bobbed her head again, looking at him contemplatively, not knowing what to think.
Once inside, Dorian led her over to a stool and had her sit. “Beer? Or coffee?”
She wasn’t really a drinker, but right now a beer sounded like what she might need. She managed the word, “Beer…”
“Good girl.” He flashed a becoming smile.
She sat there staring at him while he took out beers for the both of them, opened them and sat one in front of her. “Or would you prefer a glass?”
“This is fine.”
“I think I’m going to like you,” he said, grinning broadly. He sat on the stool to her left, twisting around to face her from the side, studying her intently. “Sure glad I was home,” he said after a little bit. He drank down some of his beer and sat the bottle down.
“Yeah…Thank God!” She took a couple of swallows of her beer but held onto it, looking questioningly at him. “How did you get to me so fast? How did you snap that cat’s neck so easily?”
“First of all, I was on my porch.” Which wasn’t a lie. The second he’d smelled the cat he was out the door. He nodded towards the back. “And if you look over the bushes by the back porch… you can see that you were only a few yards from here. You can’t see the cabin from that direction, but I saw you just before the cat yowled.”
“But you moved so fast?”
“Had to! Didn’t I?” he said, amused by her astonishment.
“Never saw anyone move like that.”
“Ummm…You were in shock.”
“Yeah…”
“Probably seemed faster than it really was. Funny phenomena that I’ve become aware of over the years – Time seems to freeze or go into slow motion, almost like in the movies during traumatic events. Some would argue the fact…but I’m certain that it does.”
She remembered the early morning hours before waiting to hear the fate of her husband. Time had seemed to have stopped then. “Maybe…” She took another drink of her beer, and then said, “But you just snapped its neck like it was nothing!”
“What can I say,” he said, smiling pensively. “Take care of myself…I’m strong. Besides, seeing a damsel in distress got my adrenaline going.”
“I guess you do take care of yourself…” she managed a partial smile then. “I owe you my life. I should be thanking you…not bombarding you with questions.”
“Understandable…You had a traumatizing experience…Shake anyone up.”
“Well…Again, thank you!’
“You don’t have to thank me…I did what was necessary.”
That spark that had rendered her so weak in the knees the first time in the store was back in his eyes. She swallowed, once more weak-kneed. She was glad she wasn’t standing. She had to look away.
He grinned sanguinely and guzzled the rest of his beer down.
She drank a few more sips of hers in silence. This was turning out to be a most extraordinary day.
“What’s the faraway look for?” he asked, sitting his now empty bottle down.
“Just thinking what a day this is turning out to be.”
“I guess so.”
“Not just talking about what just happened…But did you hear about the latest death?”
“Ohhh…You mean our local realtor.”
“Yeah…We’d sort of become friends.”
“I’m sorry,” he said with true sympathy. He didn’t like seeing her upset. “She was a nice person.”
“You know what I’m thinking?”
“That the cougar was the culprit?”
“Must be…It would have killed me…had you not been here.”
“That’s true…Still, we can’t be absolutely certain that the cougar killed the others.” Then seeing the look on her face, the look that said she wanted it to be the cougar, he quickly added, “But you’re probably right.”
“I’m thinking Grady should be told about this.”
“Definitely,” Dorian agreed, knowing this incident would, at least for now, take any possible suspicion away from him. Had she not come so close to losing her life, he would have been glad it happened. Now, he was truly thankful he had come home when he did. He almost hadn’t. Had thought of taking a drive, even turned off on I-5. Then decided that he didn’t really want to and turned around at the next exit and went back, stopping at Paul’s Grocery on the way home. That was when he’d learned that Sheila had been found. There had been a number of people in the store talking about it when he went in. He’d been all ears, but hadn’t asked any questions, for he knew what had really happened to her.
In a way he felt bad, she was nice, and not anyone he would have ever considered attacking. It almost pissed him off that Klaus had killed her.
Still, he wasn’t one to get in the way of another vampire, as long as that vampire wasn’t stirring up too much trouble or crossing him, and he did fully understand the overpowering hunger, the endless need for blood.
He’d learned a long time ago that it was often necessary to bargain with the ruthless ones if there was anything you didn’t want them to do – like kill someone you cared about. It was either that are challenge them in a fight, which usually ended up very badly for one of them. He didn’t relish killing one of his own kind, nor did he relish being killed.
Amber had finished her beer and was looking at him strangely.
“Want another? There’s plenty.”
“No…Thank you…I think we should call Grady.”
“Okay.” He took out his cell phone and made the call while she walked over to the door.
She heard Dorian tell Grady that he’d just killed a cougar, and that she had been his intended victim. She turned and looked back at him, couldn’t help but stare at his handsome profile. He was strikingly good-looking…even beautiful. He’d been looking out a side window and glanced over at her, as though he knew what she was thinking. Their eyes met. An electric thrill shot through her and she quickly turned away.
What was this power he had over her? She suddenly realized she wanted to be near him, like she’d never wanted to be near anyone before. At the same time, something in his very presence was intimidating. She opened the door and was about to step outside.
Dorian finished up his call and snapped his phone shut. “Leaving without saying goodbye?” he asked, teasing.
“I was just waiting for you to get off the phone. And…Yeah…I should get back. Guess I won’t get any painting done today, but I still have things to put away… and in order. Want to get this moving-in thing done,” she said, feeling as though she needed to give him a reason or even apologize for leaving – He had saved her life!
“Moved in shortly before you,” he said, following her out on the porch. “Can certainly sympathize with that. But…Grady’s on his way out.” Dorian checked his watch. “He’ll be here in about twenty minutes…I am sure he’s going to want to speak with you, too. Besides, I thought I’d escort you back, especially after what you just went through. That is, if it’s okay with you?”
“Certainly,” she replied, realizing he was making perfect sense. If he didn’t have such an ungluing effect on her, she probably would have thought of it. “And yeah…You’re right…didn’t think about Grady needing a statement from me. I should wait.”
He smiled charmingly. “We can sit out here on the porch…” He patted the middle step with his hand. “Enjoy the fresh air until he gets here.”
She nodded okay, and they sat down.
A few minutes passed in absolute silence. For once, she was at a loss of words. He was sitting right next to her. Their bodies were almost touching. She realized that he really did smell like pine and sage – just like in her dream! She turned her face to his and was at once caught up in his gaze. There was a slight change in his pupils, and she let out a barely audible gasp.
“Something wrong?”
She quickly looked off. “Ahhh…Not really. Just thinking about what happened,” she lied.
“Oh?” He
shifted his body sideways, leaning closer in to hers.
She could tell he knew she was lying, but it didn’t seem to bother him. In fact, he almost seemed amused. Her eyes caught sight of something else then – a large black bird flew in and perched at the very top of one of the taller pines at the back of his lot. “Is that a crow? It’s huge! Just like the one that’s been hanging around my porch. Wonder if it’s the same one.”
She looked at his profile and saw that he had definitely noticed it, too. And he didn’t look too happy about it. She even thought he looked a little angry. The muscles in his jaw twitched.
“Possibly a hybrid. Too big for a crow…Probably a raven or even a craven.”
“A craven?”
He smiled sanguinely and turned his face to hers again. “You know…cross between a crow and a raven.”
“No…didn’t know such a thing existed.”
He looked back at the bird. “Out here… they do.” The smile left his face again.
Their attention was taken then by the crunching of tires on the gravelly drive.
“I do believe Grady’s here,” Dorian said, standing and extending a hand to help her up. “Come on.” They walked off the porch and around to the left of the house, past an awning that protected Dorian’s Porsche and to where Grady had pulled in. The ranger was just getting out of his Jeep.
Grady touched the tip of his hat. “Hello, Amber…” He focused on Dorian then. “Dorian.”
They shook briefly and dropped hands.
“Got you a cougar?”
“Fraid so.”
Amber stepped forward. “Yeah…If it weren’t for Dorian, I’d be chopped liver by now…probably