Driving Mr. Dead (20 page)

“What?”

I chuckled. “It turns out that to be a good vampire chauffeur, you need the skills of a failed photographer, an understudy yacht mechanic, a well-trained waitress, a taxi driver, and a magician’s assistant.”

“Oh, Miranda.” She sighed, her lip trembling. “I didn’t ever want
to make you feel that you’ve failed. And I know I’m hard on you sometimes. It’s just, well, I could always count on you when you were younger; your antics used to keep everything so lively. I was always proud of Glenn, but you were the one who kept your daddy and me talking.”

I snorted. “I’ll bet.”

“No, when we were worrying about you, we hardly noticed that we worked too many hours and hadn’t had any real time together since our honeymoon. And when you grew up and started all of these wild adventures, I suppose I grasped onto that as something we could fuss over together. And when we got you to come home, and you were working for us …”

“You worried about me full-time?” I suggested dryly.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel like a failure. Really. I was just so used to keeping my eye on you that it became a habit.”

“That is extremely unhealthy, Mom. And close supervision doesn’t mean I won’t do anything stupid.”

“I’m starting to see that, considering Glenn’s Booby Hatch issue.” She sniffed, swiping at her eyes. “So when do you go back to work?”

“I don’t know, but I may have just quit.”

“Well, that’s a first for you.”

I gnawed on my lips. “I know. But I’m going to keep at it. Even if I don’t work for Iris again, I’m going to stay in this field. I really like working with vampires.”

“Tell me what he was like.”

“Who?”

She smirked, pushing my hair back from my face. “The man who has you standing still for more than five minutes altogether.”

“I’ve been asleep for the last sixteen hours, Mom.”

“Don’t be obtuse, sweetheart,” she griped. “You have intentionally avoided talking about your client every time I’ve asked about him. And I don’t believe it’s because of some silly confidentiality agreement you signed for Iris. Now, tell me about Mr. Sutherland.”

“He was … contrary. He wanted things done exactly his way, or he became all stern and cranky. He gave me sixteen pages of rules and requirements before we even left his driveway.”

“And you always do so well with rules and requirements.”

“I drove him nuts from the moment the engine started. But eventually, I think he liked it. And Lord, I liked doing it, just because it made him break out of his stuffy persona and smile.”

“A good smile?” Mom asked, teasing.

I nodded.

“So why are you here instead of out there with him?”

“He—I just—it …” I sighed. “It wouldn’t have worked out. Like you said, he wasn’t my type.”

“That’s a silly reason. Your type usually looks like some of the clients coming through our offices. In fact, some of your boyfriends have been clients at our offices.”

“Easy,” I told her in a warning tone. “Don’t backtrack on this touching moment.”

She tilted her head, and once again, I was grateful that I’d never been on the receiving end of Mom’s questions on the witness stand. “If you saw him again, what would you do?”

I grumbled into my pillow but eventually admitted, “Jump him.”

Mom sighed, clapping a hand over her eyes. “I wish you wouldn’t share these things with me.”

“I know. That’s part of the reason I do it.”

I stayed up for most of the night, telling my mom about my adventures on the road with Collin. She couldn’t believe what I’d put up with, what I’d put myself through, just to keep a job. But I think it served to convince her of how badly I wanted to avoid coming back to Jason. She agreed that Collin sounded like just the sort of frustrating, fascinating man I deserved, and she spent the rest of the night trying to persuade me to contact him before he left town.

After unburdening my soul, I slept for at least ten hours. I plugged my iPod into the alarm clock and put my “Sleepy/Spa” playlist on repeat. I woke up with a slick of drool dried to my cheek and my hair in wild disarray. I stumbled out of my room, whacking my shoulder on the doorjamb on my way to the bathroom.

A full moon shone down on my parents’ yard. I went into the bathroom and splashed some cool water on my face. I peeled my hair back from my face with a headband and stumbled down the stairs.

“Mom, can we arrange an intravenous coffee system?” I mumbled, plodding down the steps.

I heard my mother’s tinkling laughter from downstairs. I hadn’t heard her laugh like that since Glenn’s wedding. It took all I had not to turn on my heel and clomp right back up the stairs. I would not be caught in one of my mother’s meetings, whether it was with members of the church bazaar committee or a potential date or employer for me. The last one resulted in our not speaking for days because I dumped a glass of iced tea over Leonard “Wandering Hands” Burton’s head.

“Miranda, is that you?” Mom called. “We have a guest, honey. Come on down.”

I was wearing a sleeveless flannel nightgown my brother had given me last Christmas. It was lavender, with pink kittens on it. Circa 1989 LA Gear slouchy socks completed the look. “Um, I’m not exactly dressed for company right now, Mom.”

“Oh, I think this visitor will be happy to see you, no matter how you’re dressed.”

Was my mom being held hostage? Was that why she sounded so sunny—and somewhat desperate? I grabbed a heavy walking stick from the umbrella stand and stuck my head into the parlor entryway.

“Collin?”

I dropped the walking stick with a clatter.

He was standing in my mother’s parlor, impeccably dressed in a slate-blue pinstriped suit, leaning against the mantel as if he’d been taking tea in the family parlor for decades. My mom was perched on the edge of her seat, entranced by the smooth vampire.

Collin smiled winsomely at me. “Miranda.” He eyed the stick on the floor and suppressed a grin. “Thank you for disarming.”

“I haven’t made up my mind about that,” I warned him.

“Oh, Miranda, hush. Don’t be rude to the man when he dropped by to give you flowers.”

“Flowers?” I glanced down at the elaborate arrangement of cream roses, lush orange calla lilies, and hypericum berries all bound together with a crisp orange taffeta ribbon. He placed the bouquet in my hands, fingers brushing against mine as he gazed down at me. “It’s a little unusual to tip your driver with flowers, don’t you think?”

“Well, my driver was rather unusual,” he said. “And I brought you this.”

He handed me my photo journal, which I’d apparently left at Ophelia’s when I huffed off. I grinned at him, opening the book. It
seemed slightly heavier. New photos were taped onto pages toward the back. Pictures I recognized as shots I’d taken on our trip. The abandoned drive-in with its crumbling screen in the middle of nowhere. Collin at the diner booth, his eyes closed as if he was praying for strength. The Batmobile’s boobs. Me sleeping in the slanted bed at the Country Inn. My hair was tumbling around my face. My features were relaxed and untroubled. Despite the surroundings, I looked almost angelic.

“I was not aware that you took this,” I said, lifting my eyebrows and showing him the picture in question.

“I may have played with your camera a little bit while you were sleeping,” he admitted.

“My camera that was burning at the bottom of the ravine?”

“I also may have taken the memory card out of your camera while you were sleeping, so I could find a way to make copies of your photos,” he said, palming the memory card with a flourish, extending that hand to me, then snatching it away at the last minute. “You’re not the only one who’s good with sleight-of-hand.”

“Thanks for giving this back,” I said, closing the book and clutching it to my chest. “I would have been very upset if I’d lost it.”

“I wanted to make my own mark on it before I gave it back to you,” he said.

“Sophie’s just a friend?” I said, eyeing him carefully. “There’s no history there?”

“I have no interest in Sophie,” he said. “She’s too predictable, too polished. I want a woman who picks fights in parking lots with unknown assailants and loves to eat questionable food from even more questionable establishments and makes beautiful pictures of ordinary things.”

“
Hmph,
” I grumbled.

“And for the record, Ophelia’s sister was turned when she was a child. Ophelia does everything she can to make life more interesting for Georgie, including collecting very rare, very expensive toys. That teddy bear we were transporting was worth more than five hundred thousand dollars at auction. It’s one of a kind. And I only managed to track it down by threatening several of my sources with …” He spared my mother a glance. “A very harsh scolding.”

“A half-million-dollar teddy bear?”

“A very, very
rare
half-million-dollar teddy bear.”

I scrubbed my hand over my face. “I hate you guys. I really, really do.”

“Oh, Miranda,” Mom scolded.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I never meant to make you feel foolish. And I know I have been churlish and arrogant and—”

“Pigheaded,” I suggested.

“That seems fair,” he conceded as I stepped toward him.

“Demanding,” I added.

He slipped his hand through my hair, cradling my cheek against his palm. “I’ll accept that.”

“Dickish,” I said.

“I’m not sure that’s a word,” he protested.

“Which would be a problem if we were playing a board game, but since this is supposed to be an apology to
me
, I’ll say whatever I want. Mmm-kay?”

His lips twitched, even with my mom’s horrified gasp in the background. She never cared much for my way with words. “I can’t say I love you yet, but I know that I want enough time to figure it out. I’ve been alone for so long. And I was unhappy, but I couldn’t
figure out why. I didn’t know what I was missing. And then you came stumbling into my life and I saw that it was you. I can live without you, but I don’t want to.” I stood motionless, gaping at him. He grimaced. “Too far?”

I shook my head. “No, that was just about perfect.”

“I do find myself curious—have you finally broken ties with the ‘butt-dialer’?”

“Yes. Decidedly. What exactly are you asking from me?”

“I was thinking that after spending much more time together, we could determine whether you want to spend the rest of your life with me. Whether you feel the way I do. I think I could make you happy … barring natural disasters, mechanical failure, inadvertent public nudity, and pestilence pouring forth from the sky.”

“Not funny, but I accept,” I murmured against his lips as he moved in to kiss me. I could hear my mother sniffling in the background. She was clearly eating this up with a spoon, and who could blame her? This was every suave-ass Cary Grant moment ever filmed, wrapped up in a much hotter package.

“Iris doesn’t accept your resignation, by the way,” he told me. “She said that anyone who can deliver a client safely, on time, with all of the mishaps we suffered and the, er, difficult nature of said client, is definitely someone she wants on the payroll.”

“Even with the damage to the car?”

He shrugged. “She said to think of it as a prototype. Clearly, a built-in GPS system is the first feature she will be ordering in the next model. She would like you to take a few days off to recover, then return to work on Friday, with a pay raise.”

“A raise?” Mom exclaimed.

“Ophelia found my description of our adventures to be highly
entertaining. I think Iris is afraid that Ophelia will try to poach you to be her personal driver. Either way, Iris has another assignment for you.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” I said.

“It’s a bit closer to home this time, from the Hollow to New Orleans and back. Jane has a vampire author coming into the shop for a book signing, and she prefers to see a bit of the country when she travels.”

“I don’t know if I can face another motel for a while,” I told him.

“She specifically mentioned the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. Luxurious accommodations and a minibar you can ransack to your heart’s content.”

“Memphis?” I squealed. “I’ve never taken pictures of Mud Island. Oh, I can get kicked out of Graceland!”

Mom sighed. “Oh, Miranda, not again.”

“That security guard had no sense of humor, Mom.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be alone,” Collin said. “I’ve requested that you drive me back to Washington … at some point … which I haven’t determined yet.”

“Let me guess.” I snorted. “Return date wasn’t mentioned in that sixteen-page contract rider.”

“No. I expected to return immediately. But I’ve found that Half-Moon Hollow has certain … attractions I did not anticipate.”

“I thought you were the master of anticipation.”

He slipped his arms around my waist. “Well, some things are even better than anything my paltry gift could conjure up.”

“You are too much,” I told him.

“And by the way, Iris has a new policy. All client-requirement riders are to be a maximum of three pages. Her exact words were,
‘You will never have to put up with anything like that again.’”

“Will wonders never cease?” I said, smirking at him. “So we have a few days before I have to report back to work. We can get into a lot of trouble in a few days. If only we had vampire-safe transportation.”

“And I just happen to have vampire-safe transportation available,” he said, pulling the curtain aside to reveal a dark SUV.

“How did you rent a car without ID?” I asked.

“Did you know that the Council can issue valid vampire identification without a waiting period? And negotiate money transfers with Swiss banks? And replace vampire-safe vehicles destroyed in the course of Council business?”

“I did not know that.”

“And they managed to wrangle a replacement for the credit card that motel clerk cut up.”

I asked, “Do I want to know how they knew my account numbers?”

He shook his head. “No.”

Because the housekeeper had finished the laundry, my traveling clothes were already clean and neatly folded. I stuffed them into my battered bag and slipped into jeans and one of Collin’s shirts. He would get it back … eventually.