A small furrow creased between Jill’s eyes as she felt behind Casey’s ears and down her neck. “So they’re not exactly blackouts but—”
“More like lapses,” Casey said quickly. “And only the past couple of days.” She decided not to mention her weird dreams for fear the good doctor might send her to a shrink. Instead she added, “I remember going home from the club but not how I got into my car or why I left.”
“Hm,” Jill said. “Could just be exhaustion. You’ve got some marks here on your neck.” She moved to study the side of Casey’s throat closer. “They look like—”
Heat crept up into Casey’s cheeks. “Oh, yeah. That.” She reached a hand up to rub the mystery hickey from the mystery man she’d very nearly had a one-night stand with.
Theron. That was his name. Another of her lapses. She remembered his name, but not much else about him, other than that he seemed to be a walking sex god who had a strange way of speaking. Oh, that and the fact that there was something oddly familiar about him, and that she’d wanted to jump his bones the moment she met him.
But the important stuff—like how he’d ended up at her house and where he’d gone when he vanished after their impromptu make-out session—were still a mystery to her.
“Casey?” Casey’s eyes snapped up to Jill’s curious face. “Something you want to tell me?”
Yeah, right. Casey gave her head a swift shake. “No. Ah, I mean, that was from a date.”
Sort of.
A sly smile spread across Jill’s face. “Well, at least I know you aren’t so sick or tired that you’ve given up your social life. That’s a good sign.”
Casey frowned. She wished that were the case. Her evening with Theron the Mystery Hunk had been a definite exception to her measly love life. Or lack thereof.
“You’ve got a couple swollen lymph nodes,” Dr. Jill said. “Nothing major, so my guess is your body’s fighting off the flu, which is why you’re not feeling so hot right now. Just to be safe though and to rule everything out, let’s do a complete physical, okay? I see from your chart you’re due for one anyway.”
Casey blindly nodded. Knowing she wasn’t doomed to the same fate her grandmother had been dealt was worth suffering through a half hour of poking and prodding. “Okay.”
Jill smiled. “I’ll get the nurse and be right back.”
As Jill moved out of the room, Casey leaned back on the angled table and rested her head on the pillow. The paper crinkled beneath her. She stared up at a tiny fairy hanging from a strand of fishing line from the ceiling, crossed her hands over her belly and breathed out a sigh of relief.
She was good. All was well. When she left here she could go back to doing exactly what she’d been doing before her crazy weekend rendezvous with Theron. Mainly, figuring out a way to keep her grandmother’s bookstore afloat. She really didn’t have a choice, did she? If she couldn’t make this work…where else would she go?
At some point she had to stop wandering and settle in. Quit looking for that elusive paradise where she’d fit in and grow roots. She was twenty-seven years old, for crying out loud. It was way past time. Her grandmother had loved this town, had loved the bookstore. Casey was determined to make this last move work.
As she relaxed farther into the pillow, she thought briefly of her almost one-night stand again. Her cheeks heated. Not the smartest thing she’d ever done, but at least one of them had come to their senses before it was too late. She’d just chalk the whole experience up to bad choices. And being overworked. And exhausted. But one thing was certain. It definitely wouldn’t happen again.
“Casey?” Dr. Jill called from the other side of the door with a soft knock. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Casey said. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Nick sensed the air change just as he had two days before. He lifted his mouth from the breast he’d been laving and went completely still.
“Jesus, don’t stop now,” Dana groaned beneath him as she arched her back to offer more. “Not yet.”
“Shh.” He planted a hand on the crisp sheets of her bed and tuned his hearing toward the disturbance he’d felt.
Her eyes narrowed in concentration as if she were listening as closely as he was. Of course she couldn’t, but it didn’t make her try any less.
“I don’t feel anything,” she whispered moments later. Her breath fanned across his cheek, remnants of the vodka and cranberry juice she’d inhaled to celebrate the end of her shift at XScream wafting toward his nose. Outside, a car whooshed by on the rain-slicked streets, the only sound drifting up to the second-floor apartment she kept above the Wash-n-Go Laundromat on Third Street in downtown Silver Hills.
He knew why she kept the apartment and didn’t live with the others, but it bothered him. Their kind should stick together. Especially now. Especially when he sensed there was a change coming. His scars had been tingling for days now.
“Nick?”