Olivia shook her head. “I’m sorry I said anything.”
Mindy gripped Olivia’s arm, forcing Olivia to look at her. “Out with it. I’m not letting this go until I know what made you say it in the first place.”
Olivia sighed, trying to figure a way out of this conversation. “You don’t have anything to worry about, okay? One of them was just good-looking, enough that if he still had a pulse, I might be interested. But he doesn’t, so that’s the end of that.”
“Is it?”
“Of course. Why would you ask that?” Because you’re acting nuts, Olivia.
“Because I’ve been trying to get you to even look at another guy for months. Not once have you been receptive until now when it will get you killed.”
“I’m not going to act on the attraction. I’m not a fool.” She had to convince Mindy of that even if she wasn’t so sure herself.
Remembering the long phone conversation she’d had with Campbell the night before and feeling like a teen lying to her mom, Olivia couldn’t meet Mindy’s eyes anymore and returned her attention to removing the bacon from the grill.
“What are you not telling me?” When Olivia didn’t immediately answer, Mindy pressed. “Liv?”
“I...I talked to him on the phone.”
“You talked on the phone, with a vampire?” The volume of Mindy’s voice went up with each word.
Olivia motioned for her to be quiet. “Keep it down. I don’t need to lose what little business I have. And speaking of which, that couple has been waiting long enough.” She motioned toward the dining room, where the newcomers had taken seats at a window table behind Jane’s.
Mindy looked about to protest, but instead she stalked into the dining room, not happy in the least. And Olivia couldn’t blame her. Despite her assertion otherwise, Olivia knew she was ten kinds a fool.
As Mindy took the couple’s orders and did a round of the room to check on the other customers and top off coffee cups, Olivia took the moments to try to bring her racing thoughts under control. She eyed the back door, for a split second considering making a run for it despite her injured ankle. But then she remembered the news Campbell had shared with her and resisted the urge to shove a large appliance in front of the door.
Mindy blew back into the kitchen and slammed a dirty plate down on the prep table. “Okay, duty done. Who is this vampire and what on earth did you find to talk about?”
“Min, please let it go. It’s not important.”
“No, I’m interested.” She didn’t sound interested, more as if she was compiling information for when she called the guys with a straitjacket to haul Olivia away.
“You don’t really want to hear this.”
“No. But I need to know where your common sense went.”
An irrational anger rose up in Olivia at Mindy’s tone, but she took several breaths to calm down. The sooner she just spilled everything, the sooner they could move on and forget about it.
“His name is Campbell Raines.” She hesitated, wondering at the wisdom of a full confession. “I was as surprised as anyone that we actually found a lot to talk about.”
“Such as?” Mindy’s voice cracked like a whip.
Olivia looked at the order form Mindy had slid onto the counter and went about pouring pancakes onto the grill. “For instance, did you know there are different kinds of vampires? Souled and Soulless?”
At Mindy’s confused look, Olivia relayed all that Campbell had told her about the “good” and “bad” of the vampire world.
Mindy stood with her arms crossed and her expression full of doubt. “Sounds like a story concocted to make you think he’s a good guy.”
“He is.” Olivia was surprised by how much force she put behind her words then felt the need to backtrack. “I mean, he seems as if he might have been despite some rough edges.” She glanced at Mindy, wondering if she should go on or quit before she made things worse. But she had no one else to talk to about what Campbell had told her, no one with whom to ponder if any of it could possibly be true. “I know how crazy this sounds, but I got the feeling he missed being human, that if he could undo being a vampire that he would.”
“Listen, no one knows better than me that the vampire mystique can be alluring. At least it was when we didn’t know they were real, life-sucking monsters. But this vamp is playing you....” Mindy’s voice trailed off in such a way that Olivia made the mistake of making eye contact. “Just which one of the vampires is this?”
Olivia knew what Mindy was asking, and there was no use in trying to hide the answer. “He’s the head of the V Force team that saved me.”
Certainty slid into place on Mindy’s face. “The one who attacked you.”
Olivia lowered her gaze and flipped the pancakes. Her stomach grumbled at the smell, and she realized how long it’d been since she’d eaten anything.
“The AB-negative monster who nearly killed you?”
It sounded so awful when she said it like that. Who was Olivia kidding? It was awful. He had almost killed her, and given the chance, he might again. Might succeed the next time. Had said so himself.
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s taking Stockholm syndrome a bit too far, don’t you think?”
Olivia flinched at how Mindy’s words echoed her own thoughts. She scooped the pancakes onto two plates and placed them on the counter next to Mindy. “It was one conversation. I was safely inside my apartment, and he was on the other side of the glass, unable to get to me.”
“He was here?”
Crap, how did she manage to step even deeper into this uncomfortable conversation?
“He found my cell phone, so he brought it by. And...he apologized for what happened.”
“For almost munching on you.”
Olivia’s nerves finally snapped. “Yes, Mindy. We’ve established he was a victim of bloodlust and just about did me in. I was there, remember?”
“A victim? Now, there’s a term I’ve never heard used to refer to vamps.”
Olivia stared at her friend, not wanting to hurt her but needing to make sense of the past thirty-six hours. “What would you call it when your life is ripped away and you’re condemned to roam the earth forever drinking human blood and never being able to see the sun again?”
Silence fell on the kitchen. Mindy looked as if Olivia had slapped her.
“Vampires don’t have feelings,” Mindy said. “They are predators, and you are the prey he’s very, very good at luring in. You know the AB-neg vamps are the most aggressive because that blood supply is the lowest.”
“I know. Really, I do. And I’m not going to do anything stupid like invite him in.” Beyond talking on the phone with a vampire who made her pulse quicken and wishing he was a flesh-and-blood man.
The sound of more people coming in the front door drew Olivia’s attention away from her thoughts.
Mindy threw up her hands and moved toward the dining room. “I can’t listen to this anymore.”
“Mindy.”
She stopped and looked back toward Olivia, though she seemed reluctant.
“I’m sorry I brought it up.”
A momentary look of pain flitted across Mindy’s face before she turned without a word and walked away.
For several seconds, Olivia sat staring at the spot where her best friend had been standing. She couldn’t help but feel she’d made a colossal mistake in confiding to Mindy. The irony of Mindy’s situation was that she’d once been the biggest fan of the vampire genre you’d ever meet. Buffy, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, every book series she could get her hands on. But that was before she’d come home to find her mother and younger sister drained and left on the front porch steps of their house.