Slowly, my hand slid down the side of the mattress, reaching for the Louisville Slugger I kept under the bed in my apartment. But of course, it wasn’t there. Why would I bring a weapon to a nice, safe country cottage?
Something in the other room hit the floor with a muted thud, sending a cold, watery flash through my belly. I’d seen Straw Dogs. I knew this scenario wouldn’t end well for the out-of-towner.
I jumped out of bed, carefully moving to close the door with a soft click. I leaned against it, both palms pressed to the wood, as if my scrawny self could be any kind of barricade. Forcing myself to take slow, deep breaths, I stepped into my sneakers and a hoodie.
Options! I barked at my brain. Give me options. You can panic later.
I needed to call 911. But Lindy had taken all of the landline phones with her when she’d moved out. My cell phone? In my bag, on the TV table next to the front door. The front door, which was right by the kitchen. That was very poor planning on my part.
I would kick myself later, I promised. OK, I couldn’t call for help. I couldn’t get to my car keys. Could I run? My nearest neighbors were three miles away, but if I cut across the cow pasture that bordered the property, I could make that distance pretty easily. I could run in my pajama pants. It would mean leaving my purse behind, but at this point, I was willing to live without my cell phone and the fourteen Chap-Sticks rattling around in my shoulder bag.
I crept over to the window and tried to shove the sash up. Nothing. It didn’t budge a millimeter. Planting my feet, I tried again, shoving with all my might. Nothing. Being low to the ground gave me proper leverage, but I was also skinny, malnourished, with no weight-lifting regimen.
I leaned closer to the sill. “What the hell?” I hissed. The windows had been nailed shut from the outside. “Who does that?”
Were all of the windows nailed shut? Why would Lindy do that? I considered throwing my nightstand through the single-pane window and making a break for it, but having no idea who was in the house or why, I preferred to get away without calling attention to myself.
I need more options, Brain!
But Brain was ignoring me in favor of regurgitating random soup recipes. Because knowing the exact amount of mushrooms in the porcini bisque special from the previous week was super-useful at the moment. Stupid Brain.
OK, the back door was near the kitchen, which was clearly not a viable route. If I was very quiet, I might be able to sneak past the kitchen, grab my purse, and get out through the front door, calling the cops while I ran for the neighbors’. It was better than cowering in my room, waiting for some unknown intruder to decide whether he wanted to add murder to his criminal résumé.
I listened at the door, unable to hear anything on the other side. I touched the knob with shaking fingers, forcing myself to grasp it and turn. I could do this, I told myself. I was a city girl. And I would not let some hillbilly housebreaker intimidate me. I eased the door open. This was my house, damn it, however temporary. I didn’t let people intimidate me in my kitchen, much less my house. Giving up the relative safety of my room, I took a few resolute steps out into the hall.
I was Tess Maitland, terror of junior line cooks everywhere. I wasn’t afraid of anything.
Except for heights. And sharks. And backwoods burglars.
My bravado deflated to nil as I neared the kitchen. If I could just sneak past unnoticed and slip out the front door… If I could grab my keys and make it to my car, all the better.
My favorite wok—fourteen inches in diameter and carbon steel, nice and heavy—sat on top of a box full of kitchen supplies I’d left in the hallway. I slipped my fingers through the smooth wood handle. Now if he got in the way, the home intruder was going to get a nice, solid whack.
From the kitchen, I could now hear the low hum of the microwave. My arms fell to my sides, wok bumping against my leg.
Who the hell breaks into someone’s house to use their microwave?
Believe it or not, this actually made me feel better. For one thing, someone who was warming up ramen in a stranger’s house probably wasn’t planning the dismemberment of said stranger. And the microwave had probably covered the sound of my approach. As long as I didn’t—
I moved my left foot, wincing as the board beneath it squeaked.
Damn it.
The microwave stopped, and swift footsteps moved toward the kitchen door. I threw myself against the wall, hoping to make myself invisible.
The kitchen lights were flicked off, and something was coming my way. My hands shook as I gripped the pan tightly.
As the dark shape moved toward me, I raised my weapon high over my head. In front of me, white hands came into view, and a clear, low voice said, “Wait a min—”
Without waiting for the rest of his speech, I did what any reasonable person would do. I brought the steel pan crashing down on his head.
“Ow,” the shape growled, although he did not drop to his knees.
I shrieked and whacked him again, a nice uppercut swing that landed across his face. Enough moonlight spilled from the window that I could just make out the slim build, long limbs, dark hair, and darker eyes.
“Stop that!” he spat, sounding rather annoyed now. And I found the tone of his voice really pissed me off. He was in my house. He was skulking around in my kitchen, cooking what I assumed was my food, and he was annoyed with me for interrupting him? He grunted when I swung the pan down on the crown of his head, but he still didn’t drop.
“Screw this, I’m going to get my knives,” I hissed, stomping toward the kitchen.
This was stupid for two reasons. One, I could have just walked out of the house unscathed. Also, I’d just broadcast my plans to my opponent. The moment I moved past him, his arm shot out and caught me by the hand, squeezing with enough force that I cried out. Twirling the wok with my free hand, I smacked his arm away with the edge of the pan.
“Stop hittin’ me with Asian cookware!” he shouted, shoving me away, sending me skidding into the fridge.
“Get the hell out of my house!” I shouted back.
He backed toward the doorway. “Look, I’m going to turn on the lights. And when I do, please don’t swing any other kitchen stuff at my head.”
“Did you miss the part where I said ‘Get the hell out of my house’?”
“Well, that’s the thing. It’s not your house, it’s mine.”
I squinted as he flicked on the lights.
Holy hell.
My deluded burglar was sex in a pair of Levi’s. He was tall and lean, with the exception of a well-developed chest and arms under a worn True Value Hardware T-shirt. His eyes were a warm teak color with dark chocolate centers around the pupils, which complemented the mussed dark hair nicely. He had high cheekbones, marked with a little triangle of freckles at the corner of his left eye, which shouldn’t have been adorable on a burglar, but it was.
The most unusual thing about him was his skin, which was paper-pale. No one I’d so far seen in this town was pale, particularly the young men. People here spent so much time outdoors, doing farm work or yard work or hunting or fishing—everyone I’d seen had a healthy windburned glow. But this guy’s skin was like polished marble, smooth and white, with a faintly iridescent shine. He flashed me his best winning smile, a blinding white with prominent canines. I stepped back instinctively.
“Oh, come on! You’re a vampire?”
He grinned nastily, dropping his fangs.
“Damn it.”
Contrary to popular legend, vampires didn’t have to wait to be invited into your house. They could walk through any human’s door any time they wanted. They just chose not to out of politeness. This was one of the many, many misconceptions that had been blown out of the water when vampires came out of the coffin in 1999.
Believe it or not, even living in a big city, I hadn’t come into contact with vampires often. Unable to digest human food, they didn’t exactly flood my restaurant with business. We had a vampire dishwasher for a while. The hours suited him perfectly, but being around that much silver, to which vampires were severely allergic, had him on edge for his entire shift, and he quit after three weeks. We tried to point out that our silverware was actually stainless steel, but Bruno couldn’t be persuaded. It was a shame. He was the one guy we could count on to show up on time.
I’d always figured that vampires had centuries under the radar to sink their teeth into anyone they wanted before the Coming Out, so why would they pick off random bystanders now that they were under media scrutiny? At least, that’s what I thought before one of them slunk into my kitchen and used my microwave without permission.
What the hell did a vampire heat up in a microwave, anyway?
“Whatsa matter?” he asked, the faint bluegrass twang rising and falling like ripples in bourbon. “Cat got your tongue?”
Despite the panty-dropping lilt of his voice, he touched the nerve that hadn’t sparked since Phillip had uttered the word “sabbatical.” I grabbed for the canvas carrying case that protected my ungodly expensive ceramic knives.
“Oh, put the knives down,” he said, moving around me at lightning speed and pushing the case out of my reach. “Gosh darn hysterical female.”
“Look, pulse or no pulse, you are breaking and entering. You need to get out, right now, or I’ll call the Council hotline.”
“Call V-one-one,” he said, referring to the nickname for the World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead’s national hotline for humans with vampire problems. “I have every right to be here.”
“I have a rental agreement in my bag that says otherwise,” I shot back.
“My name is Sam Clemson. I’ve lived here for the last five years. My wife and I are in the middle of a divorce. Until it’s final on October 28, I have the legal right to be here.”
“Tess Maitland. Wait—” I clapped my hand over my face. “Lindy’s husband? George said her husband died!”
“Well, to be fair, he wasn’t wrong,” he admitted. “I was turned about two years ago.”