She pressed the bloodstone again and the middle ward rose with another shower of sparks. She opened the slider door, touched the inner ward, and it fell. And Linc was standing there, on the back deck, his eyes on her. He smelled of barbeque, which was unusual for a vamp. They usually smelled of flowers and herbs and, more rarely, of old blood. Linc ran a BBQ restaurant and he often cooked the meat himself. Lincoln Shaddock was not the usual vampire.
Linc
He stood silently in the trees, on the outside of the first ward. He knew to the inch how far back he needed to be to keep from setting it off. He knew because he had courted Bedelia Everhart. Once upon a time, he had crossed over her wards on a regular basis. Bee was a very powerful witch, but like most witches, who seldom altered the style of their magics, she had kept the positioning and manner of her wards the same, though they were much stronger now. It was much more painful than just decades ago to be this close.
With a vampire’s eyesight, he watched through the distance and the trees as she made an infusion. At this time of night, it would be chamomile. She was wearing a rose-colored housedress and pretty pink slippers. She had gone gray in the last few years. He liked the color on her, yet his heart wrenched at the sight of it. Once she stopped sipping on his blood, she had begun to age at the rate of most witches. Barring an accident, she would still live to be over a hundred, but she would look it and feel it and she would die far too soon. And take what was left of his heart with her. She sipped her weeds and hot water. He missed the taste of that stuff on her mouth. He missed everything he had given up when she refused to allow him to continue to be a fool. When she had put her foot down. When she had walked away.
Lincoln Shaddock, Master of the City of Asheville, took his life in his hands and passed over the outer ward, striding close to the middle one. Thehedge of thorns. The Everhart witch family had been working on this ward for decades. This one was a doozie and a half. It might fry him if he wasn’t careful. He felt it the moment the ward recognized an intruder. He stopped, watching her, waiting.
Bedelia sipped, put down her cup, and walked down a hallway and out of sight. Once upon a time, that had meant she was checking on her daughters. Now it meant she was checking on her mother. He waited. Eldercare was sacrosanct in blood-servants, so the human need to take care of the old ones, he understood.
When she returned, she was barefooted, and he saw that her toes werepainted scarlet. Linc smiled into the dark, and then that smile faded as he wondered if she even remembered.
She picked up her cup and sipped again, staring right where he stood in the dark of a night with an unrisen moon. Witch magic told her where he stood. Her arms were loose, body was relaxed, but there was no expression on her face, no smile of welcome and joy. He watched her. Both of them waiting. Both of them knowing that him being here meant there was a passel of trouble somewhere already.
Bedelia reached to the counter beside her and picked up her amulet necklace. She slid it over her head. Bee always did have a gift for the dramatic gesture. This particular gesture reminded him that she was powerful. She was dangerous. And that she would not be trifled with. The focal nestled between her breasts, and a shot of desire raced through him like the taste of her blood.
She leaned a hip against the counter, picked up her cup, and sipped again. Waiting.
Ah. In case someone had forced me here, he thought.To this place and time.
He wasn’t certain what to do to assure her he was not hiding a threat in the trees behind him. What had he done that very first time? Something... His mind swept back. Had he brought her flowers?No. He had brought her caviar and smoked salmon and toast points. And a bag of movie theater popcorn.She had ignored the fancy food and eaten the popcorn.
Bee turned to walk away. Linc raised his hand and knocked politely on the ward.
His special notes rang out.His notes.She hadn’t changed them. She could have when she moved the wards to this house. But she hadn’t. His whole body softened with... with whatever Bee had done to him so long ago.
Bedelia returned to the doors. With one hand, she lifted her mixed-amulet necklace and pressed the bloodstone amulet between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand. Thehedgefell in a sprinkling of red fireworks that proved her strength and her ability as a witch. The scarlet had once been her special welcome for him. She had never changed it. Linc’s eyes landed on her, ancient hope held in his cold undead heart.
He strode across the lawn to the house as the middle ward rose again. She opened the glass door, touched the inner ward, and it fell. And Linc was standing there, on the back deck, his eyes on hers. All the love he had ever felt for her was laid bare in his dark eyes. “Hello, darlin’. Thank you for lettin’ me in,” he said. The paper in his hand crinkled. He had forgotten about the gift.
Bedelia
“Hello, darlin’. Thank you for lettin’ me in,” he said in his soft, old-fashioned Southern accent. He lifted his left hand, to reveal a brown paper bag spotted with grease.
“Ribs?” Bedelia asked, her mouth salivating. Whatever she had meant to say disappeared at the scent of heaven.
“And a whole chicken. Tater tots. Mac and cheese with bacon from your recipe. It’s still the best-selling side in the place. B’s-Mac. People order it by the quart to take home.”
Bedelia chuckled softly and stepped aside, accepting the bag and saying, “Mama’s asleep. Whatever you got to say, we’ll have to keep it quiet.”
“You eat. I’ll talk.”
Talk. Oh yes. Trouble and danger somewhere.Trouble followed the old vampire like bees after honey. Bedelia got out a plate, knife, and fork, then poured herself some tea sweetened with stevia. Mama’s brush with diabetes had made her change some habits. She arranged two ribs and a chicken drumstick, both coated with Linc’s special rub, on a plate with three tater tots and a tiny helping of mac and cheese.
“I remember you being a bigger eater than that, Bee.”
“It’s late. I don’t want to be up with heartburn. And the nice thing about your cooking is that it reheats for leftovers.” She lifted a rib in the fingers of both hands and lipped the meat off. It was so tender, she didn’t even have to use her teeth. She closed her eyes at the flavors assaulting her.Heaven in a BBQ rub.She finished the ribs, ate a drumstick, and tasted the tater tots and a single bite of the mac. It was just like she made, every ingredient unchanged for decades. Full, she wrapped the food, put it inthe fridge, and washed her hands. Sat and sipped her tea. He sat across from her at the kitchen table, silent, watching. She put down her cup and studied him back.
Linc was wearing facial hair again, the same look he’d cultivated in the seventies—the 1970s. Even back then, she’d teased him about the jaw whiskers. The look was popular again and Linc was... Linc looked good.Damn it.“Out with it,” she said.
Linc smiled that smile, the one that used to melt her heart. He held her gaze, and everything he was and everything he felt poured into his eyes. “I miss you. I miss you every dawn when I go to bed. I miss you every night when I wake. I miss you when the moon is full and lights the land with a silver glow. I miss watching you dance under the moon, naked as a jaybird, my blood on your lips, your blood on mine. My life is empty and without meaning without you. I love you now and always.”
Bedelia looked down at her hands as he spoke, sadness twining through her heart like barbed wire. She didn’t speak. Couldn’t. She swallowed down her pain and blinked away her tears. Because,good God in heaven, it had been too long. She took a breath that shuddered through her chest, and she knew he could smell her sorrow and her love. “I love you too, Linc. But you didn’t come here to try and pick up where we left off. We both know that old and worn-out love isn’t always the answer. Especially after Evangelina—”
“Your daughter did not seduce me,” he interrupted. “She tried. She managed to control me to a point, but she failed at that ultimate revenge and betrayal of you. Old hatred, old love, jealousy, and demon-taint will do that to a human, witch or no.”
A sense of relief sailed through her. Bedelia’s eldest daughter, by one of the two human men in her past, had always wanted Lincoln. Had always been jealous of Bedelia, of her own mother’s power, of her happiness. “I sense...” Bedelia stopped and chuckled softly. “I sense a disturbance in the Force.”
