A Vampire's Promise (6 page)

“You mean all bark and no bite,” I corrected.

“If you say so.” He chuckled before nodding once at Gabriel and then addressing his companions. “Come, my business is done.”

They headed across the parking lot, rounded the movie theater, and disappeared out of sight. For a few moments there was nothing but silence, and I savored just sharing the space Gabriel occupied. Raising the hand he held, he brushed his lips across my knuckles.

“Do you still want to go for coffee?” he asked me.

In the space of five minutes my hand had seen more action than the rest of my body had in quite a while. I nodded. After that little episode with Katja—and I wasn't sure what had happened exactly—I desperately needed a big jolt of caffeine.

W
e went to an all-night diner that I didn't know was still in business. It was situated in what had once been Greenley Heights's only shopping district, and I remembered my dad would always make sure we stopped there for lunch whenever we had to come to town. It was the only place you could get a milkshake made by hand. But then great tracts of land had been sold to become shopping centers; malls had been built, and folks stopped going downtown. I couldn't say which surprised me more: that the diner was still in business, that Gabriel knew it was, or that he had chosen to take me there.

Glancing through the large plate-glass window, I could see it was empty of customers, save for a couple of burly construction-type guys sitting at the counter. But it still looked the way I remembered: clean and well-lit, with high-backed booths that offered privacy. Still feeling a little unsettled, I excused myself and headed for the restroom. My reflection in the mirror was pale, and I knew it wasn't all due to the bathroom lighting. Running some cold water, I splashed it on my face. It seemed to help, and I felt better seeing the color returning to my cheeks.

The diner's lone waitress, a tired-looking thirtysomething with a bad bleach job, was flirting with Gabriel. She gave me a poisonous look as I slid into the seat across from him. I really couldn't blame her. He was easy on the eye at any time, and probably even more so at this hour of the night. Two oversized coffee cups had been put in front of him, and he now pushed one across the table to me. An amused smile twitched the corners of his mouth. The mocha-colored liquid gave off an amazing, tantalizing aroma. I took a sip. It was heavenly, hot but heavenly. The mix of hazelnut and caramel was just what I needed, but it surprised me because I know I hadn't told Gabriel what to order for me.

“Lucky guess,” he said before pointing to his upper lip and then at me. Sheepishly I pulled a napkin from the tabletop dispenser and blotted the foam away.

“Do you come here often?” I asked, curiously.

He shrugged. “Occasionally.”

I looked around and wondered if my dad had ever come here as a teenager looking to pick up girls. “I didn't even know this place was still open,” I murmured.

Gabriel made no comment, so I sipped my coffee as we fell into an awkward silence. At least I thought it was awkward. I had no idea what was going through Gabriel's mind, but he suddenly seemed distant, enough so to make me think I'd better drink up so we could leave. I really didn't want the waitress watching as I got the big kiss-off. I'd had more than enough experience with that scenario.

I had a really nice time tonight . . . but . . .

Leaning forward, Gabriel fixed me with his dark blue eyes. “Are you all right?”

“Of course.” If I was about to get dumped, then I was determined to handle it graciously, like the adult I was supposed to be. “Why would you think otherwise?”

“When you first meet him, Aleksei can sometimes be a little overwhelming, and Katja . . . well, she can be . . .”

“Extreme?” I offered helpfully.

“Yes,” Gabriel said, leaning back in the booth, “I suppose you could say that.”

Yes, you could. But it came nowhere close to describing what she was. I was as much at a loss as he to find the proper adjective to describe the glossy, dark-haired girl with the supermodel looks. And I was still disturbed by my reaction to her. At least I could find words for the episode.
Disconcerting . . . alarming . . . unnerving.

“Are they friends of yours?” I wrapped my hands around the cup, feeling the warmth seep through.

“Friends?” Gabriel looked thoughtful, as if he was reflecting on the full meaning of the word to see if it was applicable. “Aleksei yes, but not the other two, I think, at least not in the way you mean. Acquaintances would be a better word.” A worried frown creased his smooth brow. “I apologize if Aleksei was intimidating.”

I thought about that. Had the big guy been intimidating? I didn't think so, not intentionally, but there are some people who can appear menacing without even trying. It's just a part of their makeup. I couldn't say for sure this was the case with the Russian, but he had scared the crap out of me at first. Of course I wasn't about to say so now that I knew Gabriel regarded him as a friend.

“He wasn't intimidating exactly,” I said, brazenly lying, “but he was a little, um . . . intense.” The look on Gabriel's face said he knew I was being diplomatic, and the reason why, but he wasn't going to press me on it. “But you can't really blame me, not with that whole Special Forces persona he has.”

“Special Forces? Ah, you think he is in the military?”

I stopped with my coffee cup halfway to my mouth to see if he was joking. He wasn't. “Well, yeah, I mean the clothes are a dead giveaway, along with the GI Joe buzz cut, but it's also the way he carries himself.” I hesitated, hoping I wasn't about to put my foot in it. “I half expected him to whip out a grenade launcher from inside his coat,” I finished with a nervous laugh.

Gabriel looked puzzled. “I think he just wears what he feels comfortable in.”

Whoa. He really didn't see it. Perhaps the guy had been dressing that way for so long no one noticed it anymore. Not altogether unheard of, but still a little strange.

“So he's not a soldier then?” I asked.

“No, he's not.”

“Is he Russian?”

His head nod was accompanied by a slight smile. “Yes, he is.”

“From Moscow?” It was the only place in Russia I could think of on the spur of the moment.

“No, he's from a small town that doesn't exist anymore.”

I wasn't sure what to make of that. A casualty of civil unrest and shifting borders perhaps? “Oh, well that's a really nasty scar on his face. Do you know how he got it?”

Gabriel picked up his spoon and began to stir his coffee. “Why all the questions about Aleksei?”

I felt mildly embarrassed, and picked up my own spoon. “Well, he's not the sort of guy you're going to forget anytime soon.”

“Really?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, really.” Glancing across the table, I saw Gabriel pull his eyebrows together ever so slightly and wondered if he was mistaking my general curiosity for interest of a different kind.
And I imagine he'd be quite devastating without the scar.

I didn't realize I'd spoken that part out loud until the look on Gabriel's face told me so. It really wasn't a smart thing to talk about one guy while you were out with another, especially not on a date and without your own car.

“Sorry,” I apologized. “That was rude of me.”

“I'm sure if you were to ask him, Aleksei would tell you how it happened.”

I couldn't tell if Gabriel was expecting me to meet up with the big guy again, or if he was offering to set me up. Neither was something I wanted to happen. Silence ensued once more, the air between us becoming thick and heavy, making me positive I had just blown whatever chance might have existed of seeing Gabriel again.

Way to go, Rowan. No wonder you're sleeping alone.

I could just imagine what Laycee was going to do with this scenario when I told her. The thought prompted me to take a wild stab at damage control. What did I have to lose?

“I'm not interested in him, you know . . . at least not like
that.
”

“Like what?”

Gabriel's expression became one of extreme politeness. Putting his hands on the table, he bracketed his coffee cup with his long fingers. I remembered how they had felt resting around my neck. He knew exactly what I meant about Aleksei, but I was being punished. A reprimand to make me feel uncomfortable because it
was
rude of me to talk so much about another man. Okay, I was woman enough to accept I'd made a mistake.

“I'm not looking at him as potential boyfriend material,” I said with as much detachment as I could. “I was just curious. I've never met anyone like him before.”

Gabriel deliberated over my words. “And are you looking at me as potential boyfriend material?” he asked finally.

I shouldn't have been surprised by the question. I'd kind of opened myself up for it, but even so, I was surprised that he'd actually articulated it. Was I looking at him like that? Actually, no, I wasn't. The inferno he'd ignited in my pelvis made it hard to think about anything beyond getting naked with him, but a relationship that was exclusively physical wasn't a good blueprint for a boyfriend.

“Your coffee's getting cold,” Gabriel said, settling back against the booth and giving me a smile that told me he really hadn't been expecting me to answer. The look in his eye, however, confirmed my suspicion that he knew my interest in Aleksei wasn't sexual, and my interest in him was.

Raising my cup, I decided it would be a good idea to keep my mouth shut before I really did put my foot in it. I could feel his eyes roaming over me. Not staring exactly, more like he was examining me. Mentally checking me out. I wondered if I'd be found wanting, and an image of the bartender from Rosie's flashed into my head. For some reason I felt incredibly sorry for her.

Wanting or not, I didn't much care for Gabriel's scrutiny. By now he probably knew the exact number of freckles scattered across my nose, the length of the scar above my right eye, and the distance between each piercing in my left earlobe.

My gut said he was waiting for me to bring up the incident with Katja, but I felt horribly self-conscious even thinking about it. It must have looked as if I was about to kiss her. God knows, I'd leaned in close enough to do just that. Did Gabriel think I swung both ways? I could still feel her hand as she stroked my cheek, her fingers wonderfully smooth and cool. It felt very bizarre in a strange, surreal way, and I could feel the heat rising to stain my cheeks. I cleared my throat and, for the first time this evening, wished I had my own way to get home.

I was grateful when Gabriel suggested we talk about something else, and for the next hour he charmed me and made me laugh, and I relaxed as the earlier tension washed away. We covered a number of inconsequential topics that, by themselves, were mundane and harmless but, strung together, revealed an awful lot about a person.

I confessed that, as a child, I'd had a goldfish who I thought lived for a really long time until I found out my dad had been secretly replacing each one as it died. In a three-year time span I cared for five fish named Brian.

“Don't ask,” I muttered in response to Gabriel's raised eyebrow over the un-aquatic-sounding name.

I had also been the proud owner, for a very short time, of a terrapin (named not Brian, but Lancelot) who managed to escape captivity. To this day, I like to think that he enjoyed a good life somewhere in our backyard before going to reptile heaven, although I suspect he didn't get farther than the linen closet. I vaguely recollect smelling an odd, unaccountable odor not too long after his disappearance. We touched briefly on sports; Gabriel was a hockey fan, but he shook his head in mock despair at my ongoing love affair with professional football.

“I'd better make sure you don't ever meet Sebastian,” he said with a wicked grin.

“Why? Does he hate football too?”

“No, just the opposite. Put you two together and you'll forget I'm even in the same room.”

I didn't know who Sebastian was, but I doubted very much Gabriel would allow himself to be forgotten. Sensing potential friction, I steered the conversation back to shared interests such as movies and books; we agreed that we didn't know each other well enough to discuss politics or religion.

“At least not yet,” Gabriel responded with an odd look.

I suppose it was a typical first date. Although, not having had many of them in recent memory, I was a little rusty. Still, I like to think we were behaving the way people do who are trying to get to know one another, to see if they make enough of a connection to warrant a second date. But I wasn't stupid or unobservant. For all the talking I was doing—and it seemed Gabriel was able to pull information from me as easily as any Internet search engine—he said very little about himself. The few details he did reveal—originally from Norway (I've heard stronger accents from people born in Minnesota), no living family, and an occupation that involved doing
this and that
—he offered cautiously. Instinctively I knew not to push him, telling myself he needed to get more comfortable with me before revealing personal details. It was better than thinking he didn't want to waste time sharing information with someone he had no intention of seeing again.

If there was one unsettling aspect to the evening, it was the physical attraction—mainly because I had no control over it and had no idea if he felt anything remotely similar for me. If Katja was a sample of the kind of woman he was used to being around, then I was completely screwed. And not in the way I was hoping for. I couldn't even console myself with the fact that he'd held my hand during the movie. Since getting into the car after leaving the movie theater, he hadn't tried to touch me in any way.

Finishing my second—or was it third?—cup of coffee, I glanced at my watch. “Oh geez, is that the time? I really need to get home.”

“Why?”

His question caught me off guard, and I looked up, certain I'd misheard him. There was no actual reason, but I thought I'd be graceful and give him a way out. Surely he'd had enough of my inane blathering by now? He tilted his head, and I stared into his eyes just as the overhead light caught his contacts, making them shine with an eerie glow. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't look away. The deep cobalt blue intensified, deepened even more, if that was possible, making me think I could see
something
moving in the depths. The circle of color began to shimmer and then started to bleed out into the surrounding sclera. It reminded me of spilling old-fashioned ink onto a piece of white paper, and I felt him catch hold of my hand and pull me into his arms.