The Vampire Affair Read online

  “So those women are just window dressing? He doesn’t actually care about any of them?”

  Lord, what am I, back in junior high? she asked herself. Trying to find out from the hot guy’s friend if he really likes me? Have I really sunk this low?

  Max’s grin disappeared, only to be replaced by a sullen frown. “What business is it of yours?” he asked.

  Jessie shook her head. “No business. Just curious, I guess.”

  “Well, to answer your question—not that you’ve got any right to an answer—no, he doesn’t let any of them get too close to him,” Max snapped. “Not since—”

  He stopped short as if he realized that he’d almost said too much and turned away.

  Jessie didn’t intend to let him off the hook that easily, though. She moved quickly to intercept him and put a hand on his arm. “Not since when?” she asked. “Or should I say…not since whom?”

  Max pulled loose with ease. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’d better eat your breakfast. Michael intends to put you through your paces again this morning.”

  That sounded a little exciting, even though Jessie knew he didn’t mean it that way. She shoved the thought away and said, “Is that why you don’t like me, Max? You’re afraid that I’ll get too close to him?”

  He growled, and Jessie remembered what Michael had said about him being like a big dog. “Michael’s the one who wanted you here. If you’ve got questions, ask him, not me. I’m not a damn search engine.”

  With that he stepped around her and stalked out of the kitchen. Jessie didn’t try to stop him. She knew it wouldn’t do any good. She simply glared at his back as he left.

  Clifford hadn’t fixed any breakfast this morning, Jessie noted, as she looked around the kitchen. So she scrambled some eggs, cooked some bacon and made several slices of toast. Simple fare, but good.

  As she ate, Michael came into the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee and smiled at her. “How are you this morning?”

  “Fine,” she said. It was almost true. The pain reliever she had taken earlier had blunted the soreness in her muscles, and the food and coffee helped, too.

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He gestured toward her breakfast. “Looks good. Is there enough for me?”

  “Eggs are on the stove, bacon in the microwave. Help yourself. You’ll have to make your own toast, though.”

  He grinned. “I think I can manage that.”

  “You’re in a good mood this morning,” she commented as he put a couple of slices of bread into the toaster.

  “I have reason to be. The plan is going just fine. Barton turned over all the information about the resort to Clifford, and we’ve been studying it since early this morning.”

  “Aren’t you worried that Barton will tell Spaulding that he sold the resort, and to one of the Brandts, at that?”

  “Barton doesn’t even know he works for Warren Spaulding. He works for the Prairie Dawn Financial Corporation, which is owned by Stellar Development, which is a subsidiary of Franklin Holdings Incorporated, which—”

  Jessie held up a hand to stop him. “I get the idea. But won’t Spaulding still find out?”

  “Eventually he would, of course. But he doesn’t keep close track of all his investments. He’s surrounded himself with layer upon layer of protection and turned the responsibility for handling everything over to his subordinates, most of whom have no idea he’s a vampire. They just think of him as a businessman, if they know who they really work for at all. And as long as the money keeps flowing so that his empire stays properly oiled, Spaulding doesn’t care what they do. He’ll get a report on the resort deal in three weeks or a month, I suppose. It’ll take that long to filter up to him. And by then it’ll be too late.”

  “You hope.”

  The toast popped up. “I hope,” Michael agreed as he turned to remove it from the toaster.

  Jessie finished her food and leaned back in the chair to sip her coffee. “I still don’t see why he wouldn’t keep closer tabs on the resort. He knows that the summit meeting will be taking place there soon.”

  Michael carried his now-full plate and coffee cup to the table and sat down across from her. “You have to understand how his mind works. He’s been a vampire for more than a hundred and twenty years. He doesn’t think anyone or anything can harm him. It’s the height of arrogance.”

  Jessie couldn’t help but stare at him. “More than a hundred and twenty years, you said?”

  “That’s not so long for a vampire,” Michael replied with a faint smile. “We’ve been able to discover that Jefferson Rendell was in London before the time of the Revolutionary War. Whether he was already a vampire or still a human, we haven’t determined because that’s as far back as we’ve been able to trace him.”

  “Maybe it was really one of his ancestors, or just somebody with the same name,” Jessie suggested.

  “Maybe,” Michael said, but he didn’t sound convinced at all. “But I’ve seen a painting of the eighteenth-century Rendell, and he’s a dead ringer, so to speak, for the one who’s around now.”

  “I guess you’d know more about all of this than I would,” Jessie said. “Until a couple of days ago I didn’t even believe in vampires.”

  He nodded. “I know it’s a lot to take in, in a hurry.”

  Jessie drank some more of her coffee, struck by the oddly off-kilter atmosphere of the situation. Sitting across the table from him, sharing the breakfast she’d cooked, gave her a definite domestic feeling. But at the same time they were discussing centuries-old vampires, and in a little while they’d be off to the gym, ostensibly so that he could continue training her to kill those undead monsters.

  “Is Max coming with us today?” she asked after a moment.

  Michael shook his head. “No, he and Clifford are going to stay here to continue monitoring developments. Brandt family members and agents are keeping an eye on the overlords, and they’ll be reporting directly to us.”

  “You guys must spy on each other all the time.”

  “It does seem sometimes like you can’t turn around without tripping over somebody from the other side,” Michael admitted with a chuckle. “One of the vampires, or somebody working for them, must have spotted me when I got to Dallas, or Carl Williams wouldn’t have come after me.”

  “Or the three who showed up here.”

  “That’s right.”

  “They have to know it’s not a coincidence that you show up in Texas just before they start gathering here for that summit meeting,” Jessie pointed out.

  “I’m sure they have their suspicions. But they can’t be sure we know anything about the summit. And there’ll be a story in today’s papers, planted by Clifford, about how I’m going to be practicing at Texas Motor Speedway for the race being held there next month.”

  She stared at him. “You’re going into NASCAR?”

  “Why not?”

  She had no answer for that. In fact, once she thought about it, it made perfect sense. He had conquered just about every other form of auto racing. Nobody could stop Michael Brandt.

  Certainly not one lone female tabloid reporter…

  “Anyway, it’ll just be the two of us today, I guess,” he went on. “If it’s all right with you, that is.”

  She summoned up a smile. “Why would it bother me?”

  “I just thought…after what happened yesterday…”

  “That kiss, you mean?” She waved a hand as if it were the most unimportant thing in the world. “That was just a spur-of-the-moment, heat-of-battle type thing, right? I mean, you were lying on top of me. I may not be a starlet or an heiress, but I’m not too bad, if I do say so myself.”

  “No,” Michael agreed quietly. “Not bad at all.”

  “So we’ll just forget it. It won’t happen again, right?”

  “Right,” he said.

  And something seemed to break inside Jessie at the thought of Michael’s lips never touching hers again.

 
; Not bad at all, he had said.

  What he wanted to say was, You’re the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Of course I’m going to kiss you again, not just your lips but all over. I want to taste you from head to toe and drink in everything about you.

  That would be a good way to make her run screaming out of his life, he told himself. Anyway, she would never believe him. She was too cynical, too wary, for that. She had responded when he kissed her, but the reaction was a purely physical one. She didn’t know how he really felt. Hell, he didn’t know how he really felt!

  And that was lousy timing on the part of the fate that had brought them together, because with everything he had coming up in his life right now he didn’t need to be distracted or confused by a bunch of conflicting emotions. The raid on the upcoming vampire summit meeting would be his best chance in years to settle his old score with Jefferson Rendell, to rid himself of the festering guilt and hate that had filled his heart for so long, filled it to the point that there was no room for anything else.

  Since Max wouldn’t be driving them to the gym in the limo, when they were ready to go Michael took Jessie to the small parking area behind the lodge and opened the passenger door of the BMW for her. “Nice car,” she commented as she got in.

  “Thanks.”

  “How many do you have?” she asked as he settled himself behind the wheel.

  He frowned in thought, then shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve lost count.”

  A brittle laugh came from her. “Do you have any idea how inconceivable it is to me that you can’t even remember how many cars you own? My pickup has over a hundred and fifty thousand miles on it, and I’ve been hoping to get at least another hundred thousand out of it since I can’t afford to replace it.”

  “We can do something about that—”

  “The heck we can! It’s bad enough I took all those clothes you bought for me. I’m sure not going to let you buy me a car!”

  “I paid to have your grandmother’s plumbing repaired,” Michael pointed out.

  “That’s completely different. Nana Rose really needed that work done, and I would’ve sent her the money myself if I’d had the chance.”

  Michael couldn’t see the distinction, but since Jessie obviously could, he decided to leave the subject alone. “Fine. No new car.”

  “Anyway,” she muttered after a few moments as he steered onto one of the freeways that led toward downtown Dallas, “any car you got me would be some sort of vampire-hunter-mobile, I’ll bet. Let me guess…you’ve got armor plating, built-in rockets and an ejector seat in this one, don’t you?”

  “I thought you said I was Batman, not James Bond.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “It’s true there’s armor plating on the car,” he said. “But no rockets or ejector seat. Armor is common on vehicles used by top businessmen these days, to help prevent kidnappings and things like that.”

  She seemed to accept that answer and didn’t give him any more trouble about it. He thoroughly enjoyed her sense of humor and her sharp but refreshing attitude—so many of the women he’d known hadn’t been like that—but he didn’t mind when she gave them a rest for a little while, either.

  After a few minutes, Jessie said, “I ought to call Nana Rose and make sure everything went okay.”

  “Go right ahead,” Michael told her.

  She took out her cell phone and hit one of the speed-dial connections. Michael listened to her half of the conversation as he drove.

  As she spoke, she looked at Michael and stuck her tongue out. He couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What? Oh, that was just some idiot on the radio. I’ll turn it off. Remember, if there’s anything else you need, you just let me know. Love you, too. Bye.”

  “‘Some idiot on the radio’?” Michael quoted.

  “Well, you didn’t expect me to tell her that I’m hanging around with some millionaire playboy slash race car driver slash vampire hunter, did you?”

  “When you put it like that it just sounds silly. Or unbelievable, anyway.”

  “I’m not sure I do believe it,” Jessie murmured. “Sometimes I think maybe I’m dreaming the whole thing.”

  “Even that kiss?” Michael couldn’t resist asking.

  “Especially that kiss. It was just too good to be true.”

  He glanced sharply at her and saw her biting her lip, as if she wished she hadn’t said that. But she had, and she couldn’t take it back now, even if she wanted to.

  She looked out the window and didn’t say anything else, and he let the awkward silence hang between them until they reached the gym. As he parked and got out of the car, his habitual caution took over. With all of his incredibly keen senses alert, he checked for any sign of an ambush before he went around the vehicle and opened the door for Jessie.

  “I guess the coast is clear,” she said as she got out.

  “That’s right.”

  “But they will come after you again sooner or later, won’t they?”

  “You can count on it.”

  “Not in broad daylight like this, though, right? They have to stay out of the sun, don’t they?”

  A grim smile touched his lips as he said, “The overlords have plenty of human killers working for them, too. They’re not just about to concede half the hours in the day to their enemies.”

  “But you can handle any human attackers, can’t you?”

  “I have so far. It never pays to underestimate the opposition, though. That’s why I’m careful.”

  She shook her head as they went into the unimpressive-looking building. “I don’t see how you do it, living with constant danger like that.”

  “You drive on the freeways, don’t you? You don’t have any guarantee that you’ll arrive safely wherever you’re going. In fact, when you wake up in the morning, you can’t know that you’ll be alive to see the sun go down that afternoon. So in that respect, you’re just like me and everybody else in the world. Living is taking chances.”

  “Well, aren’t you the little ray of sunshine,” she said caustically.

  Michael laughed. “Come on. We have work to do.”

  And work they did for the next couple of hours, starting out by practicing the maneuvers Michael had taught her the day before. He could tell that she had a little trouble at first and knew she must be pretty sore. Her stubborn nature wouldn’t allow her to admit that, however. She just kept pushing herself harder instead.

  They moved on to some new tactics. Michael admired Jessie’s determination as she worked hard to master everything he showed her. She had trouble, though, when she tried to copy his demonstration of a particularly difficult forward roll that turned into a handspring and spinning back kick. Whenever she went into the handspring part of the move she slipped and went crashing to the mat.

  The first time it happened Michael leaped toward her, worried that she had hurt herself. She flung a hand up and motioned him back, saying, “I’m all right, damn it! It’s my own stupid fault!”

  “Take it easy,” he advised. “Try it again, a little slower this time.”

  She tried, but again her arm buckled and spilled her to the mat. He was about to offer another suggestion, but the dark look she sent his way made him decide to keep his mouth shut.

  That was the way it went for the next fifteen minutes. Michael could see the frustration growing inside Jessie as she failed to complete the move time and time again. He began to feel impatient, too, as she brushed aside his attempts to help her. Learning these things was important. Now was no time to let stubborn pride stand in the way of accomplishing what she needed to accomplish.

  Finally he couldn’t stand it anymore. Something snapped inside him as Jessie tumbled hard to the mat yet again, and his voice rose angrily as he stepped forward and said, “Blast it, Charlotte, if you’d just—”

  Ice flooded his veins and tried to freeze the words in his throat, but too late. They were already out. As Jessie gazed up
at him from the mat in shock and surprise, he turned and stalked toward the locker room door.

  “We’re finished,” he said over his shoulder, without looking back.

  He didn’t dare look back, because he was afraid of what he might see on her face.

  Well, Jessie thought when the surprise had worn off a little, if a guy’s going to call you by another woman’s name, I guess it’s better that he does it when you’ve just fallen on your ass than when he’s making love to you.

  But that didn’t mean she was going to let it go at that. Hardly. She scrambled to her feet and started after him. He reached the locker room first, though, and slammed the door behind him.

  Jessie stopped and glared at the door. The gym didn’t have separate locker rooms for men and women, only the one. She supposed that Michael had never considered the possibility that a woman might be working out here. Maybe there weren’t any female vampire hunters in the Brandt family. With their Old World sensibilities, the Brandt men probably tried to shield and protect their women.

  That was chivalrous as all hell, but it wouldn’t fly in this day and age. Jessie had never let anything stand in her way without giving it a fight, and that wasn’t going to change now.

  At the same time, she wasn’t just mad at Michael for the deception he had planned and the fact that he had called her by another woman’s name. Maybe she felt a little twinge of jealousy, sure, but at the same time she had seen pain flare in his eyes as he realized what he’d said. She recalled the exchange with Max that morning when he’d said something about Michael having let a woman get too close to him.

  It didn’t take any great leaps of deduction to realize what Max had been talking about must have something to do with the woman called Charlotte. Jessie knew that, but it wasn’t enough. Max wouldn’t tell her, but maybe Michael would.

  He owed her a little bit of truth, after the lies he had told her.

  Jessie took a deep breath and shoved the locker room door open. She halfway expected to see Michael sitting on one of the benches, brooding. He wasn’t there, though.

  The room formed an L shape, and around the corner were the showers. Jessie heard them running. She saw Michael’s workout clothes thrown in an untidy heap in a corner. He had retreated to a place where he thought she wouldn’t follow him.