Chapter 20
By Friday, part of me regretted accepting Brianne’s dinner invitation.
I wanted to spend time with her outside the office, but my to-the-bone weariness refused to release its grip.
For all my resolve to try and make the best of things, I still held back.
A slew of canceled appointments hadn’t helped.
And the patients who did show up got a distant, struggling version of me.
I’d managed a few more purposeful feats of magic during the week, and I clung to that lifeline as I left the house.
It now sported fresh paint the color of a rising sun in winter, with green and ivory accents, as if it were a magnolia itself.
The shutters were secured to the house, rather than balancing on rusty nails.
And the flower beds, though bare, were packed with fresh soil and primed to bloom whatever House planted.
It was progress. Not enough, but a step in the right direction.
Brianne lived in a quaint suburban house on the edges of town. A pretty white porch stretched across the front of the house, with stairs leading up to the inviting red door directly in the center. Oversized windows on each side beckoned visitors into domestic heaven.
The two-story home was painted a deep shade of blue. Kids’ toys were scattered along the porch. Tiny, adorable pairs of glittery pink sandals graced the doormat. A second pair of larger tennis shoes rested on the rocker, as if they’d been thrown there on the way inside.
Before I had a chance to ring the bell, Brianne opened the door, welcoming me amidst the chaos of high-pitch squeals and laughter behind her.
“Sorry for the noise.” She hugged me close in the doorway, cooing over the bottle of wine I’d remembered at the last moment to bring. Well, House remembered and had it on a table by the door when I was leaving. “Nate got home late. The kids are over-excited to see him. Come in and meet the fam.”
I followed her inside, smiling at the heartwarming image her home created.
Comfortably messy, with bold colors and mismatched furniture.
Two kids, a girl no more than five and a boy I’d put around fifteen, wrestled their father as he wiggled and twisted to reach their best tickle spots.
It was wholesome to witness, particularly as kids the boy’s age tended to be sullen and withdrawn.
I rubbed at the space in my heart where my pain over Gabe lived. Brianne bumped my shoulder, almost as if she knew what I was thinking.
“All right, you animals, my new friend is here. Get off your dad and come meet Simone.”
With no small amount of reluctance, they crawled off their father’s back and trudged over obediently.
“Hey. I’m Nolan.” At fifteen, Brianne’s boy towered over her. Yet he stood behind her as if she could protect him from the world. Thin lips lifted into a crooked smile. His mama’s smile. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too, Nolan.” His awkward shyness was adorable, and I wondered if he realized what a handsome young man he was.
His fair skin was pimple-free. Jet black hair flopped around on his head, and his small but intensely blue eyes gave you the feeling of being truly seen.
He had the look of a high school heartthrob, and his shy aura likely made the teens swoon.
As soon as I acknowledged him, he disappeared, as if the mere act of introducing himself had taken all his effort.
His sister, on the other hand, pushed right past her parents and marched over to me.
She extended her hand to shake mine, and I knew immediately I was going to become this girl’s new aunt. Or snack bitch. Whatever she allowed.
“Hello, Miss Simone. I’m Natalie.” Her hair was a jumbled mess of blond knots landing below her round, adorable face. Large, curious eyes the same bright emerald shade as her mother’s looked up at me with unnerving wisdom. This little girl was five going on eighty-five.
“Nice to meet you, Natalie. I’m Simone.” I shook her tiny hand. “I love your nail polish.”
“Thank you.” Her voice held an air of approval. I’d passed a test by commenting on the pink glitter adorning her fingers. “They match daddy’s.”
“It looks better on you, Kitten.” Brianne’s husband strolled forward on long, slender legs. He laced one arm around his wife, pulling her close. He extended the other to display his sparkling, pointed nails. I barely saw them.
Longish dark hair danced at the edge of his collar. Pale, flawless skin almost shined under the dark sweater and jeans he wore on his long, lanky frame. He smiled at me. It was a welcoming smile, not-at-all menacing.
Yet a chill ran up my spine. His grin exposed extended canines, each scalpel-sharp.
“Nice to finally meet you, Simone. I’m Nate Steele.”
His hand was ice cold. His voice was syrup and honey.
Holy cannoli. Brianne’s doting husband was a vampire.
I gulped. I literally gulped.
“Brianne’s spoken a lot about your latest life changes.” Nate continued like I wasn’t standing there with my mouth hanging open. “I must say, I admire your ability to take on something so massive with such grace.”
“Oh, I don’t know that I’ve been the least bit graceful.” A woman could get lost in eyes like that. Everything I knew about vampires was lore or from bad movies. Here was one, in the scary-ass flesh, complimenting me on a grace I didn’t possess after wrestling with his half-human kids.
I couldn’t stop staring. Oh God, was he possessing me with those piercing blue eyes? Did vampires possess? No, it was called something else.
Enthralled. Was he enthralling me? Did I feel enthralled?
No. The only thing I felt was stupid. Brianne and her husband had welcomed me into their home, and I was gaping at him like he was in a zoo. I closed my mouth.
“Definitely not handling anything with grace,” I repeated, wiping drool off my lip. “But I’m trying to adapt.”
“Which is a form of grace itself.” He released my hand and planted a soft kiss on Brianne’s cheek. “The hellions and I are going to clean up for dinner. Then we’re setting the table so you two can talk.”
At the kids’ twin groans, he sent them a look that rooted me to the spot. Damn, he was scary. To me.
Natalie stuck her tongue out with a wicked giggle, and his menace turned to mirth in the blink of an eye. With a vicious, fake hiss, he scooped her up and over his shoulder. Her shriek tensed every inch of my body. Nolan emitted a warrior’s whoop and, brandishing a fake sword, chased after them.
“Mayhem.” Brianne shook her head as if the scene had been totally normal. Which, I suppose to her, it had. “Thank you for the wine.”
“It’s, uh, red.” I shrugged my shoulders.
“Our favorite.” Brianne turned toward the kitchen.
My feet followed. “I probably should have told you. You know, about Nate. But I thought seeing the look on your face would be hilarious.” She popped the cork and poured three tall glasses.
I watched the swirling liquid in a daze as she handed me one. “Gotta admit, I was right.”
“House chose the wine for me. I see it shares your sense of humor.”
Brianne’s head tipped back. When she laughed, I was surprised to find I was able to join in.
Dinner was a surreal collage of idle chatter and hearty foods. Nate sipped his wine and spooned another liquid from a wide bowl. I didn’t want to think about what it was or where it came from.
“Eat your broccoli, darling, not just your blood.” Brianne nudged Nolan’s plate closer, stabbing a stalk with a fork and waving it at him when his face dropped into a grimace. “It won’t go away just because you don’t like it.”
“One day it will,” he mumbled. I couldn’t quite suppress the shudder that blanketed me.
“So.” I finished a bite of the lightly fried fish Nate had cooked perfectly. “How did you two meet?”
“We worked together back in Atlanta.” Nate slid his hand over Brianne’s, his eyes shining. “She was the best accountant at the bank, and I was the head of finance. Her boss and four times her age. It was wildly inappropriate.”
For a moment, they gazed at one another as if they were the only ones in the room. Natalie sighed dreamily while Nolan made gagging noises—their parents clearly did this often.
“Brianne, you have an accounting background?” I asked. “I thought you were managing the Magnolia.”
“I do. And I am.” Brianne pulled her attention away from her husband. “I do the basic bookkeeping for the Magnolia, but I’m not using my degree to its full extent.”
There was an interesting wistfulness to her voice, like she wanted to do more.
I still hadn’t given much thought to the business of the Magnolia.
It seemed like wasted effort, particularly if I couldn’t keep the therapy practice going.
Eventually, if I managed to become Supreme, I’d want to know more.
But in the meantime, I was letting the place run itself.
Or, it seemed, I was letting Brianne run the place. Which my gut told me was just fine. For now.
“Atlanta, huh?” I wrenched myself away from my internal monologue. “Isn’t it sunny there?”
“It is. But by the grace of the universe, I don’t burn to ash in daylight.” Nate propped his chin on his hands and batted his eyes my way. “I glitter like a million diamonds.”
“You do not.” Brianne nudged him, and Natalie giggled. “Most of what you know about vampires is lore, Simone. As you can see, they are really quite domesticated.”
“How dare you imply I’m domesticated.” Nate made a play for Brianne’s neck, nuzzling in as if he might bite before planting a noisy kiss. She pushed him away, her cheeks flushing a deep red.
The way they adored each other was like a sharp knife to my heart. Someone had looked at me that way once. Someone had stroked my hair and spoken with so much tenderness it was like he held the whole of his emotions for me in his voice.
Someone had left me so flushed with desire it bloomed on my body.
It hadn’t been Jeff. My thoughts escaped to that summer after high school, and the man who’d disappeared into the night, taking my heart with him.
I was happy for Brianne. She deserved a home and family full of love and respect. The playfulness they all had spoke of a deeper affection. As they ate and we chatted, their familial bond showed. They were a team. A well-oiled machine with few squeaky wheels. A perfect blend of magic and mundane.
I’d never seen anything like it. As I poked at dessert, I realized this was the reason Brianne invited me to dinner. So that I could see that the supernatural aspect of them was another aspect of their personalities.
This could have been any house with any family. This one just happened to have a vampire living there. And the sooner I embraced that, the better able I’d be to help them.
Which would mean embracing my own supernatural abilities as well, a feat I couldn’t imagine overcoming without facing up to the past I was so desperate to avoid.