The first time Cole relieved me he came with good news. “Rhona’s driving your dad nuts. She keeps knocking on our door, asking him if he’d like to accompany her to her GAPT seminar tomorrow. I think that blow to her head has lodged an obsession for him deep in her cortex.”
“Cool!”
“Plus, while I was fending her off for him—”
“What!”
“He gave me twenty bucks and promised to fart under the covers for the rest of the day.” I shrugged. How could you argue with that? “Anyway, it gave me the chance to talk to her about Iona. She came with great references. Which I plugged into the database along with one of the shots our cameras picked up. She’s clean. Squeakily so.”
Bummer. I spent my break trying to solve the mystery of Bea’s true identity while some GhostCon idiot droned on and on about why people who die violently have such a hard time resting in the ever-after. I wanted to jump out of my chair and yell, “Well, I’d be pissed too!” I settled for relieving Cole early. Since I couldn’t shuffle my chips for the noise they’d make, I practiced walking one across the tops of my fingers. Amazing how much you can improve at something when that’s the only thing you do for two hours straight. Oh yeah, there was that ten minutes when I figured out Dormal’s secret.
Before my first nap I’d sent the pictures of her room to Tolly along with a request to let me know what she could make of them.ãd m%" She’d gotten back to me with the results right around the middle of my last watch. The symbols on Dormal’s and Floraidh’s doorways were charms of protection, ones meant to keep ghostly and magical attacks neutralized. The squigglies on her wall? A massive curse aimed at one Edward Samos. The kind, Tolly said, that a scorned lover chooses, because wound around the curse is the demand for the stolen love to return.
“Meaning what, exactly?” I’d asked Tolly.
“If I had to guess, I’d say Samos broke up her happy home,” Tolly replied. “Do you know of anyone she’s holding out hopes of reuniting with?”
“Actually, yeah, I do.”
Around four Cole came to relieve me. “Anything new?” he asked as I handed him the laptop.
“Not much,” I replied. “Oh. Except I found out that Dormal’s in love with Floraidh, who’s in love with Samos.”
“Well, that could be significant.”
“I don’t know. Samos is dead. Why would Dormal want to kill Floraidh now?”
“Love is, like, the least logical emotion on earth,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “Look at us. On paper we’re perfect for each other, but in real life . . .” He shrugged.
I crouched down in front of him so I could get a better look at his expression. Hurt. Despite all my efforts, and although he’d pretended otherwise, I’d made his heart bleed. What to say now? Where were the words that would heal him without leaving ice between us?
“What are you looking for, Cole?”
“You!”
I shook my head. “Come on. You knew I wanted Vayl almost from the second we met. And you still came after me. What is it that you think I can give you?”
He closed the laptop lid, spread his fingers out across it and studied them, turned his hands over and watched his palms for a while. If he could’ve seen his future there, would he have felt any relief? “I want what my parents have. Real love. A whole lifetime of it. I’ve been looking, God, since I was probably fifteen. Every time I meet a woman I think, She’s amazing. She could be the one. And then, no. I realize she’s somebody else’s one and I let her go. Then I found you. And I still keep thinking, Yeah, this is it.”
I knew, if I had made a single different decision in my life, he might’ve been right. No Matt. No dead Helsingers. No life as an assassin and no Vayl might have all added up to a Jasmine Bemont with lots of Cole Jrs running around her suburban split-level. Because I did love him. And part of me wanted to be that woman for him.
I said, “You know I can’t do that to you. As much as I might want to, I can’t give you that life. You only think I’m the one because you don’t really know me. You’ve never seen the horror I’m capable of.”
“Jaz—”
“If only you’d consider somebody better. Like Viv.”
“She’s a great girl. We may go on a few dates. We may sãdatometay together for a month or two. Someday we’ll probably be good friends. But I can already tell she’s not the one.”
I’d put my hands on his knees to make my point. Now I dropped them. “I’m sorry.”
When Cole’s answer turned out to be a shrug, I shuffled off to his room to try for a last power nap before Vayl rose. I’d been worried about sleeping after my confrontation with Brude, but Raoul and Colonel John had assured me that his promise of safe passage meant I’d be okay for the duration of the mission. Coming back to his territory after his two-week freebie concluded might be a problem, but they were working on a way to protect me from him should I ever need to cross his lands again. And it turned out they were right. Despite the niggling worries about Brude, and Cole, I slept well. No dreams. No interruptions. Until Vayl knocked on my door.
His hair sparkled, still wet from the shower. Wearing a black button-down shirt with pinstripes tucked into faded jeans he looked good enough to eat. I felt like a leftover taco. “Hi.”
“I am up for the evening.” Really, should it be legal for one man’s smile to make your heart skip a beat? Maybe if he’s not a man at all, but a vampire who has finally taught you the meaning of the word “luscious.”
“I need a shower. And some food.” I thought a second. “And lessons.”
“Oh?”
“I’m pretty sure there’s no way I’m going to be able to keep you interested if you continue to catch me when my hair’s standing on end and my breath smells like drooly pillow. But maybe if some svelte supermodel could teach me a few tricks—”
The alarm in his eyes made me reach for Grief. Which was currently hanging in its holster on the headboard of the bed. So all I got for my trouble was a handful of armpit. Lovely. Problem was, I couldn’t even make farting noises to entertain him. All I could do was stand there and look like a freak show reject.
I think he might’ve read some of what I was thinking in my eyes, because his lips curled as he ran his fingertips down my arms. Oooh, shivery good!
“My sweet pretera, do not change for my benefit. I love you just as you are. Evening breath and all.”
“What a nice thing to say. I’m not sure I buy it, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Ah yes, you always did prefer actions to words.” He leaned down and kissed the tip of my nose. “Never fear. I am still working on a most amazing proof for the depth of my feelings for you.”
“Well, you could start by letting me get freshened up.”
“Certainly. Take all the time you need. I am just going to relieve Cole. I understand he and the girls are scheduled to sit in on Rhona’s presentation shortly.”
“Wow. So cool that I get to miss that.”
Unfortunately my shift at GhostCon started right after Cole’s ended, so I did have to endure a debate over what shades do when they’re taking a break from the haunting biz. Some panelists voted for them falling into a ãfalendkind of mystical coma state from which they emerged only when disturbed by our presence. Others insisted they functioned in a society of sorts, one much more savage than ours, where atrocity was the earmark of progress and success. After what I’d seen in Brude’s dungeon, I tended to agree with them.
The only other interesting occurrence that evening happened when I got back to the B and B in time to meet the Haighs on the way to their fancy supper.
“Wow, don’t you guys look ritzy?” I said as I met them on the walk in front of Tearlach. Humphrey wore a shiny black suit, white shirt, and bow tie while Lesley had chosen an ivory dress with matching low-heeled pumps.