The Reluctant Vampire (6 page)

“Hmm.” Drina eyed the overlarge coat and nodded. “We can get you another one.”

“Thank you!” Stephanie beamed and whirled to lead the way.

Harper began to push the cart after her. When Drina fell into step beside him, he cleared his throat, and commented, “Judging by all you’ve chosen, you don’t appear to have brought much with you on this trip.”

“Oh, well, I was only expecting to be at the wedding, spend a couple of days in New York, and then head back to Spain. I didn’t count on this added bit,” she explained wryly.

Harper nodded; he’d thought as much by the size of her suitcase when he’d seen it last night. “So they roped you in at the last minute?”

She nodded, but smiled. “I don’t mind, though. So far it’s been fun. Stephanie is . . .” Drina hesitated, and then shrugged. “She’s really a sweet kid.” She grimaced, laughed, and said, “Well, except for the part about being determined that I should find a nice Canadian farm boy to ‘play with’ while here.”

“So that’s what all this is about,” he said wryly.

Drina nodded. “Ever since she read my mind and saw how my life has been all work and no play, she’s been determined I should ‘have fun.’ ”

“She’s frighteningly good at reading minds,” Harper said solemnly.

“Uncommonly good at it,” Drina agreed, her expression troubled. “New turns can’t usually read anyone yet, but she not only seems to be able to read new life mates, but non–life mates too and even those of us centuries or millennia older than her.” She bit her lip, and admitted, “Actually, she says she’s not reading minds at all, but that we’re all talking into her head.”

“Hmm.” Harper frowned at the words.

“Oh, Drina! These are pretty, and they’re so soft!” Stephanie cried, drawing their attention as she rubbed a pair of red gloves against her cheek. They had reached the outerwear section.

Forcing away the concern on her face, Drina moved to join the girl, leaving Harper to follow. He did so more slowly, his mind consumed with Drina’s words as he watched the two females consider the options in gloves, hats, and scarves.

He now understood Stephanie’s apparent determination to dress Drina up in the hottest gear she could find. The kid probably felt guilty for the woman being roped into helping look out for her and wanted to repay her in some way. Or perhaps in reading Drina’s mind she’d picked up on the soul-deep loneliness that most immortals suffered. Either way, it seemed her response was a desire to find Drina a boyfriend while she was here. The girl still thought like a mortal and didn’t realize that such relationships weren’t really very satisfying to their kind. To her, a female probably wasn’t complete without a boyfriend on her arm. And apparently Drina was humoring the girl.

But the bit about Stephanie claiming not to read minds, but that everyone else was talking into her head was troubling. The truth was that unless an immortal had just found their life mate, their thoughts were usually more private, and they had to be read. While it was rude to do so, immortals did it all the time, which meant they all had to guard their thoughts when around others. But he’d never heard of someone experiencing what Stephanie claimed. Harper pondered what it might mean as the girls picked out hats, scarves, and gloves, and moved on to coats. It wasn’t until Stephanie led them toward the boot section that Harper recalled her words while Drina had been in the changing room.

Moving the cart up beside Drina, he asked, “What are FM shoes?”

“What?” She glanced around with a start.

“FM shoes,” he repeated. “Stephanie says that’s what her sister calls high heels, but she didn’t know why and suggested I should ask you. What does the FM stand for?”

“Ah.” For some reason the question caused a struggle on Drina’s face. It looked as if she was trying not to smile or laugh. Managing to fight off the urge, she turned and picked up a pair of impossibly high-heeled shoes from the row they were walking down and held them up. “These are FM shoes.”

Harper peered at the shoes, black, strappy, and with heels that had to be six inches high. They were sexy as hell and would probably go well with the black dress she’d picked up earlier. “And the FM stands for?”

Drina cleared her throat and tossed the shoe, along with its partner in the cart, then announced, “Fuck Me,” and turned to walk over to Stephanie.

Harper stared after her, stunned. For one moment he thought she’d actually been making a request of him, and he found he wasn’t averse to the idea. But then his reason kicked in. Pushing the cart quickly forward, he gasped, “Are you serious?”

Drina nodded.

“Why?” he asked with amazement.

Her eyebrows rose, and then she leaned in and picked up one shoe. “Well, look at it. It’s sexy as hell, could turn a guy on at twenty paces.” She shrugged.

“But women actually call them that?” he asked with disbelief.

“It’s what they are,” she said with amusement. Seeing his lack of comprehension, her expression turned pitying, and she said, “You don’t think we wear them because they’re comfortable, do you? Because I can guarantee you they aren’t. We pick them purely to attract the male of the species. The same reason we pick bustiers and anything else terribly uncomfortable but appealing to the male eye.”

“Huh.” Harper gave himself a shake. It had been centuries since he’d bothered reading a mortal woman’s mind. Well, really, it had been centuries since he’d bothered with mortal women at all. He simply hadn’t been interested until Jenny, and he hadn’t been able to read her mind. Still, he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised at these revelations. Even back then, women had done all sorts of things to attract mates: lead makeup, corsets, etc. They hadn’t openly admitted that was what it was about, though. It seemed women nowadays were much more frank on the subject if they actually called high heels Fuck Me shoes. It occurred to him that the world might be a much more interesting place now than it had been.

“I’m sorry,” Drina said suddenly, and patted his shoulder as if he might need soothing. “I guess we need to try to remember that this is all alien to you. I’m afraid we just keep forgetting you’re a guy and have been thinking of you as one of the girls.”

“One of the girls,” Harper muttered, as she moved off to join Stephanie again. The thought was rather dismaying. It wasn’t that he was interested in Drina and wanted her to think of him in that way, but—

“Christ.” He breathed with disgust. Being considered one of the girls was damned lowering.

“That guy over there likes you, Drina.”

Harper raised his gaze from the menu he’d been reviewing and followed Stephanie’s gesture to a table where three men in jeans and T-shirts sat. One of them, a rugged-looking fellow of twentysomething was looking their way, his eyes sliding over Drina with definite interest.

“He doesn’t even know me,” Drina said with amusement, not bothering to glance up from her menu.

“Okay, he thinks you’re hot,” Stephanie amended with exasperation, and then taunted, “You should hear what he’s thinking.”

“Oh?” she asked mildly, turning the page of her menu.

“Yeah. He really likes the boots. I told you they were hot.”

Harper just managed not to bend to peer under the table and get another look at the thigh-high boots. Stephanie had talked Drina into getting them, assuring her they would keep her warm over her jeans and be “hot” too. Drina had replaced her running shoes with them in the car on the way here. She’d lain across the backseat and kicked her legs in the air as she’d pulled them on over her tight-legged jeans in the back while he drove. She’d also switched her light coat for the much warmer long coat she’d bought and tugged on her new red hat and gloves. She was now properly attired for a Canadian winter.

“Oh, man, that’s just gross,” Stephanie said suddenly, and Harper glanced to the girl to see her wrinkling her nose with distaste.

Frowning, he followed her gaze to the “interested” mortal and slipped into the fellow’s mind. His eyes widened incredulously at the guy’s imaginings. He certainly did like the thigh-high boots. In fact, the fellow was imagining Drina in the boots and nothing else and doing things to her that . . . well, he wouldn’t say they were gross, but they were disturbingly hot images and made him withdraw quickly from the guy’s mind and scowl at him irritably.

“What are you going to order?” Drina asked Stephanie, no doubt to change the subject.

“A club sandwich and fries with gravy on the side,” Stephanie answered promptly.

“Hmm. I guess I’ll get the same,” Drina decided, closing her menu.

“You eat?” Harper asked with surprise.

“On occasion,” Drina said with a shrug. “Besides, we can’t make Stephanie eat alone.”

“No,” he agreed on a murmur, lowering his gaze to his menu again and looking to see what a club sandwich was before announcing, “I’ll have the same.”

“So,” Stephanie said once their waitress had left with their orders, “if you guys are both so old and both from Europe, how come you’ve never met before?”

Drina appeared surprised by the question and chuckled. “Sweetie, Europe is a big place. I’m from Spain. Harper is from Germany.” She shrugged. “It’s like suggesting someone from Oklahoma should know someone from Illinois just because they’re from the United States, or that someone from BC should know someone from Ontario because they’re both in Canada.”

“Yeah, but you guys are immortals and as old as the hills. Don’t immortals hang out together, or have a secret club, or something? You’d think you’d at least have met each other before this,” she said, and then added, “Besides, I thought you guys move around every ten years or something. You haven’t always lived in Spain, have you?”

“No,” Drina admitted wryly, and shrugged. “Egypt, Spain, England, and then Spain again. Mostly Spain, though.”

“Why?” Stephanie asked curiously.

“My family is there,” she said simply. “And until recently, women didn’t exactly wander the world on their own. They were expected to stay with family for protection.”

“Even immortals?” Stephanie asked with a frown.

“Especially immortals,” Drina assured her dryly. “You have to realize that we have it drilled into our head from birth not to draw attention to ourselves or our people, and an unattached female on her own would definitely have drawn attention through most of history.”

“Oh, right,” Stephanie murmured, and then her gaze shifted to Harper. “What about you? You aren’t a girl.”

The words brought a wry smile to his lips. After a day of being considered “one of the girls,” it seemed that, at least Stephanie, was finally acknowledging he wasn’t . . . if only for this conversation.

“I traveled more than Drina appears to have. I was born in what is now Germany, but have lived in many European countries, not England and Spain though. I’ve also lived in America and now Canada.”

“So, if it weren’t for Drina’s having to help look out for me, you two might never have met.”

“Perhaps not,” Harper acknowledged, and found himself thinking that would have been a great pity. Drina was an interesting woman.

The food came then, and Harper turned his attention to the sandwich and fries placed before him. The brown sandwich, pale sticks, and brown gelatinous liquid in the small bowl on the side didn’t look particularly appetizing. Harper had been a chef when he was much younger and felt presentation was important, but the food smelled surprisingly delicious.

Curious, he picked up his fork, stabbed one of the fries, and raised it to his lips, but paused when he saw Stephanie dipping hers in the small bowl of thick liquid on the side of her plate. Emulating her, he dipped his own fry in what he supposed was the “gravy on the side,” and popped it in his mouth. His eyes widened as his taste buds burst to life. It was surprisingly good, he decided, and stabbed, dipped, and ate another before picking up half his sandwich and taking a bite of that as well.

“Aren’t you going to finish your fries?” Stephanie asked.

Seeing the way the teenager was greedily eyeing her plate, Drina grinned and pushed it toward her, saying, “Go ahead. I’m done.”

Stephanie immediately fell on the remaining fries.

Drina watched enviously as the girl gobbled them, almost sorry she’d given them up. But it had been a long time since she’d eaten, and she simply couldn’t fit another bite in her belly. She’d been pushing it to manage half the sandwich and fries.

Her gaze slid to Harper and she noted that while he’d managed perhaps three quarters of his meal, he was slowing. His stomach wasn’t big enough either.

“You should go out tonight.”

Drina glanced to Stephanie with surprise to see her pointing a fry at her as she spoke.

“Seriously. It’s been decades since you’ve gone out socially. You work and visit your family and that’s it. You really need to get out and have some fun.”

“I have fun,” she assured her defensively.

“No you don’t. I can read your mind, remember? You used to love to dance, but you haven’t been dancing since those Gone-With-the-Wind-gowns were all the rage.”

Drina bit her lip, wondering what the girl was up to now. She actually had been out since then. She had a couple of good female hunter friends back in Spain, and they often went to an immortal club called Noche and danced the night away to relieve some of the stress of the job. She didn’t doubt for a minute that Stephanie had read that from her mind, so she was up to something. Again.

“You should drive into London tonight and hit a bar and just let your hair down. Dance your feet off. It would be good for you.”

“I can’t drive,” Drina reminded her dryly.

“Then Harper should take you,” she shot back with satisfaction. “He needs to get out as much as you do. He hasn’t gone anywhere in more than a year and a half except a couple of times when Elvi and Victor pretty much dragged him out.”

Harper stilled, midchew, his expression becoming alarmed. “Oh, I don’t know—”

“Yeah, I know, you’d rather hide in the house and go back to nursing your wounds,” Stephanie interrupted. “But look how much better getting out today has made you feel.”

Harper blinked.

“I really think it would do you both a lot of good. It’s certainly better than acting like a couple of turtles.”