I could have run. Could have locked myself in my room. Instead I pulled my cell and looked for a call from Rick. Nothing. Nada. Not a voice mail, not a text, zero, zip, zilch. I hit his number on speed dial and listened to the ring. Again, I was shunted to voice mail and hesitated a moment after the beep. “It’s Jane. Call me. Please.” Short, polite, not whiny. And I broke the connection. Through the window, I saw a gout of flame as Bruiser started the charcoal.
I dug out a half dozen small Idaho potatoes from among Evangelina’s supplies, wrapped them in damp paper towels, and put them in the microwave. Spinach; tomato; pickles; sliced pickled onion; cold, crumbled bacon from a container in the fridge; some fresh sliced mushrooms I had picked up at the market; and goat cheese. I tossed it all together, with Evangelina’s vinaigrette dressing to the side. When the potatoes were hot, though still not fully cooked, I took them from the microwave and wrapped them in aluminum foil. I twisted the tops off two beers, put four more into a cool pack with ice, took two steaks out of the fridge and dropped them into a zip-lock baggie with some salt and a few pinches of Evangelina’s premixed meat spices, set them into a separate cool pack, and set everything on a large platter. After a moment’s thought, I added a third steak and an additional salad bowl in case Evangelina came home in time. Preparing dinner felt homey, settled, and far too comfortable after the kiss. I carried the raw steaks, potatoes, salads, and the beer outside. To Bruiser.
The sun was still above the horizon, casting long shadows, the day still humid and heavy with summer. Bruiser had lit citronella candles to fight off mosquitoes, and had rearranged the furniture from the side porches, bringing down a table from the second floor, moving deck chairs around to suit him. I had lived in the house for months and had never used the furniture.
Standing beside the flaming grill, he was watching me. Like a predator. Focused and alert, his body a silhouette against the brick wall enclosing the garden and the leafy plants thriving there. He turned away from me and his movements were economical, smooth as a dancer’s. That was one of the gifts of vamp-blood sips—to live over a hundred years and still have the lithe body of a young man. He glanced over his shoulder once as I approached, holding my gaze.
I shouldn’t be here. I should run. But I never ran, not from anything. Running from Bruiser would be ... stupid. This was my house, my den, my territory. Bruiser wasn’t a wild animal wanting to kill me or steal my hunting territory.
I set the potatoes to the side, in the grill’s cooler coals, and handed him a beer, our fingers brushing, mine cold, his hot from the coals. Standing a foot apart, we sipped in silence, the sun now a bright ball on the tops of the ancient buildings of the Quarter. Bruiser leaned to the side and turned on a CD player, a fusion of swing, Latin, and soul, and the mixed percussion of island influences, a number that thrummed into my blood, making me want to move. But he sat in a deck chair, and though my feet said, dance, I sat in the chair beside him, both of us facing the setting sun as the music lazed its heated way into the dusk and coals grew hot. Fixing supper with a man wasn’t something new. I did it all the time with Ricky Bo. But this was different. This was Bruiser. And Rick, for whatever reason, had deserted me.
Discomfort wormed under my skin. I had no idea what to do or say. There were things I wanted to know about Bruiser and hadn’t found the opportunity to ask, but he beat me to an opening conversational gambit, with, “Why do you have boulders in the garden? Why were they so necessary that you included them in your contract?” When I didn’t answer, he added, “And why are they broken? I saw the landscaper’s bill and I know they were whole, river-rounded boulders when they were put in.”
Secrets. Things I couldn’t say. So much for conversation. Possible lies ran through my head, but I’m not good at keeping lies in order; I always make mistakes when I lie. So I had to find a version of the truth I could share. When the silence beneath the music built, Bruiser turned his head my way, waiting patiently.
I said, “There’s a spell on them called hedge of thorns.” Truth. “The spell works best with boulders.” Lie, but acceptable. “I meditate. The stones help me to slide into the proper state easily.” Truth. “If a client agrees to put in boulders, then it’s an indication that he’s serious about fulfilling his part of the contract and about paying me. I’ve been stiffed for the bill in the past.” Truth but stupid. Okay, I could live with it. So far. I sipped, and wished, for the hundredth time, that my skinwalker metabolism didn’t burn alcohol out of my system so fast. I could use some chemical relaxation right now.
“And the broken stones? You don’t beat them with a sledgehammer while meditating.”
“The spell breaks them.” Lie. Total lie. But better than I break them when I shift mass into and out of the stone when I change into a larger or smaller creature. Much better.
But I’d begun to wonder if calcite or aragonite might be better, easier to use than granite, being composed of calcium carbonate, which seemed structurally closer to human composition. Calcium carbonate was the most common mineral in caves with stalactites and stalagmites, and my earliest memories of shifting had begun in a cave with those formations—
“Jane?”
I jerked my gaze to him. “Sorry. Woolgathering.” His quizzical look suggested that I was lying, or at least not telling a complete truth. “Hedge of thorns is a powerful spell. That black ring”—I pointed to the grass—“all around the stones is from one use. The stones contribute to the efficacy of the spell. Molly tried to explain it to me once, but I didn’t follow.” A mixture of truth and lies. I hated this. Bruiser studied my face, a half smile on his, seeming content to let a silence build between us. Which made me nervous for reasons that had less to do with lying than with the amused heat in his gaze.
Mentally, I floundered through the list of things I wanted to know about him and blurted out, “How old were you when you first drank vamp blood?”