I pulled back to whisper against his lips, “You don’t have to go home tonight, Noah.”
He stared down at me while his hands tightened on my back. “You’re sure?”
I kissed him and reached down, pulling his shirt out of his pants. He gasped when my palms traced his bare stomach and then moved lower.
“I’m sure.”
***
The next morning, I woke up to hear him whistling as he clanged around making breakfast. He would make someone a wonderful spouse one day with how domestic he was. For a few minutes, I stayed in bed and wrestled with the unavoidable comparisons.
In the plus column, he was miles better than Danny had been, that worthless jerk. On the other hand, I had gained about as much satisfaction out of the two times last night as I did from a good gin and tonic. Still, I’d woken up in the middle of the night with a warm form next to me that wasn’t just the cat. Orgasms weren’t everything. After all, I could have those alone.
“Breakfast is ready, Cristine,” he called out. “Come down before it gets cold.”
The clock showed nine a.m. I never woke up this early if I could help it. What a closet sadist he must be. I headed straight to the bathroom and was occupied when the phone rang. No one called me at this hour unless there was trouble. What now?
“Noah, get that for me!” I yelled.
He answered and I heard him tell the caller to wait. Once I left the bathroom, I grabbed the phone next to the bed. “Noah, hang up. I’ve got it.”
My tone was brisk and he complied without comment. There was a second of silence on the other line, then Tate’s voice. “Is he off?”
“Yes. What’s wrong?”
“What’s he doing there this early, Cat?” An edge was in his words.
“Did you call me for a reason? Or did my mother resign and you took over?” Tate was the only person who didn’t seem happy with Noah, even though he’d only met him twice.
“Yes, I called for a reason. You need to come in right now. Don’s calling in Juan and Dave as well. I’m already on my way to your house; I’ll be there in five minutes.”
Tate lived close by, and my house was on his way to the compound, but still it annoyed me. Noah lingered in the doorway and his face fell when he saw my expression. It was one he recognized well by now, the one that said I was leaving.
“Right.” I hung up without saying good-bye and started to pull on some clothes.
“You’re going.” It was a statement, and I shot him a look.
“Noah, this is the part where I remind you I don’t live a regular life. If you can’t handle that, let me again tell you that you should reconsider dating me. Trust me, I’d understand.”
He came forward as I dropped to the floor to put on my boots. “How can you think I would just walk out on you after last night? I don’t want to pressure you or move too fast, but I think I’m in love with you.”
Oh no, no, no. “Noah, please… I told you I don’t do normal.” My boots were on and so were my clothes. I splashed water on my face and began to brush my teeth.
“I know what you told me. Yes, I am reminded of that whenever I’m with you. But I don’t care. Cristine, what do you feel for me? Is this just… casual to you?”
He looked so vulnerable with his black hair tousled and gray-blue eyes pleading. I felt like a heel for using him to relieve my forlorn existence. An abrupt knock at the door saved me from replying. I brushed past Noah, running down the stairs to answer it.
“We’ll talk later,” I threw over my shoulder. “You can stay here as long as you want. Just lock the bottom knob when you leave and set the alarm. I have to go.”
Tate positively glowered at me when I opened the door. His indigo gaze took in Noah’s shirt lying on the carpet, his pants resting on the banister, and finally Noah himself, clad in only his boxer shorts.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said sarcastically.
I gave him a dangerous peep of emerald light in my eyes as a warning. “I’ll call you later, Noah,” I said, and left without looking back.
Tate started in on me as soon as the car door shut. “I thought you said you weren’t serious about him?”
“Drop it, Tate. Do you know what’s going on? Why didn’t Don call me first?” That miffed me, because I was the leader of this band of freak fighters, and I’d earned my place in the pecking order.
He snorted. “He wanted to ask my opinion of what the situation was before speaking to you. There were some murders last night in Ohio. Pretty graphic ones, no attempt made to hide the bodies. In fact, you might say that they were displayed.”
“What’s so unusual about that?” We didn’t jet around to every nasty crime scene in the nation or we would never be able to cover them all.
“I’ll let Don fill you in on the rest. My job was to pick you up. Guess I’m glad I called first. If I would’ve just used my key, I might have walked in on you two.”
He only had a key in case of my untimely death, but still. “Since when would you have barged in without knocking? God, Tate, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you sounded jealous.”
The guards waved us through the gates at the compound. Tate and I were such a common sight we didn’t even have to show identification anymore. We both knew practically all the guards by name, rank and serial numbers.
“Maybe you don’t know as much as you think,” he responded.
[Author’s additional note: To save you from reading a big chunk of the published version, I cut out the chapters where Cat and her team find out that it isn’t Bones who’s lured her back to Ohio but a vampire hit man named Lazarus. During a fight, Lazarus murders Dave, and Cat blames herself for not killing Lazarus when she had the chance. She returns from the trip grief-stricken and guilt-ridden, and Don forces her to take time off to recuperate. This is where the next deleted scene starts.]
Noah called me every day. I didn’t call him back. The only two people I spoke to outside of work were Denise and my mother. Denise had met Dave on a few occasions, and I had once even entertained the notion of setting them up. She declined, stating she couldn’t handle the stress of being with someone who risked his life every time he went to work. Since he was dead now, I was glad they hadn’t been involved. At least I hadn’t contributed to her misery as well. When I told her he died, sparing any other details, she hung up the phone and drove straight over. She brought a bottle of top-shelf gin and held my hand while I finished it. Denise was a true friend who didn’t need to press for more than what I was willing to tell her. In the end I hadn’t divulged anything more than his death. Better for her not to know particulars. Particulars could only endanger her, and she knew too much already.
The fourth night after Dave’s death, there was a knock at the door. It was after ten p.m., and my only company was the cat and a pint of Häagen-Dazs. Denise was out on a date and my mother was more harm than help. She never wanted to hear about the rigors of my job, content to know I came back alive and the vampires didn’t. In that regard she was easy to please.
There were only three people who would come by without calling: Tate, Juan, or Noah. Noah was my unplanned visitor and stood outside on the front porch under the light at the doorway. I hadn’t seen him in nearly a week and hadn’t missed him. In fact, I’d barely spared him a thought. Depression turned me into a selfish monster. I would have sold my soul for one night of mindless bliss inside the pale, chiseled arms that had been my only source of comfort.
The condemnation I felt over Dave’s death ran even with the staggering knowledge that Bones was truly lost to me. Somehow I’d pictured him still in that cave, waiting there should I ever decide to return. Illogical, irrational, and incorrect, as it turned out. He was long gone. The scent of him to my improved nose was so faint as to be almost nonexistent. Bones hadn’t been there for years. Yet the tiny whiff that lingered in the bedroom with the decimated mattress had been enough to level me emotionally. Maybe I could have run fast enough to save Dave from Laza
rus had I concentrated more. Either way, it was my fault. No matter what Don said.
“Can I come in?” He shifted on his feet and looked searchingly at me.
There was no reason why I shouldn’t want him to. He was kind, gentle, sincere, considerate, and handsome. That meant, of course, that I felt nothing for him beyond the benign affection I gave Tate and Juan. Less than that, actually. With them there was the deeper bond of facing death together regularly and the accompanying sense of responsibility. Noah had none of those ties with me. At the moment, however, he offered me one thing they couldn’t.
Escape. There was no reality with him. No death, no vampires, no ghouls, no buried bodies of close friends who had trusted me to protect them. I could be Cristine, the research and field analyst who was utterly human and just worked odd hours.
“Come in.”
Drowning hands grasp at anything, and Noah was my final gasp of oxygen before taking that lethal plunge. I shut the door behind him and didn’t object when he folded me in his arms.
“I’ve reconsidered what I told you before, Cristine. I don’t think I love you. I know I do. I don’t care if this is moving too fast, I’ve been crazy all week without you. You can throw me out afterward if you want, but I’m going to say this anyway. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, no matter how many times your job interrupts us. Marry me, Cristine. You don’t have to say anything now, but give me a chance to prove that I can make you happy.”
My head whirled with thoughts too fleeting to cling to. Above them all was a warning: Don’t do it. Dave’s blood splashing my hands as I tried to stem the flow… Don’t do it. … Bones’s last words to me. “Don’t fret, luv, I’ll be back before you know it.” … Don’t do it. … My old house littered with new body parts… Don’t do it. … My mother’s face when she called me a whore for sleeping with a vampire… Don’t do it. … Don’s smile when he forced me to come work for him… Don’t do it. … The headstone I’d glimpsed before leaving Ohio, engraved with the name Catherine Crawfield and dated six years ago…
“Yes, Noah. I will marry you.”
***
“You what?”
Don’s voice was almost comical in its incredulity. He was my second call after my mother. She’d cried with happiness.
I repeated the sentence slowly and clearly. “I got engaged to Noah and took off to Niagara Falls to celebrate that.”
Nothing but silence as he digested the news. I could just imagine him tugging madly at his eyebrow. “I see,” he replied at last. “Congratulations, I suppose, although you took my advice to start living a bit literally, didn’t you?”
Asshole. “You always tell me to pay attention, Don.”
Another pause. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’ll tell Noah you offered your congratulations,” I cut him off, then hung up. For once, it had been nicer talking to my mother. That was scary.
“Was that your boss?” Noah inquired in a careful tone.
I leaned back. “Yeah, it was.”
“Will I ever meet him?” Again, he sounded like he was choosing his words.
“Not if you’re lucky,” I murmured and flipped over to kiss him.
Sex with Noah still didn’t excite me, but he didn’t know that. I told myself that one day I might feel Noah inside me and not wish it was someone else. How easily the lies came.
I’d developed a neat self-defense mechanism since Dave had been murdered. Think about nothing. React blindly. Fuck the consequences. We’d see how it worked. Noah certainly wasn’t complaining. He was too busy moaning and arching his back.
I looked down at him and knew I didn’t have to worry about my eyes changing color. My vampire nature hadn’t flared up once. See, there were some advantages to not being satisfied by my new fiancé. I just had to look at the bright side.
***
The hotel-room phone rang thirty minutes later. I answered it, which was a good thing since Tate’s first words were, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Didn’t take long for Don to trace the call, huh?” No surprise that he’d scrambled to find what hotel I was in.
“You don’t love him,” Tate went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “You don’t even know him! I doubt you even know his middle fucking name. And he sure as hell doesn’t know you. He’d shit his pants if he knew the real you. Look, we’re all upset about Dave, but do you think Dave would want you to go and do something as stupid as get engaged to some chump who wouldn’t know the dangerous end of a gun if it were shoved up his—”
I hung up. Okay, so maybe this had been hasty, but I was going to see it through. After all, it couldn’t be the worst mistake I’d ever made. My life was a glorious account of one bad decision after another, and usually those decisions ended with someone dead, like my grandparents. Or Dave. What was a quickie engagement compared to that?
Next to me, Noah began to stir. Sex was like a sedative to him. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended. Since I was trying to think positive, I picked flattered.
“Who was that? Did the phone ring?” he asked me drowsily.
“Just Tate, wishing us all the best.” How easily the lies came.
Noah kissed me and got out of bed, heading for the bathroom. Moments later, the shower turned on and I heard him whistling as he stepped inside. I grabbed a pillow and hugged it to me. Please, I prayed, please let me have done the right thing by agreeing to marry him.
“I love you, future Mrs. Rose,” Noah called out.
“I love you too, Mr. Rose,” I replied immediately.
How easily the lies came.
Chapter Thirteen
Alternate Version of Cat and Bones’s Reunion
Author’s Note: Cat’s “greatest mistake” had a ripple effect in other places in the book, such as the scene where she and Bones finally see each other again at Denise’s wedding. The original version below differs from the published one because in this, Cat is engaged to Noah instead of merely dating him. And Bones is not happy about that, as you can imagine. As I’ve had to do before in some places, I included some parts of the published version with this alternate version. Otherwise this section would consist of a lot of new sentences without any context.
Felicity was delighted at having Bones as her wedding partner for the pictures. She managed to squeeze herself indecently close to him in every shot. My jaw ached from how hard I had to grit my teeth to keep from backhanding her. To make matters worse, he was being charming, and she ate it up.
When I could stand it no longer, I turned my head away to face a wall and spoke under my breath so only he could hear me. “Keep it up and she’ll need a new pair of panties.”
“Jealous, luv?” he said, covering the words with a fake cough.
Hell yes. Even though my fiancé waited for me, my feelings had no sense of fairness. So I took the offensive, as I usually did when upset.
“Not at all. Why don’t you take her around back and fuck her real quick? Then maybe she’ll simmer down and stop acting like such a whore.”
“Ah, Kitten,” he said while he refit the rose in his lapel so no one would see his lips move. “You know how I like to take my time…”
“Just the wedding party,” the photographer said and ushered us to stand together.
I stomped over gracelessly.
“Move in closer, that’s right, a little closer. Now smile and think about the one you love.”
Just as the flash went off, I glanced up and saw Bones staring at me. He wasn’t smiling, and neither was I. But we looked at each other and no one else.
I made a beeline for the bar right after the last click of the camera. There was only one thing that could help me tonight, and that was gin. Lots of gin. I downed the first glass without budging from in front of the bartender.
“Another one.”
The bartender made an inquiring face but poured another gin and tonic.
I eyed the level he selected and gave him a dirty look. ??
?More alcohol,” I said succinctly.
“Whiskey neat when you’re done with the lady,” a familiar voice behind me directed. “Drowning your sorrows, Kitten?”
“Follow me,” I replied, fed up. One way or another I had to find out what he wanted. I passed by my mother’s table to whisper to her. “Keep Noah busy. I’m going to have a chat.”
“Don’t do it, Catherine,” she pleaded, calling me by the wrong name again.
I walked off to the patio before she could say more.
The country club was surrounded by trees with low-hanging branches. Light turned into shadows as the sun set. I heard Bones approach but kept looking at the dying rays of the sun.
“Tell me straight out, why are you here? Is it because you… you still have feelings for me?”
He let out a harsh grunt. “I think you should answer that first. After all, you’re the one who let me come back to an empty house and a bloody Dear John note.”
I couldn’t look at him, because I hated myself for what I’d done. “It was the only way,” I murmured.
“Bollocks,” he snapped back.
“They knew what I was, Bones.” Now I faced him and tried to my keep composure. “The men who came to the hospital that day, they knew everything from my pathology reports. And they knew about vampires. The one in charge—”
“Don?” he supplied.
Oh, so he’d done his homework. “Yes, Don. He said he’d looked his whole life for someone who was strong enough to fight vampires but who wasn’t one of them. And my darling mother informed them I’d been sleeping with one, so they knew about you too. Don offered me a deal. He would relocate us, and I would lead his team. In return, he promised to leave you alone. Then you caught us on our way to the airport and demolished ten square miles of highway. You put five agents in a coma, Bones! If I hadn’t taken the deal, we would have been hunted like animals, and you know my mother would rather die than be sheltered by you. She’d also rather see me killed than changed into a vampire, and let’s face it, that’s what you would have eventually wanted me to do!”