Desperately Seeking Shapeshifter (36 page)

I pushed a lock of my pink hair back behind my ear and looked up at Ramsey. “Want to dance?”

“No?” he said hopefully.

I laughed. “You always say that.” I nudged him toward Ryder, who watched the dance floor with a bit of longing. “Go dance with her. No one’s approaching them because they’re human. If you dance with one of them, that’ll make it okay.”

With a heavy sigh, Ramsey crossed the room, and I watched Ryder break into a smile as he led her out on the dance floor. I went over to keep Marie company. “How’s it going?”

Marie gave me a wan smile. “The wedding’s lovely.”

“You feeling okay?”

She nodded a bit too quickly. “Just a migraine. It’ll go away soon.”

Joshua Russell sauntered over, all cocky smiles and broad shoulders. His normally mussed brown hair had been combed down, and his signature baseball cap was nowhere in sight. He looked handsome, and he also looked as if he knew it. He swaggered over to Marie and leaned against the wall, looming over her.

“Hey, kitten. You ever had a wildcat in your bed?”

She rolled her eyes. “Does that line ever work on anyone?”

“Only needs to work once.” Joshua grinned down at her. “How about it?”

“How about you go find some nice were-raccoon to harass,” Marie said smoothly. “I have a headache.”

He just winked and pushed himself off the wall. “Okay, but don’t come crying to me later when you’re jealous of all the ladies hanging on my every word.”

“If that scenario ever comes to pass, I’ll try not to weep too loudly,” she said dryly.

Joshua headed off, a swagger in his step, as if he hadn’t just been turned down by a human. My amusement faded when Marie sat down heavily, as if all the strength had drained from her body.

This wasn’t the first time Marie hadn’t been feeling well lately. I gave her a concerned look, but she wore a determined smile, watching Ryder dance a flirtatious cha-cha around my man, who looked as if he’d like to run away. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” she repeated, then nodded at the far side of the room. “Look over there.”

At the back of the room, Connor and Savannah sat next to each other, heads bent together. Neither was touching the other, but the fact that they were talking was a good start. I crossed my fingers behind my back for him and sat next to Marie to keep her company.

The wedding reception was a lively event, and my sister was the belle of the ball. I danced a few times but was mostly content to watch her enjoying herself. She didn’t leave the dance floor, and whenever a slow song came on, Beau muscled his way in with a possessive
look on his face, and I watched my sister melt. It made me teary-eyed all over again.

As a slow song played, Ramsey showed up at my side and extended his hand. Waiting for me, always there to take my hand. My heart swelled with love, and I placed my hand in his, letting him lead me out onto the dance floor. I could stay in his arms forever.

When the reception began to wind down, a cheer went up from the crowd as a chair was brought forward. Bathsheba, blushing furiously, lowered her garter and Beau tossed it into the air, where it was caught by Joshua. He grinned and tucked it into his pocket while his brothers elbowed him with glee.

Ryder rushed forward with the bouquet, and Bath moved to the center of the dance floor and turned her back to the crowd. Women began to gather behind her.

Marie nudged me. “You going to go catch it?”

I interlocked my fingers with Ramsey’s and leaned back against him, quite content where I was. “I’m good.”

Marie wasn’t rushing forward, either. She sat next to us, and I noticed her hands were shaking slightly. She looked a bit pale.

At the front of the room, Bathsheba laughed. “Everybody ready?” She did a fake throw, and then peeked over her shoulder. “On the count of three, then. One, two . . .”

The bouquet sailed through the air. All eyes
turned to it, and as I watched, women flung themselves forward to try and grab at it. . . .

Only to have it sail over their heads and land directly into Marie’s lap.

Marie stared at it with horror. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Turn the page for a special look at the next tantalizing novel in the Midnight Liaisons series from Jessica Sims

Coming Summer 2013 from Pocket Books

T
here was a time that I’d have been excited about going out to a late-night dinner with a gorgeous man. A time when, if he put his hand on the small of my back to guide me down the sidewalk, I’d have shivered with delight. Tonight? I had a handsome, gorgeous man with his hand on my back right now, walking at my side, and it just bothered me. I was filled with annoyance and a mild curiosity that I tried to stomp out of existence. What did Josh so arrogantly think he could teach me about dating a male vampire? I was the one that worked at a dating agency, after all.

I strode down the sidewalk, my steps quick and irritated. I tried not to think about Ryder, who was having a bad night, and focused on my situation, since it was a worse night for me. I didn’t pause to see if Josh was keeping up with my angry strides, though I could feel his bigger form hovering close and protective. As we walked, I felt his hand press on the small of my back even as he came to my side. I stiffened in response, but he only gestured at a nearby sign. “How about that?”

I eyed the yellow sign with a frown. “A diner?”

He grinned down at me, and I was distracted by how close he was. “Why not? Open all night.”

“It just seems so . . .”

“Casual? It’s not a date.” His hand nudged on my lower back again, directing me toward the restaurant’s lit parking lot.

My mouth tightened. Of course it wasn’t a date. The creep. Did he think I’d forgotten? “I know it’s not a date. You don’t have to keep reminding me,” I said. “And since you picked, you’re paying.”

“Why? It’s not a date.”

I gritted my teeth. “Fine.”

We crossed the street and my body was all too aware of the hand that lingered on the small of my back. I could insist that he remove it, but then that would mean acknowledging his body so close to mine and that it was bothering me. So I ignored it the best I could.

When we got inside, the elderly waitress lit up at the sight of Josh. “There’s my boy,” she crowed in a voice that sounded as if it had smoked too many cigarettes. “How are you, Josh darlin’?”

He strolled forward to give the small, stout woman a bear hug. “I’m pining away with love for you, Carol.”

She gave a raspy chuckle and swatted his bottom, then reached up and tugged on the brim of his baseball cap. “You want your usual?”

“You know I do,” he said with a grin, then
nodded at me. “I brought a friend. She’ll probably want a menu.”

The waitress glanced over at me, her nest of overly bleached curls tilting as she studied me. “Fine,” she said flatly, then squeezed him in a half hug. “You go pick a table, anywhere. I’ll get your food started.”

“You’re an angel,” he said, then looked back at me and gestured. “Come on.”

I rolled my eyes and followed him to a curved booth in the far corner of the nearly empty restaurant. When I slid in on one side, Josh began to slide in right next to me. I immediately scooted all the way around to the far side, putting some distance between us.

That just seemed to amuse him, which only made me more irritated.

“I see why you wanted to come here. You get free food every night just because you flirt with the old ladies?”

He smiled. “Not every night, and I don’t flirt. They just love me.”

As if to prove this point, Carol showed up with two glasses of water and a coffee for Josh. She set it down in front of him and then tugged his cap off his head in a proprietary move that surprised me. She smoothed his hair. “No hats inside, young man.”

Josh gave her a rueful smile. “Sorry.”

I stared at my companion. He looked even more boyish with his hair sticking up wildly. If it wasn’t
for the scruff on his face, he would have looked far too young.

“This one’s too charming for his own good,” Carol said affectionately, chucking Josh’s unshaved chin as if she were a doting mother—or grandmother.

“He only thinks he’s charming,” I pointed out. “He just expects everyone else to think it too.”

She chuckled again, that horrible smoker’s rasp. “I like this one, Josh.”

My face colored in response, which only made Josh grin.

“You want the same thing he’s having, honey?” she asked me.

Why not. Anything to get her away from the table and the two of us. “Sure. Thank you.”

She put a coffee mug down in front of me and poured it as well, and then left with another smile at Josh. He grinned back at her.

“So that’s your schtick?” I said irritably. “Is that your goal in life, to be a charming freeloader?”

“First of all,” he said, lifting the coffee cup to his lips. “I pay for everything. Carol doesn’t make enough to buy me dinner on a regular basis.” He sipped it and grimaced. “Her coffee is shit, though.”

But I noticed he still drank it. Maybe telling her would hurt her feelings.

“And second?” I prompted, opening a few sugar packets and dumping them into my own cup.

“I’m not here every night. Carol works four nights a week. Her husband died three years ago
and she lives in a small apartment on the bad side of town. It scares her to take the bus, so she tries to get a ride with friends. I stop in to check on her and give her a ride when she needs it.”

That was . . . unexpectedly nice of him. “So she’s a shifter, then?”

“No,” he said. “Just an old woman with no one to look after her. So I do.”

I said nothing. Carol swung out of the kitchen with two massive stacks of pancakes and plopped them down in front of us, then dropped a bottle of syrup on the table. I stared at the stack. That was a lot of pancakes.

Josh put a hand over his heart and gave Carol a pleased look. “You make my heart melt with your delicious food, Carol.”

She chuckled again. “You flirt. I’ll be back with the rest when it comes off the grill. Dig in.”

As she left, I eyed the pancake mountain and then looked at Josh. “The rest?”

He leaned in as if sharing a secret. “You ordered the same thing I get, right? Perhaps you didn’t realize that shifters eat a lot?”

I admit it hadn’t been the first thing on my mind. “So what exactly did I order?”

“Two club sandwiches, a skillet scramble, these pancakes,” he said, pointing, “and a steak.”

“A freaking steak? With all this? That’s revolting.”

“Does that mean I get to eat yours?”

“Only if you want to buy it from me,” I said,
mashing my fork into the pat of butter on top of the pancake mountain. “That’s what I get for trusting a pretty face.”

“So you think I’m pretty? Marie, you flirt you.”

“
Voyons
. It’s a figure of speech,
tabarnak
.”

“And more French. You know that’s sexy, right?”

“You know I just called you vile things, right?”

“I’m figuring you out. That’s how you flirt.”

“I hate you.”

“More flirting.”

I ground my teeth and forced myself not to reply, since he’d consider it practically a declaration of love. Instead, I focused on swamping my pancakes with syrup, and then taking a bite. Delicious. I’d be totally wound up from the sugar and coffee later, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like I could sleep anyhow. I ate a few more bites in companionable silence as Josh cut his pancakes into perfect triangles and ate them without a bit of syrup.

Carol stopped by with the rest of the food by the time I’d eaten three pancakes and was feeling nauseated and full. Josh, meanwhile, had polished off all of his pancakes and was more than ready for the next course. He dug into the sandwiches, scrambled eggs, and steak, and chatted with Carol while I sat quietly. He asked her how her job was going, listening attentively when she complained about a co-worker who was taking all the extra shifts. He asked about her hot water heater, which hadn’t been working properly in the last month, and he volunteered to take a look at it, and she turned
him down with a wave of her hand. He even asked about her cat. They talked easily for a few more minutes while Josh ate, until Carol left, smiling.

I digested it all in silence. It was clear that Josh knew the woman well and took an interest in her life. That seemed odd to me. Josh was such a playboy, a love-them-and-leave-them type that I hadn’t suspected him to be the kind to chat with lonely old women about their cats and whether or not their hot water was working.

There was another side to the incorrigible flirt. Either that or this was all an elaborate ruse to get women to fall into his arms. Take them to a low-key diner, charm them with his relationship with a down-on-her-luck old woman, and then they’d tumble into his bed faster than the speed of light.

Even as I told myself that, it didn’t fit.

“So,” I said when we were alone again. “You were going to tell me what I’m doing wrong?”

He stopped eating, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and nodded. “But first, I need to know the whole thing. How many vampires have you gone out with?”

I hesitated, wondering if I should tell him everything. It wouldn’t matter if I couldn’t get a vampire to show up for a date. I had to take my chances with Josh. “I’ve gone out with three. At least, I
tried
to go out with three. First there was Valjean—”

Josh shook his head immediately. “He’s hooked up and left for Europe. You know Ruby Sommers? Pretty little were-jaguar? Sister to Jayde?”

No, I didn’t, but it was clear that he knew Jayde pretty intimately. He probably knew all the “pretty little were-jaguars” in town, which made my teeth grit. “I know he’s hooked up. Anyhow. Then I went out with Bert.”

He laughed. “No way. Seriously? Bert? World of Hurt Bert?”

I wasn’t going to have any teeth left if I kept grinding them all night. “He’s a vampire, isn’t he?”

“Only in the barest sense of the word,” Josh said with a grin. “The man’s a loser. I can’t believe you went out with him.”

And he’d told me that I wasn’t his type. That stung a bit more right now than it should have. “It was only one date.”