Runaway Vampire (Argeneau, #23)

“You are Canadian as well?” Dante asked with surprise.

Carol nodded. “We used to be snowbirds too, driving the RV down here like Mary and Joe, but about eight years ago the four of us booked in here as usual, and during our stay the owners mentioned they were looking to sell and move to California to be closer to their kids. We decided we’d buy it and stay year round.”

“The best decision we ever made,” Dave announced with a smile.

The waitress appeared at their table then and Carol smiled at the girl and said, “Oh, Andrea. You remember Mrs. Winslow? And this is her nephew, Dante.”

Mary smiled at the young woman. Carol and Dave hired a lot of locals to help out at the campground in the busy season, but Andrea was one of the year-round workers who had been with them since they’d bought the campgrounds. As Mary recalled, Andrea had started here fresh out of school at eighteen, which put her at about twenty-six, Dante’s age or a little older, she thought. Mary had always liked the girl, but noting the way she was eyeing Dante like he was a tasty treat, she found herself cooling toward her.

“So, what does everybody want?” Carol asked cheerfully. Twisting in her seat, she gestured toward the blackboards on the wall of the cookhouse. “Everything we make is there on the boards, Dante.”

“Yes.” Andrea beamed at him. “Have whatever you want.”

Mary’s eyebrows rose at the suggestive offer and she asked sweetly, “How are you finding married life, Andrea? When I stopped here in the fall it was just a week or so until the wedding, wasn’t it?”

“Oh,” Andrea flushed, and then glanced quickly to Dante and back before mumbling, “Yes. It’s fine.”

“The wedding was beautiful,” Carol put in when Andrea didn’t say anything else. Smiling at Dante, she added, “They held it here along the river. The pictures turned out really nice.”

Mary nodded as if she cared, and then glanced to the blackboards and quickly gave her order. The others followed and Andrea slipped away to take their order to the cook.

“I think our Andrea is a little taken with you, Dante,” Dave said with amusement once the girl was out of earshot.

“Any red-blooded female would be,” Carol said on a laugh and then teased, “If I were thirty or so years younger, Dave would have something to worry about with you here.”

“You flatter me,” Dante said with a smile and leaned to the side to pet Bailey as she moved to sit on the ground behind him and Mary.

Carol frowned and then glanced to Mary and asked, “I don’t remember any of your or Dave’s siblings moving to Italy.”

Mary’s eyes widened with confusion. “None of them did.”

“But Dante has an Italian accent,” she pointed out and then said, “Oh, is this one of Joe’s chil—” She broke off sharply as she realized what she was saying. Eyes wide with alarm, Carol turned to her husband for help.

Rolling his eyes with disgust at her gaff, he changed the subject abruptly by announcing, “Carol thinks we should sell up and move back to Winnipeg.”

Mary had frozen at Carol’s words. She now glanced quickly to Dante, noting that he was staring at Carol with the same concentration he’d had in his eyes as he’d looked back at her the first time she’d seen him lying on her RV floor. Had he been trying to read her mind then? she wondered. And was he now reading Carol’s thoughts to find out what she’d been talking about? The possibility was a humiliating one for Mary. Forcing a smile to her face, she said quietly, “You mentioned that when I stopped in the fall. But you didn’t seem interested.”

“He isn’t,” Carol said unhappily.

“Of course not,” Dave said with a grimace. “It’s damned cold in Winnipeg in the winter, and I’m too old to be shoveling snow.”

“We could get an apartment,” Carol argued at once. “Besides, I miss the kids, and the grandbabies are growing up so fast.”

“They visit,” Dave pointed out with irritation.

“Once a year,” Carol countered. “I want to see them more than that.”

“You could always visit them up there,” Dave pointed out. “I told you. You should go this summer and stay a couple months, then come back for the winter. We’d be driving an RV down here for the winter anyway if we didn’t own this place. In fact,” he continued, “If you want you could get a small apartment and stay there for the summers, we could afford that. Then you could come back in the fall for the busy season.”

Carol frowned at the suggestion. “And leave you here alone all summer?”

“I’d have help running the place,” he pointed out dryly. “I’d be fine.”

Her mouth tightened. “Don’t you want to see your grandchildren too?”