The bad news is that because he’s alone, if we move anything around, he’s much more likely to notice.”

“Very good.”

“But I could be wrong!” I insisted as we rounded the house, searching the backyard. “For all we know, she’s a lousy housekeeper on a visit to her sister’s, and he’s living it up, packing himself to the gills on beer and high-sodium TV dinners. Or he’s killed her, and her preserved body is tucked away in a rocking chair in the root cellar.”

“Still, I think it was a very good guess.”

“Don’t patronize me. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to show up at a stranger’s doorstep with a vampire in tow. He could be a maniac. He could be an antivampire activist. For all we know, he’s got silver stockpiled in there, and he’s just waiting for an opportunity to try it out. After the night we’ve had, I’m not willing to take any chances.”

“Would it make you feel any better if I tried to—”

“Scan the immediate future for my bloody, violent death via farm implement? Yes, it would.”

“Just don’t touch anything, or make any decisions, or move,” he said. He closed his eyes.

I pressed my lips together and crossed my arms. “So insulting.”

He closed his eyes as if concentrating, a line of frustration forming between his brows. After a few long, silent moments, he groaned. “I can’t tell!” he hissed. “I can’t tell what the best course of action is. Damn you and your wily ways, woman!”

“Oh, come on,” I said, chuckling. “I’m not that unpredictable.”

I sat on what looked like a wooden picnic table on the ground. It gave way beneath me, collapsing. I fell back, tumbling ass over teakettle down concrete stairs. I hit the earthen floor with a thud, whacking my head on a bag of feed corn.

“Ow,” I muttered, wiggling my fingers and toes to make sure I hadn’t done permanent damage.

There was a blur of motion, and suddenly Collin’s face was hovering over mine. “Are you OK? Does anything hurt?”

“My pride,” I groaned. “And my ass.” He helped me sit up. “You didn’t see a hint of that? Nothing?”

He shook his head.

“You’re trying not to laugh at me, aren’t you?”

He nodded.

“I hate you,” I moaned. “I hate you so much.”

“No, you don’t. You’re just upset with me.”

“I am, but I’ll get over it,” I grumbled, sitting up. “Eventually, I will understand you were trying to do something good. Your heart was in the right place, but your head was up your own ass.”

“That’s a memorable and disturbing image.”

I’d apparently fallen through the unlocked external doors of the farmer’s root cellar. The farmer used this room as a storage space/storm shelter/winter pantry. Rows of carefully preserved green beans, peaches, and applesauce lined the shelves. I took a plastic gallon jug of distilled water and twisted it open, draining much of it in one long, blissful pull. My eyes landed on a first-aid kit and then the camping lamp hanging over our heads. Collin reached for it and tried to open the little glass cylinder.

“You don’t light it,” I told him, flicking the little switch on top.

“Interesting.” He scanned the little windowless room, with its low ceiling and bare earthen walls. “Rather homey, isn’t it? Clean, roomy, no instruments of death lying about. We can always just sleep here for the day.”

“Yeah, it will be great, until the farmer decides he needs a jar of pickled beets tomorrow afternoon, opens the door, and then you’re a little pile of dust.”

“Have a little faith.”

“Really, Collin, why don’t you just run ahead or something? You can cover the distance in a night, right? I’ll be fine. I’ll get home on my own.”

“Because I’m a vampire, not a cheetah,” he told me. “I can’t run that fast or far. And second, I’m not leaving you behind. If I arrive without you, your employer will know we had trouble.”

“I think she’ll notice when I show up without her car.”

“I’ll take full responsibility for the car. She can’t be angry with you over something a client did.”

“Your sudden bout of cockeyed optimism is annoying. Besides, say we survive the day undetected, then what?” I asked. “We find a phone, call Iris, and beg her for bus fare?”

“We’ll find a way,” he assured me, lifting my face to meet his gaze. “I promise you. We’ll find a way to get home without getting you into trouble. Come on, woman! Where’s the girl who showed up at my door three nights ago? The girl who called me a piece of work and reminded me I had no way of getting home except for her car? She would scoff at this little travel … hiccup. Sleeping in a root cellar with a vampire. It’s child’s play. I would think it would appeal to your perverse sense of adventure.”

“You’re right. I should make the best of—hey! What do you mean, perverse?”

Collin began rooting around for materials that we could fashion into a bed. I secured the door with an ax handle, then started searching through the pantry contents.

“This feels really wrong,” I told him as he shaped a pile of empty feedsacks into a makeshift bed. “As if we’re haunting this poor man’s basement.”

I cracked the wax seal of one of the jars and carefully picked out a few slices of fruit from the fragrant liquid with my fingers.

“What are you doing?”

“In the name of not starving, I am appropriating this jar of spiced peaches. Consider it the sweet course after the tomato entrée. My concerns about thievery decrease in proportion to my concerns about low blood sugar and dry heaves. Also, this stuff is fricking delicious.”

He was watching me scooping the delicious, pulpy fruit from the jar and sucking the juice from my fingers. I cringed, knowing that this must be sending his OCD into overdrive.

“Sorry. I’m being rude. What about your blood?” I asked. “It went down with the ship, so to speak. Aren’t you hungry?”

“I should be all right for a few more hours.”

“And then we’re going to have to find some willing donor?” I asked. “Or some synthetic?”

“Unless you’re offering.”

Now, normally, I would consider it pretty damn rude to devour half a jar of spiced fruit in front of a starving man without offering him a meal. But I was still a little sore about the events of the evening. And I’d never served as a vampire meal before. So I was going to have to sleep on it.

I stripped out of my wet jacket and did my best to comb through my damp hair with my fingers. I checked my watch. We had at least another hour before sunrise, but it was good that we were settling in for the night. Day. Whatever. When I looked up, Collin was stepping out of his pressed gray trousers.

“What are you doing?” I whisper-hissed, careful not to make too much noise and wake up our host upstairs. He folded the trousers carefully, the light of the camping lamp reflecting off his pale skin. His extremely pinchable butt was beautifully draped by black boxer briefs. I shielded my eyes with my hand, as if the sight were offensive.

“I usually sleep naked.”

“Every time you get out of the cubby, you’re wearing a suit. Nice try.”

He smirked. “It was worth a shot.”

“Keep the boxers on,” I warned him. “If your next line is that you want to share body heat, I’m not above smacking you while you sleep.” Against the sliver of lamplight, I saw his lips quirk.

“Why did you have to choose tonight to develop a sense of humor?” I grumbled as I lay down on the feedsack bed. It was surprisingly comfortable, a little like sleeping on a giant buckwheat pillow. Collin settled in beside me, on his side, smiling at me.

I turned away from him, content to let him stare at my back.

“Good night, Miranda,” he said, touching my shoulder gently.

“Good night,” I mumbled, snuggling deeper into the feedsack as he clicked the lamp switch.

In the dark, I listened to the house settling over us and finally processed the fact that I was utterly and completely fucked. My stomach felt as if it was turning inside out. I didn’t love Jason anymore, but I was entitled to a few tears. I was humiliated and sick, thinking of all of the lies I’d believed, all of the concessions I’d made. I’d let too much of myself go to please Jason. If anything, my time on the road had shown me how much more comfortable I was in my own skin when I was my unkempt, uncouth self.

I was confused, but it was the good kind of confused. Yes, I was a mess, out here on my own. But at least I was having fun—or what passed for fun when I wasn’t murdering innocent vehicles. I didn’t want normal. I didn’t want predictable. I didn’t want the life Jason and I were going to build together. How stupid was it that I’d made so much effort to create a life that I didn’t want?

I was baffled by possibilities, the right and wrong of them. I was excited about the choices ahead of me. And it felt as if no matter what I did, it would be better than going back to Jason.

Still, listening to the mating call of the Not So Platonic Friends had singed my pride.

And I was going to be fired. Again. There was no way Iris would forgive this. Even if Collin had been driving, Iris couldn’t keep someone on if she’d lost an entire car on her first assignment. It set a bad precedent. But I liked the job. That was the bitch of it. I liked the challenge of getting from point A to point B. I liked the daily race to meet my mileage goal, even if I missed it. I liked being able to stop and take pictures of whatever caught my eye, just for the hell of it.