“Aw, jeez.” From very, very far away, Rachael heard one of the clerks calling a manager. It sounded like he was hailing them from the bottom of a well. “Dave, could you get up here? I got another set of geeks making out in the paranormal romance section. And they are not stopping. Repeat, they are not stopping. Code Vlad, repeat, code Vlad!”
Which was how they earned a lifetime ban from Barnes and Noble.
Eleven
“Lifetime ban. A lifetime ban!” Edward was trying to wrap his mind around the astonishing events of the last twenty minutes. “But I’m a member of their discount club! They can’t ban a member of their discount club, right?”
“They did, though.”
Rachael’s voice, low and sweet, also conveyed her extreme amusement. He was glad. Amused was good. Giving him a left cross in the front teeth because she felt molested was not.
And oh my God, her mouth tasted like a Green Tea Frappuccino. And SHE kissed ME!
“Listen, Rachael . . .” He reached for her small warm hand without thinking, realized what he was doing, and let his hand drop back to his side. “I wouldn’t want you to get the idea that—”
“You troll bookstore shelves to pick up babes?” And for a wonder,
she
reached for
his
hand, and held it.
I will never wash this hand again, as Jabba is my witness. By all the gods in the Marvel universe, I will never . . . Pay attention, dumb shit! She’s still talking!
“Woe to me, then, the latest victim of your Bookstore Nosh.” She laughed. Rachael had a wonderful laugh, sort of deep and bubbly at the same time. It was a little strange to hear it when he could still see the tear tracks on her cheeks. “Perhaps you’re
my
victim, Edward. Did you ever think of that?”
“I’ve
fantasized
about that,” he admitted. He didn’t want to. He absolutely did not. He wouldn’t. Nope.
He peeked at his watch and groaned.
“You have to go.” It wasn’t a question.
“I kind of do.”
Curse you, evil vampire queen who lives on Summit Avenue and is planning to enslave infants. The first awesome chick I meet in . . . what year was it? . . . the first awesome chick I meet in forever, and I have to ditch her to play I Spy with the undead.
“But, Rachael, I swear this isn’t some scam so I can make out with you and then head for the hills like a scalded rabbit, never to be seen again. I’d never do that, and anyone who
would
do that to someone like you should be strung up by his testicles with fishing line, but—”
“I know it isn’t a scam.” Her lips had curved into a smile at
fishing line
. “I know you truly need to be somewhere else, and truly hate it.” And she gave him a smile of such sweet calm, he would have bought her a hundred Green Tea Frappuccinos.
“Right! Exactly! Duty calls. But I—”
“Want to see me again.” Again: not a question. He couldn’t recall being so comfortable, so soon, with anyone, never mind a super-hot brainy brunette.
“Anybody ever tell you how easy you are to talk to?”
“No.”
“Oh. Because you are.”
Asking a girl out never used to be this easy. Maybe being out of practice is improving my sex appeal. Or maybe she’s got a fever.
“You really, really are.”
“Many people would disagree.”
“Morons,” he said with no hesitation, and this time they both laughed. Then they were done with mirth and just looked at each other. He had to leave and he couldn’t, so they stood on the sidewalk outside the “and stay out!” bookstore and looked and looked and looked.
It won’t work. This is going too well. She’s just being nice. Someone like that? Could have anybody. Anybody at all.
“We should see each other again very soon,” she said, and he thought he was going to pitch a header into the sidewalk from sheer relief. Or into the storefront window; wouldn’t
that
please the manager!
“Tomorrow morning?” he blurted. “Breakfast?”
She frowned, and faster than he would have believed, it felt like everything inside him had been flash frozen. “I’ve got to meet with a friend of the family . . . She thinks she’s got some clients to send my way. A late lunch?”
I’ll put off the stakeout until late afternoon again. How much trouble are a bunch of evil suckheads gonna get into during daylight hours, anyway?
“Late lunch,” he agreed. “Where?”
She hesitated. “I don’t really know the area. And you don’t, either. Is there a place you want to try?”
“The Oceanaire,” he said at once.
“Seafood?” Her adorable nose wrinkled in an adorable way, and she had an adorable-yet-perturbed expression on her adorable face. “In Minnesota?”
“You got this place all wrong,” he assured her. “It’s good stuff. You’ll never think you have to go to Legal Sea Foods again.”
“Ohhhh, Legals. Umm, did you ever have their Arctic char? Sublime. How do you know this? Research?”
“Sure. And you come across as a planner. You probably researched, too.”
“Well, I rented
Fargo
.” She laughed. “And I have to say, I loved the accent (and Frances McDormand). Midwestern accents sound so homey to me. Like when Paula Deen talks and I suddenly want her to start spooning mashed potatoes into my mouth. Can you hear it out here? The accent? They exaggerated it a bit in
Fargo
, you know . . .”
“I can hear yours,” he said, smiling.
“Oh. Really? I have one?” She jerked a thumb at herself. “I
do
?”
“You drop the occasional
r
.”
“You mean when I pahk the cah at Hahvahd Yahd?”
He shuddered. “I really hate it when people say that. A fake Boston accent is one of the worst sounds in the world. It’s up there with Kanye West taking Taylor Swift’s mike away.”
“You’ve got a point. I didn’t expect . . . I mean, I like some of the things I’ve seen out here.”
Please be talking about me, please be talking about me, please be talking about me . . .
“
. . .
place I’m staying turned out to be kind of terrific. Which made me ashamed. I’ve done nothing but find fault with the state of Minnesota since I showed up,” she admitted. “I hear myself talking like a jerk . . .”
“And yet, make no effort to change,” he teased.
“You shush. And you’d better go. You’re late already, aren’t you?”
“Dammit!”
Slammin’ hot, super-smart, funny, hot, smart, and the most intuitive person I’ve ever met. God, if this is another one of your sick jokes, you and I are DONE, pal! You’ll be off the Christmas list again!
“Of all the—dammit!”
“You didn’t think we were going to stand out on this sidewalk all night, did you?”
Only in my dreams.
“So tomorrow? Can I call you?”
“I’m planning on it, Edward. So you’d
better
call me. I am
no
fun at all when I’ve been disappointed.”
“Right. Right! Okay. Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. But I’ll talk to you earlier! Or leave you a voice mail.” He wanted to kiss her again, but they really did only just meet, so he grabbed her hand and wrung it like a politician canvassing red states. “Great to meet you, Rachael. Soooo great! Okay.” He ran to his rental car, screeched in mid-scamper, then turned around, abashed. “Um . . . Rachael . . .”
“Six, five, one. Two, six, one. Seven, four, four, four.”
“Got it!” He waved, squashed the impulse to run back and kiss her ripe mouth some more, then hopped in his Rent-A-Prius and roared out of the parking lot.
The drive to the vampire queen’s lair had never gone so quickly.
Twelve
Rachael walked into Cain’s office, her nose in
Minnesota for Morons.
She hadn’t meant to let the book capture her, but Cain had kept her waiting, so she had pulled it out and then . . . and then . . . and then Cain’s assistant
really
hollered and Rachael realized Cain was ready for their meeting.
“You know,” she said, engrossed, “Stillwater might be very nice. It’s old, comparably speaking. And the river looks so pretty.”
“Consider visiting. Now.”
That
got her head up in a hurry.
Anger. Fear. Anxiety.
She snapped the book closed. “What’s wrong?”
Cain was behind her desk, pinching the bridge of her nose. She looked like she hadn’t changed her clothes in three days. She, ah, smelled like it, too.
“A public relations nightmare. That is what’s wrong.” Cain stopped pinching and looked up. “I’m sorry. There have been some murders.”
“Local?”
“Yes.”
“Pack?”
Cain blanched. “Good God, I don’t think so. That’s
all
we need, dead Pack members popping up right when the Pack leader’s cousin gets to town. Michael would be so pleased.”
Rachael snorted.
Pleased
wasn’t the word that leapt to her mind when wondering about Michael Wyndham’s reaction to a Pack murder spree.
What constitutes a spree, anyway? She said
murders
, plural. Two? Is two a spree?
“You’re jammed,” she guessed.
“Extremely.”
“You could have called . . . we didn’t have to meet today.”
“We did have to meet today, Rachael. I’m sorry to have to tell you . . . this is going to sound a little odd, but the two victims were on a list of small business owners who are looking for an accountant.” Cain coughed. “A list I had drawn up for you and was prepared to give to you this morning.” Cain slid the list across her desk. “I strongly advise you not waste your time calling Mr. Stewart or Ms. Janesboro.”
Less than a week?
A WEEK?
Cuz, you are in for the spanking of your life if I ever get back to the Cape.
“And we don’t validate parking.” Rachael had been using the parking stub for a bookmark. “Sorry.”
A never-ending nightmare.
Thirteen
Edward nearly drove into the pillar in the underground parking garage (it came out of nowhere!), so he stomped the brake and tried to calm down.
You can’t meet up with Rachael if you’re found mangled in the Hilton parking garage with the front of your car squashed in like an accordion. So get a grip, shithead!
He tried to calm down, but wonder of wonders, a space right next to the elevators had just opened up (it was possible the driver saw him racing into the garage and narrowly missing a fiery death, and got the hell out), so he pounced on it. Then he glanced in the rearview mirror, tried (and failed) to straighten his messy bangs, popped a breath mint, and then shoved his shoulder against the door so hard it went immediately numb.
Moron! You have to OPEN the car door to get out!
Right.
So he did.
On the elevator leading to street level, he tortured himself with the most likely scenarios. 1) Rachael had been a hologram. 2) Rachael got off on stringing geeks along and had no plans to see him again, ever. 3) Rachael had been run down like a squirrel in a senseless pedestrian vs. dirt bike collision. 4) Rachael had been too nice to say no to his face, so she said yes while having no intention of meeting him. 5) Rachael was a robot.
He had agonized over what to wear. He had no idea how long he would be spying for Boo, and he hated shopping even more than packing, so he hadn’t brought much more than a suitcase full of clothes. Rattled and wearing nothing but his Homer Simpson boxers, he called Gregory.
“Whoa, whoa, slow down. You . . . wait. You have a date?”
“Yeah.”
“
You
do.”
“Yeah.”
“But you haven’t even been out there a week.”
“Did I call you for a timeline? No, Gregory, I didn’t. And if I wanted someone to shatter my dating self-esteem I would have called Boo’s cell. So, nice restaurant. Seafood restaurant in downtown Minneapolis.”
“You’re calling me while you’re wearing your Simpsons underpants, aren’t you?”
“Dude, do you really want me to answer? Because I will. And nobody says
underpants
anymore. And if you don’t help me, I’ll take a picture of Homer and me and send it to your phone about fifty times. A day!”
It wasn’t easy to threaten or cow a vampire, but Edward thought it had gone nicely. He was wearing tan slacks, a light blue dress shirt, and his leather jacket. Loafers, with his lucky Yoda socks.
Thank God I splurged on the extra-strength deodorant.