And then she frowned, her gaze skirting to the empty seat in front of Sam Hain’s. She’s not only missing the chance to meet Mr. Hain up close and personal, Katelyn thought, she’s missing a history lesson she would have loved.
Katelyn knew that Logan would have been as interested in what Mr. Lehrer was saying as were all of the boys in the class. Logan loved history; and war was just appalling enough to her that she gave it the nod of attention it deserved. At least, that was how Logan had described it when she’d told Kate she needed to study for her history exam this weekend instead of agreeing to help her best friend with the Halloween Dance decorations.
Katelyn rolled her eyes at the thought. Halloween comes around once a year! It’s Logan’s favorite holiday! How can she miss this?
Of course, Katelyn knew the truth. The truth was, Logan hated social events of any type, and the dance was no exception. She was one of those genius creative types; an introvert in the extreme. Logan would rather hole herself away in some remote corner of the county library than get together with a bunch of girls from school and cut out paper pumpkins. It was a wonder she and Katelyn had grown as close as they had.
“Can anyone tell me how many people died in World War Two?” Mr. Lehrer asked the class, bringing Katelyn’s attention back to the present.
“Just over seventy million,” Sam Hain replied.
Wow, his voice is beautiful, Katelyn thought, distractedly. It was deep and resonant.
Katelyn glanced around the room. Every pair of eyes was on Sam. They were waiting – to find out whether he was right or wrong. If he was right, they would exclaim their surprise. No one would have imagined the number being that high.
“That’s on the high end of the estimate, Mr. Hain, but I’ll grant it. Ten points to the new kid,” Mr. Lehrer smiled gently.
“I’m not including those that died in the Pan-Asian war,” Sam went on. He spoke calmly, almost softly, and yet his voice was heard clearly throughout the room. “That would add another seventeen million.”
Mr. Lehrer blinked at the young man. “I must admit that I’m impressed,” he said. “Are you a war buff, Mr. Hain?”
Sam Hain took a moment to answer. When he did, he shook his head once to either side and said, “No, sir. I’m simply familiar with its consequences.”
At this, Mr. Lehrer had nothing to say. He stared at Hain a few seconds longer, and then seemed to pull himself out of his own thoughts. He straightened and addressed the class. “Mr. Hain is correct, of course. Most people, adults included, would spout out six million, without giving it a second thought.”
The class broke into quiet murmurs and Katelyn could see that her fellow students seemed to have gone a tad pale.
Lehrer moved to the board and turned his back on the class to write something in chalk across the black plane. This time, all eyes were on him. Even the girls who had been staring at Sam Hain were now too horrified and impressed with the body count not to give the history teacher their full attention.
“Mr. Hain, perhaps you can also tell me which country suffered the largest number of casualties?” he asked as he wrote “WWII, 72 million deaths; most from….”
“The Soviet Union, with twenty-five million deaths. Most of them were civilian.”
Lehrer glanced over his shoulder at the new boy. His expression was unreadable. “Once again, you’re correct, Mr. Hain.” He turned back to the board and continued to write. As he did, he spoke to the class. “Most would imagine Germany to have the greatest losses. Or, even the United States or Japan. However, as you can see, that isn’t true.” He finished writing and then turned to face the class once more.
“How many of your parents have yellow ribbon decals on their cars?” Lehrer asked next. A few students raised their hands.
He nodded. “We worry for our soldiers. It’s natural. However, the vast majority of people who die in a war are not the soldiers who fight it, but the civilians who are unwittingly caught up in it,” he said. He began to pace through the room then, his hands clasped behind his back. “The soldiers, after all, are armed and trained for combat. Women, children, and the elderly are not.”
The bell rang then, and Mr. Lehrer unclasped his hands. “Don’t forget your tests on Monday. Have a nice weekend, class.”
The students were a little slower at leaving than they normally were. Katelyn could imagine that they were processing what they’d just learned. It took a good deal of energy to learn something new. And if it was something bad, then it took even more.
“Miss Shanks, if you’d stay for just a moment, I’d like to have a word with you.”
Katelyn inwardly groaned, but offered Mr. Lehrer a smile and a nod. She finished gathering her things and looked up just in time to watch Sam Hain walk by her desk. She froze and stared up at him, caught at once in his tall, dark form and the aura of bewitching darkness he seemed to carry about himself.
He looked down at her and smiled, flashing beautiful white teeth and slightly predatory canines. Katelyn stopped breathing beneath that piercing, ice-blue gaze.
“Hi,” he said softly as he walked by.
Katelyn was too stunned to reply, which was unusual for her. She was normally one of the first to make a new boy’s acquaintance. But something about Hain had thrown her. So, she silently turned in place, staring at his broad back as he left the room.
“Katelyn,” Mr. Lehrer addressed her. She whipped around to face her teacher and he went on. “I remember seeing Logan this morning in the hall. Did she happen to mention to you her reason for missing class this afternoon?”
Dietrich Lehrer was staring down at her, a worried expression on his youthful face. He always reminded Katelyn of the British watcher guy on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Except that he was German instead of British. And he had no accent, anyway. But his countenance was the same; especially with those wire-rimmed glasses and the brown suits he always wore.
“No, Mr. Lehrer. She didn’t. But knowing Logan, she had a good excuse.”
Lehrer nodded. He looked away, seeming to consider something for a moment. When his gaze lingered on the noisy, bustling hallway past the door, Katelyn turned to see what he was looking at. Sam Hain passed by the opened door, a tall blur of darkness and leather.
“Very well. Have a nice weekend, Katelyn. Stay safe.”
Logan shoved the last batch of pumpkin and ghost-shaped cookies into the oven and closed the door. She straightened and pulled off the mitts, plopping them down on the flour-covered counter.
It was so, so nice not having Randy Hodges around to give her a hard time as she worked. Mrs. Witherspoon had put her in charge until further notice; in other words, until Randy decided to stop being AWOL and take responsibility of the store again.
Personally, Logan hoped he never showed up. It was ungracious, she knew. But a big, albeit secret part of her actually hoped the bastard was dead.
Because until he returned, Mrs. Witherspoon had made Logan manager. And managers got paid. She was now not only in charge and out from under Randy’s leering lewdness, she was earning seven dollars an hour to bake whatever she wanted, decorate however she wanted, and stay open as late as she wanted.
Randy was missing and Logan was getting paid now. But Meagan was in a coma.
Logan’s brother was kind and giving and loving – when his sickness wasn’t killing them all. Their mother got happy when she had a glass or two of wine. And then she became closed off and withdrawn.
Everything up had a down, it seemed. Logan wondered whether she would ever experience a day when only good things happened, and they weren’t inextricably balanced out with the bad.
“Time to close up,” she told herself as she dusted off her hands and returned to the front of the store. Another few minutes and the cookies for tomorrow’s birthday party would be done. Another few after that, and she could ice and decorate them. Then she would leave them out to cool as she made her way to St. Mary’s.
Logan turned the sign at the front of
the store and locked the door. Then she brought down the blinds and shut off the front room lights.
The scents of the day’s cooking filled the shop, making her feel warm. It was peaceful here, and it smelled like cinnamon and butter and sour dough bread and chocolate cake. There were no slamming doors and no holes in the walls.
Logan sighed and moved to one of the tables. She pulled out a chair and sat down, laying her head on her folded arms. Then she closed her eyes and waited for the oven to beep.
A loud knocking on the glass store front caused her to sit bolt upright, her heart pounding in her chest. For a moment, she thought she’d fallen asleep, she was so shocked. But there was no beeping from the kitchen. And there was no smoke in the air.
Logan wondered whether she’d imagined the foreign sound. But a second round of knocking negated that thought.
Logan stood and made her way to the windows, taking one of the wooden chairs with her. She knew a trick to peeking out windows so that anyone on the other side couldn’t see her. She set the chair beside the window, stood on it, and then peeked out from in between the two top blinds. No one ever looked up that high.
There was a man outside the shop. He was tall and thin and wore a suit. Logan recognized him at once. It was Mr. Lehrer from school.
“Crap,” she whispered. She’d skipped his class today. Fear instantly uncoiled inside of her and her stomach began to ache.
Calm down, she scolded herself as she stepped down off of the chair and shoved it back toward the table she’d taken it from. You have a reason for missing class. It’s legitimate. He’s cool and he’ll understand.
History was her favorite class and surely her high grade had to count for something.
Logan unlocked the door and opened it. “Mr. Lehrer?” she addressed him. He nodded and smiled; he seemed nervous.
“Logan, I’m sorry. I know you’re very busy; I heard about the store’s manager going missing and I know you have a lot to do. But I wanted to talk to you about Meagan Stone.”
Logan blinked. Then she blinked again. Somewhere along the way, common sense kicked in, and she opened the door, inviting him in. He accepted and entered the shop. Logan closed the door behind him.
He turned and pulled a small brown paper bag out of the inside pocket of his brown suit coat. “I heard about what happened with Meagan and that you’ll be stopping by St. Mary’s tonight to see her.”
Logan nodded.
“Will you give this to her for me?” He held out the small bag and Logan stared at it. She was having trouble processing everything all at once. In the back room, the cookies began beeping.
Logan quickly took the paper bag. “What is it?”
“It’s a medallion. It’s hers anyway, actually,” he smiled and shrugged. “She earned it a few weeks ago and we forgot to give it to her.”
“We?” Logan asked, her brow furrowed. Something was nudging the back of her mind – a memory, a puzzle piece. A clue as to what this was all about. But the cookies were about to burn and she couldn’t concentrate.
Mr. Lehrer studied her face, his gaze narrowing slightly in thought. “I’ll let you get those,” he said.
Logan nodded and immediately ran to the back room. She donned a mitt, pulled the cookies out, and spun the dial to the off position. Then she quickly tore off the mitt again and returned to the front room. Mr. Lehrer was gone.
Sam listened in on Katelyn’s thoughts as they rode down Little Walnut road toward the camping spot he’d seen earlier that day. It would be the ideal location to carry out his plan.
Thanks to the supernatural abilities Logan’s writing had given him, seducing Katelyn Shanks would be even easier than it should have been, given what he was. He was handsome and he was charismatic; that much had been very clearly written into all of Logan’s male characters. He was also a vampire, among other things. And along with his new form came the ability to read human minds.
He knew what Katelyn wanted before she even did. He smiled to himself as he pressed the bike into a higher gear and the girl behind him tightened the grip she had on the leather of his jacket. Right now, she couldn’t believe her luck. Sam Hain had asked her out. And on the first day that he’d been at school! Imagine that, he chuckled inwardly.
What are the odds? She thought as he listened. Do gods normally go slumming through high schools in the middle of nowhere?
And there was no doubt in Katelyn’s mind that Sam Hain was a god. To her, he had to be. He was beyond gorgeous. His smile broadened and he almost shook his head. Instead, he kept the bike steady and listened on. Katelyn found him impossibly beautiful; in fact, sometimes it hurt her to look into his eyes. She was certain that if she did, his penetrating gaze would notice that she wasn’t as hot as he was.
And you would hate that, wouldn’t you? he thought to himself.
No Kate, she told herself firmly. He could feel her grip on him tighten again, as if in response to her inner resolve. I am hot. I’m worthy. And I’m going to screw this guy’s brains out before anyone else gets to him and ruins him.
Sam’s grin widened as he pulled the bike off of the road and onto the dirt trail that led into the woods. A few seconds later, he was parking it.
“So… you seem to know an awful lot about how many people have kicked the bucket,” she ventured tentatively. She was trying to sound nonchalant even as Sam knew that her stomach painfully knotted itself into some kind of intestinal Celtic design.
Sam kicked the stand down on his motorcycle. He glanced at her over his broad shoulder and gave her a mysterious smile. “I guess you could say that,” he replied, unzipping his jacket and waiting for her to get off of the bike. She stayed put, instead taking the opportunity to slip her hands around his waist beneath the leather of his jacket.
At first, he stiffened beneath her touch. He hadn’t been expecting it and it was personal. Her fingers traced the hard muscles of his abdomen and his blood seemed to still in his veins. She wasn’t the one he wanted to touch him this way. It made him feel too much like the Death Lord he’d always been. It a made him feel icy. Cold.
But Katelyn Shanks expected a much different reaction. So, he put on his proverbial mask and kept his eye on the prize. He settled back into her embrace and gently grazed his fingertips over the backs of her hands. She shivered. His touch was both cold and strangely hot.
He could sense her frowning behind him, forcing herself to concentrate. “So, how do you know so much about war?”
He took a while to answer. As she waited for him to reply, he continued to trace circles on her hands. The attention was forcing her stomach to knot even more tightly, but it also served as a distraction. The circles he traced were not mere lazy touches; they were ancient Celtic symbols. He knew they were working when her head began to feel fuzzy, as if she were drunk. Oh man, she thought. This is what it feels like when you really like a guy….
“War brings death,” he said, distracting her again. His tone was so soft, he knew she would have to concentrate to hear him. She closed her eyes as he went on. “And death is something I am quite familiar with.”
At that, he released her hands and stood. Katelyn reluctantly leaned back to allow him room to get off of the bike. He gracefully dismounted, his long, well-muscled legs flexing beneath the material of his jeans.
Damn, that’s so fine, Katelyn thought. Again, Sam shamelessly listened. Logan would go nuts over this guy. He’s right up her alley.
He suddenly looked her in the eye, devouring her own image of Logan as if it were sustenance and he needed its strength to go on. She watched him in a somewhat dazed silence as he gazed down at her and he saw in that moment what she saw as he stood over her. He was tall and formidable, an indomitable figure with the moon and clouds forming an eerie picture over his shoulder.
“But I don’t want you thinking about death tonight,” he told her as he offered her his hand. His smile was back when she didn’t hesitate in taking it. “Tonight is about the living,” he we
nt on, helping her off of the bike. “Not the dead.”
She giggled at that, obviously affected by his magic. She was getting giddy. And then she frowned, apparently confused as to why she’d laughed. “Right,” she said, as if to cover up her foolishness. “The living.”
Sam knew he had her then. She was already lost; he could see it in her eyes, read it in her mind. She was nearly his for the taking. All he needed to do was drive a few things home and he would have her eating out of his hand.
“Are you up for a walk?” he asked her, using his gaze to wreak havoc on her senses. He watched her swallow, the movement of her throat drawing his attention to the pulse at the side of her neck. He reined in the sudden swell of hunger that rose within him. Her blood was the one part of her he would gladly take. But this was far more important than a mere midnight snack.
She nodded and let him pull her by the hand. He led her down the trail that cut through the dense woods and sensed the fleeting reservations that ran through her system like a shock wave. He eased it away, effortlessly leeching it from her body with yet another of his abilities.
“You’re quite lovely, Katelyn,” he told her then, speaking so softly and tenderly that his voice seemed to come directly from his heart. He felt her pulse quicken beneath his fingers, which rested so lightly over the vein in her wrist.
She cleared her throat. “Thank you,” she whispered. He felt her skin heat up and knew she was blushing.
“Of course… I mean, your friend Logan Wright is very beautiful, too. I can see why you chose her for a friend.”
She blinked beside him, her thoughts suddenly unsettled. “I… I didn’t know you’d met her,” she said.
“Oh, just in passing,” he said, shrugging as if it were nothing. He still did not look at her, his gaze trained on the path before them. “But she’s stunning really, isn’t she?” He cocked his head to one side, as if considering something. “It must be frustrating to walk into a room with her and know that everyone is looking at your friend and not at you.”
Her grip on his hand slackened a little, but he tightened his own, compensating. He stopped and turned to face her and the expression on her lovely face mirrored her inner turmoil. She was confused. Embarrassed. More than a touch angry.