“I would have kept following you.Hitchhiking probably wasn’t the smartest idea on your part,” headmonished.
She shrugged. “I can take care ofmyself.”
“Against a gun?”
She threw her shoulders back and sat upstraight in the booth. “I’ve been training to fight for the pastfour years.”
“No human can fight a bullet.” Her jawlocked; she didn’t say anything as the waitress arrived with herplates of food. “I’ll teach you some things, if you’d like,” hecontinued after the woman walked away.
“What would you teach me?” she asked as shebegan to pour maple syrup over her pancakes.
“You’ve had no training with an actualvampire.”
“No, I haven’t.” She returned the half emptycontainer of syrup to its holder and grabbed her fork.
“Thought so.” He leaned back in thebooth.
“Why would you help train me to kill yourkind?”
“I dislike the killers amongst us as much asyou do. I’ve had a couple of bad run-ins with them too. I’d alsolike to see you live to thirty.”
“So would I,” she muttered before finallydiving into her fluffy pancakes. She didn’t think it would happen,but she wasn’t going to admit that out loud. It would be good toactually work with a vampire, to learn how they reacted and moved.“I think I’ll take you up on that.”
She tried not to think about what such closeproximity to him would be like, but she found her mind entirelyfocused on it as she munched on her bacon. “Can you at least tellme where we are now?” she asked.
“You didn’t ask the man in the car?”
“No, I made up some crappy story for him.Asking him my location didn’t exactly fit into my tale.”
“This town is Cordia, it’s a small town inthe Cascade Mountains.”
“Oh.” She glanced around before leaningcloser. “Are we still in Oregon?”
“We are.”
“Good to know.”
“I’m going to see about getting us a rideback to the cabin,” he told her. “I saw a pickup for sale at thegarage across the street. Can I count on you not to run off?”
She scowled at him and grabbed another pieceof bacon. “Apparently, I could never run fast enough,” shereplied.
He laughed and slapped his hands on thetable as he rose. “No, you couldn’t,” he agreed.
Paige watched him walk down the aisle towardthe front door. She wasn’t the only one watching him as thewaitress and a couple of female patrons undressed him with theireyes. They were practically salivating as they leaned back on theirstools to watch his ass go out the door. Her hand curled around herfork; she scowled at them before spinning around in the booth.She’d been running away from him, and now she was contemplatingusing her fork as a murder weapon. It may only be one week, butshe’d almost definitely lose her mind by the end of it.
She focused on finishing off the rest of hermeal as she watched him walk across the dirt parking lot throughthe window. He jogged across the street and over to a rusted Dodgepickup truck that had seen better days in the eighties. The truck’sbed sagged, its body had more dents in it than the golf ballretrieval machine on a driving range, but there was something aboutthe vehicle she liked. Apparently Ian felt the same way as hewalked around the vehicle before peering inside. A man with grayinghair poking out from around his baseball cap approached him.
She finished off her breakfast while shewatched them talk for the next ten minutes. In the meantime, sheordered another glass of water and a muffin from the waitress whenshe returned. Paige turned back around to see Ian handing the olderman some cash before closing his wallet.At least he paid forit, she thought. He could have used his ability of mind controlto bend the man to his will and walk away. He really was a betterman than many of the ones she’d encountered in her life.
Ian looked up at her and happily waved thekeys in the air. Paige couldn’t help but laugh at the devilish andcarefree smile on his face. If she’d never known what he was, shewould have understood why all of those women threw themselves athim and practically salivated over him. His easy-going demeanor,love of life, and stunning good looks were an irresistiblecombination. Mix that with his reputation for being impossible tonail down…
Well, he’d been easy enough for a lot ofwomen tonail, just not more than once, and he’d been anirresistible magnet for women who believed they could changehim.
She had no delusions about changing him; shedidn’t even want to think about doing that. She liked him the wayhe was.Ugh,she groaned inwardly. What was she thinkingabout? She didn’t care if he changed his ways or not; she waskeeping her distance from now on. She nervously licked her lips ashe jumped into the cab of the pickup with the enthusiasm of a fiveyear old on his birthday.
Ian parked the truck in front of the dinerand hopped out. He glanced at the window where Paige sat beforewalking around the vehicle one more time. The old man had been astickler on the price, but he’d finally gotten him to come down tosix hundred for the vehicle. It wouldn’t make it cross country, butit would be good enough to get them around town for a bit, and backto the cabin. The cloth seats had stuffing poking out of them, thecloth on the ceiling hung down in the middle to brush against hishead, and the struts and shocks were shot. There was somethingabout the vehicle he liked though.
His gaze went back to Paige. The color hadleft her face, and she now had a haunted look about her that causedhim to pause. She hastily looked away from him and lifted her glassto her mouth. He didn’t think about what would happen when shefinally did leave. The idea only caused his blood to run cold.Instead, he focused on the here and now; it had always been the wayhe lived his life and he planned to keep it that way.
