Authors: Jean Lorrah
“You husband-stealing bitch!” She writhed like a snake, bringing her free hand up to strike at Brandy's face.
In horror, Brandy recognized what was in Leola Williams’ left hand: skewers for the turkey. And they were aimed at Brandy's eyes!
“Brandy!” Dan's voice. In his rush he blocked Church's way.
Brandy managed to deflect the woman's blow, but the skewers scraped painfully off her jaw. Church grabbed Leola Williams from behind. She screamed and the skewers went flying. The woman struggled, kicking like a mule.
Dan grasped Brandy, eyes on her wound.
“It's all right,” she said, but he was already bending his head to lap up the blood.
The pain eased at once, but she had to push him away, whispering sharply, “Dan! People are watching!"
Fortunately, Leola Williams put on a better show. Brandy had to help Church get the cuffs on her, just as a siren drowned her curses.
Officer Phillips ran up onto the porch, reporting, “Coreen called for backup, Church. Looks like you need it!"
Cuffed and facing a uniformed officer, Leola Williams finally came to her senses. “Loley!” bawled her husband. “Don't hurt her, Officer!"
Church looked at the man in disgust. “You may not be willing to press charges, but Officer Mather and I are. Assault on a police officer.” He shoved the woman toward the uniform. “Read her her rights."
He turned to Brandy, tilting her face to expose her injury to the light. He blinked in surprise. “What have you got, Brandy, the opposite of hemophilia? What do you call it when blood clots too fast?"
Dan's fault. “She didn't get me as bad as she wanted."
Church's gaze shifted to Dan, saying, “No thanks to you, Professor!” His anger was very real, very dangerous, held under tenuous control. “If you're going to be involved with a cop, you will learn right now that you never, under any circumstances, interfere in a police action."
“I'm sorry,” Dan said contritely.
“Sorry doesn't cut it,” said Church. “You learn now and you learn good that if you get in my way I go through you, just as Brandy would through Coreen."
“You said it isn't easy,” said Dan. “I accept that, Church. Can't you give me a chance to learn what it means?"
Church shook his head. “It's not up to me. It's the criminals, and the idiots like these two, that won't give you a chance. You got lucky this time: you didn't get her killed. Next time you might not be so lucky."
Dan was as pale as Brandy had ever seen him. “I understand."
“You better. I'm sorely tempted to file obstruction of justice charges to drive my point home. I hope I won't regret not doing it."
It took over an hour to finish up the Williams booking, but Coreen had years of experience at holding dinner. Only about forty-five minutes later than planned they sat down to give thanks that they were not Leola and Bobby Williams.
On the way home, Dan said, “Church loves you."
Oh, God. “We're friends. Dan, there's nothing—"
“No, of course there's not, or Coreen wouldn't love you, too. What I mean is, they're your family as much as your mother is. Church especially. I've got to work very hard to get off his shit list."
As a teacher in a conservative community, Dan rarely indulged in foul language. But Brandy couldn't follow her inclination to tell him things were all right, because they weren't. “Church doesn't know the half of it,” she said. “Dan, you cannot drink my blood in front of witnesses!"
He winced. “It was instinct."
“That excuse didn't work for Falstaff, and it won't for you, either. If Church hadn't been busy subduing the prisoner—"
“I understand,” said Dan. “I was caught unprepared. Next time I won't be."
“How can you be prepared for something like that?” Brandy asked. “You're a civilian, Dan. When there is police activity, stay out of it!"
“That's what I meant,” he explained. “I should have stayed with Coreen, no matter how frightened I was for you.” He stopped at a light, hands tight on the steering wheel. “If I keep my promise not to ask you to find another line of work, can you let me be scared when you're in danger?"
“Yes,” she replied. “I know you're human. But what if I'm hurt, bleeding? It happens all the time. Even if I weren't a cop, I'm an athlete—and I'm such a klutz at household chores that I always get bruised and cut. You don't normally lunge for any free-flowing blood, do you?"
“Only yours,” he replied. “I—didn't expect that reaction. Our match is something I've never known before.” She could see him pondering it as he added, “Broad daylight, less than a week after the full moon—I didn't expect such an effect. I should have. The night you cut yourself, I gave myself away. You just didn't know what it meant."
“I do now."
“But that was at night, and later in the month. So it didn't prepare me for today's reaction. Now I know I must always control myself with you—except when we're alone."
“All right,” she let him off the hook, a bit annoyed at her satisfaction at how much he needed her.
* * * *
The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas always flew, even in ordinary years. This year it traveled at warp speed.
Dan had final exams to prepare, give, and grade. Brandy had hours of overtime to make up for the time she had taken off for her mother's wedding, as well as to build up for her trip to Florida.
When she was off duty, Brandy's time was taken up with Christmas activities, and when she was on there was no respite—the holiday season brought an increase in both crimes and accidents. Even the weather ate time—fog and freezing rain added to any drive or walk, and it took longer to dress and undress, clothing, coats, gloves, boots.
There was no more snow; Western Kentucky settled into its usual early winter rain, fog, and sleet. People put up decorations, and lit colored lights against the gloom.
There were no more corpses with mysterious smiles. The Polaroids on the “unsolved” bulletin board faded and curled. Neither Church nor Brandy had time to pursue private investigations. Brandy kept her antennae out for hints of other vampires, but in midwinter everyone was pale, and even Dan didn't need sunglasses.
Guilt prodded each time she passed the “unsolved” board—yet how could she approach Chief Benton with speculation about vampires? Then Doc Sanford was forced to retire. His beloved grandson had been innocent, but Brandy had not the first clue to the identity of Carrie Wyman's real killer.
A Christmas card from Carrie's parents sent her into tears.
The first Christmas after her father's death, Brandy had learned why Christmas was only for children. Losses accumulated as the years passed, and the holidays became a time to count the missing. When Dan held her while she wept, she realized that he understood only too well.
Brandy had searched out his past once she had his birth name, and one day dumped before him photocopies of his birth records, schooling, marriage, work, and service record. “You never told me you were in the army."
“Peacetime service in Germany. Nobody paid attention to me; Elvis Presley was there at the same time."
“You knew him?"
“Not really. He said hi to everyone, tried to fit in, but I wasn't one of his buddies."
“Germany,” said Brandy. “Does it have something to do with the real story of how you got your contraband Christ?"
He gave her a look compounded of admiration and exasperation. “I'll tell you about that sometime when you have an evening to spare.” She knew he would. It was beginning to sink in that, having lived so many years, Dan had much more life experience than she had. He wasn't hiding anything; they just hadn't had enough time since he had told her his secret for most of it to come under discussion.
Living with Dan, Brandy got a taste of what it would be like to be married. It was nice, but not particularly romantic. On the few mornings she could stay in bed, Dan was gone to campus. They had dinner together most evenings, Dan trying to schedule his time in the computer lab on those evenings Brandy had to work. Next semester, he said, he would match her schedule.
Every other Thursday, Dan played poker with several JPSU faculty, and on alternate weeks he met with the chess club. In the summer he played on the faculty softball team; there was normally far less call on his time socially than at this season of party-party-party. Brandy went with him as often as she could manage, starting to worry about the responsibilities of a faculty wife.
When they found time to make love it was sweet and tender, but at the end of a long day it put Brandy straight into blissful, relaxed sleep. It bothered her to miss the sharing of afterglow, and it also bothered her that Dan was always the one to initiate their lovemaking. She was usually too tired to think about it.
One morning she woke, as usual, when Dan slipped out of bed at 3:00am. Her habit was to turn over and go back to sleep. This morning, she listened to him moving about in the bathroom, then going into his office. She heard his computer give its wakeup “boink!” and keys tapping softly as Dan called up the program he wanted to run. Usually he read e-mail and graded student work in the early morning hours.
Before the screech of the modem told her he had logged onto the university mainframe to collect his mail, Brandy shrugged out of the Olympic sweatshirt she slept in on winter nights and slipped into a clingy red gown Dan had given her as an early Christmas present. Then she tiptoed into the office, sneaked up behind him, and kissed the back of his neck.
She couldn't startle him; they were too closely attuned. He settled back into her embrace, and she leaned over and kissed his mouth from her rather awkward position.
Dan let Brandy experiment. He wore nothing but a wool bathrobe and warm slippers, so it was easy for her to expose him without making him get up. The desk chair rolled and tilted; that should have worked to erotic effect, but as Brandy attempted to duplicate scenes she had seen in movies, the chair almost fell over.
Fortunately, her lover had great patience, and even greater strength. When Brandy thought she had found the balance and began rocking, the chair rolled across the room and would have spilled them if Dan hadn't caught the edge of the heavy worktable before Brandy's leg banged into it.
They were both laughing helplessly by then, but the humor did nothing to dampen their ardor. Carefully, Dan lifted Brandy and took them down to the floor, where he let her play out her fantasy of aggression. It was fun, but her afterglow was spoiled by the realization that her knees hurt, and that Dan, on the hard floor, was probably less comfortable than she was.
“Well, that wasn't the best idea I've ever had,” she apologized, taking her weight off him.
“Oh, I liked the idea very much,” he assured her. “I think a heavy recliner might work better, though—if it didn't go over backwards."
“The bed is just fine,” she told him. “I don't think we're going to make it as stars in erotic films."
“I didn't know that was one of your goals. I'll be happy to help you practice. If you ever do master that chair, you could probably manage a hammock, standing up."
“Don't you laugh at me,” she warned. “The next thing, you'll be saying my lovemaking is as bad as my cooking."
He wrapped both his warm robe and his arms about her, kissed her tenderly, and asked, “When have I complained about your cooking?"
It was true; he hadn't. He never complained about anything.
Dan kissed Brandy once more, then told her, “I'd love to try it again, but you have to be up in a few hours."
“I don't care."
“I do—I'm part of the civilian populace you're supposed to protect!” He kissed the tip of her nose and added, “Any time you want to experiment, you know where to find me. The only problem is—now I feel so good, I'm afraid I'll give my students all A's!"
Finally Brandy's vacation began. Dan tucked his sunglasses onto the visor of her car, and packed plenty of sunscreen. They set out well before dawn on one of the shortest days of the year.
Brandy dozed while Dan drove, waking up about halfway to Nashville. When they stopped for gas below Chattanooga, they changed drivers. That put Brandy behind the wheel as they sailed through the fourteen-lane center of Atlanta.
Shifting lanes to stay with the most rapid flow of traffic, Brandy didn't realize her companion's silence was not courtesy, but anxiety. After the I-75/I-85 split south of the airport, she put the car back on cruise control and was stretching the kinks out of her right leg when she sensed Dan striving to relax from even greater tension.
“What's wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he replied.
“You're lying, Dan. I scared you."
“Yes, you scared me, cutting in and out of traffic at top speed, but I refuse to complain about women drivers."
“Women drivers!” said Brandy. “I'm a cop, Dan. I took special training to drive like that. Movies and TV to the contrary, haven't you ever noticed how few real-life police chases end in accidents?"
“You weren't chasing criminals through Atlanta, and you were breaking the speed limit."
“So was everyone else,” she pointed out. “Do you want to drive it on the way back?"
“Now what is the diplomatic answer to that one?” he asked. “If I say yes, you're insulted, and if I say no, you think it's grudging."
“Just tell me the truth,” she replied. “What scared you? We weren't in any danger."
“We were in constant danger. One wrong move on that stretch of road, and you've got a thirty car pile-up."
“That's true no matter which of us is driving."
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You're right. It's not your driving. I'm likely to survive an accident—but it reminds me of your fragility."
“Good,” said Brandy.
“Good?"
“Dan, you think it's because you're a vampire, but you're dealing with what everybody faces who loves a cop: we live in constant danger. My mother has never accepted it—she still wants me to find other work. So far you've been in denial."
“I haven't—"
“You have. It's normal. Now that you're ready to talk about it, I think we should sign up for the counseling when we get back.” She reached over to squeeze his hand for just a moment, before putting her own back on the wheel.