19. Nineteen
Nineteen
T he happy buzz in Ryker’s limbs had mostly worn off by the time he pulled into his townhouse garage. Skipping his sleep last night was only half the cause. Stress was tiring even for vampires, and thinking Frederick Angstrom was about to get away with defrauding dozens of Virginia families out of their insurance premiums had been weighing on him. Dad would have told him he could only do his best, and the rest wasn’t his responsibility. It was true, but it didn’t feel true when Ryker was on the hunt for proof of wrongdoing.
He’d finished this one, though. Done his part to get justice and stop the criminals. He hoped Angstrom would have to pay retribution and serve a solid term behind bars. He looked forward to his chance at testifying on behalf of the victims.
For tonight though, bed sounded great. Six hours of sleep, then a few hours at the gym with Tai and Leslie…
Wait a minute.
Ryker’s nostrils flared. He had vampire neighbors on one side, human neighbors on the other, but he wasn’t smelling his neighbors. There was another vampire close by. Within a few hundred feet. Sitting on his porch stoop.
Ryker left the garage, stood halfway down his driveway facing the side of the house. “Well? Come at me if that’s what you’re here for.”
She sauntered around the corner into his line of vision, dressed in flowing, wide-legged black pants and a yellow top. Her heels were the same color as Dorothy’s from The Wizard of Oz and equally sparkly. Her hair was even longer than the last time he’d seen her, a snow-white braid that ended past her waist. Why was her hair white?
“Jacqueline,” he said, and her name didn’t come out in the calm reprimand he’d been aiming for. He had to keep from sounding bothered. She’d feed on that.
“Hello, lover.”
“You need to leave.”
Her mouth pursed. She came closer, all but gliding, and her eyes flashed pale red as they caught the streetlights. “I’m in town for the weekend.”
Don’t ask why. Never ask why. Why was a hook with a barb that he’d swallowed too often, only to have his insides torn out and stomped on. He didn’t allow himself to step back, not even when she ran her hand down his chest.
“I figured it was about time to remind you what we had together. What we can still have.”
“Not interested,” he said.
“I’ve worked on myself, you know. I have some regrets about us.”
“Some regrets?” He couldn’t help laughing. “Is that like ‘mistakes were made’?”
Jacqueline ought to bare her teeth at being laughed at, but instead her eyes welled up. “I needed to feel like you cared, like I meant more to you than anything else in the world, including that job you love so much.”
The old accusations still clawed at him, but his scars were finally growing calluses. “You did mean more to me. But nothing I did was enough to prove that to you.”
“Because I was insecure, Ryker. But that’s in our past, and now we can focus on our future.”
“Is cheating also in your past? How about lying?”
Something burned behind her tears, behind the mask of sincerity she held onto. “You’ve forgotten us. The power couple we were, the potential of us. You’re throwing it all away.”
“No. You did that, single-handedly, and there’s nothing else to say to each other.” But some instinct was tugging at his thoughts. Why was Jacqueline here now ? Why…?
“I’m not giving up on us, Ryker.”
He kept staring at her, his tired mind fighting to make the puzzle pieces fit…and then he got it. “Why is your hair white?”
Jacqueline tugged her braid over her shoulder and brushed her fingers over the woven locks. “It’s silver.”
Yep. Called it. He bared his teeth faster than he could think better of it.
Instantly dry-eyed, Jacqueline bared hers right back. “That’s right. Obviously silver hair turns you on. I don’t love it, but I’ll tolerate it long enough to show you which silver-haired woman in your life is clearly superior.”
“You’re not in my life, Jacqueline.” But his mind raced. How did she know? How…?
And curse it all, she could still read him. She laughed, a hollow sound lacking all warmth. He wondered how he hadn’t noticed the wrongness of her laugh on their first date.
“Should I let you work on the puzzle? Or should I be nice and tell you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Or he hoped he didn’t.
“I’m talking about your little country vampire who makes toys for a living.”
She could poke at him all day and all night, but she would never be allowed to talk about Leslie with derision. Not in his presence. His heart gave an angry extra beat, so hard Jacqueline heard it. Her dark eyebrows shot up toward her ridiculous hair.
“Get off my property, Jacqueline.”
“You don’t even remember, do you?”
“Right now. I mean it.”
“You told me about her, your one true match from a stupid test in college. Leslie Snow.”
A cold drip of dread traveled his spine. He had to know what she meant, how far she was willing to go. But if he asked pointblank, she wouldn’t tell him.
His silence goaded her on. “And there it is, this week on her little social page—aw, a cutesy little post that she’s traveling this weekend. Going to see her boyfriend . And the day after that—a picture of her arrival at a very recognizable airport.”
“So you’ve been following her online for years.”
Jacqueline rolled her eyes. “Of course I have. I found her online the day you told me about her.”
Maybe he should have expected this, but after two years with zero contact…assuming she had moved on was only natural, wasn’t it? “You wasted your time. Knowing who I’m dating isn’t going to win you anything. Now go.”
“You’re not going to be with her, Ryker.”
“That’s not up to you.”
She darted in close and hissed up at him, directly in his face. “I’ll take that little girl apart.”
“You’ll stay away from her.”
“You don’t even know the things I could tell her about you. Things no woman should ever put up with, that I put up with for almost a year.”
She was goading him. It was obvious. It wasn’t even a convincing attack. Yet deep in his chest, one of the calloused scars tore and bled a little. His heart throbbed with an extra beat that hurt.
Her eyes threw pink sparks. She’d heard that heartbeat too. “Find a reason to break it off now, before I have to tell her your secrets. And if you think she won’t believe me…” Her teeth flashed in the night. “She will.”
“Stay away from her, Jacqueline.”
With a slow smirk, she said, “That’s not up to you.”
Then she was gone. Darted off into the darkness, down the street, her scent out of range within seconds.
Ryker stood staring after her for too long. He tried to think, but Jacqueline’s presence had frozen his brain. He went inside to the den, his favorite room in the house. He sank down on the couch and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Stared down at its dark face. He was fine, right? Long over her. So why did he feel the need to talk to someone right now?
Of course he would tell Leslie about Jacqueline. He didn’t expect her to take it badly. He simply didn’t want to talk about Jacqueline to anyone, for any reason, ever again. For her to show up now, on the first weekend Leslie had come to visit him… It felt like a mean coincidence from the universe, but of course this was Jacqueline, not the universe.
Well, he didn’t have to let her win. He would tell Leslie the whole story later, when she was back in Tennessee. He would preserve his time with her this weekend and keep Jacqueline out of it.
He got up and got ready for bed. In a few minutes he was nestled snugly under his covers, eyes closed. He tried to quiet himself. He focused on the beats of his heart, which were down to a regular thirty beats per minute.
Minutes ticked by.
His eyes shot open. He hissed at the monochrome of night. He hissed at himself for being awake.
An hour after cocooning beneath his comforter, Ryker shot up and landed on his feet beside the bed. He would never sleep at this rate. He’d arrive at the gym tomorrow worn out and lose every match to Tai.
Should he call Tai?
No. He didn’t need to talk about this. He didn’t want to talk about this.
Across the house, his phone buzzed with an incoming text. He darted to it in two seconds and scooped it up.
Claire: Hey, I know this is going to sound a little weird coming out of nowhere, but are you okay?
Ryker tapped out a reply and sent it before he could talk himself out of it.
I’m fine, but I think I need to talk through something. Can I call you?
Within a few seconds, his phone buzzed in his hand. He accepted the call and set the phone back on the coffee table.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re not fine,” Claire said.
He paced back and forth in front of the coffee table. “No, I am, but I… When I got home from dropping Leslie at my parents’ house, Jacqueline was on my front porch waiting for me.”
Claire’s hiss came with force.
“I know,” he said.
“Does she know about Leslie?”
“Yeah, and she knows she’s here in town. Apparently I told Jacqueline years ago about the true match test in college, and she’s been following Leslie on social media ever since. We’re talking for a few years, Claire.”
“You sound surprised by this.”
“Of course I’m… You’re not?”
“The woman is toxic and possessive.”
“Oh.” His chest hurt. He let out a breath that shook, that sounded disturbingly human. “Am I stupid or naive?”
“Neither, Ry. She’s good at her game.”
He nodded. He couldn’t seem to get any more words out. Was he actually messed up? Did he need to talk about it? Shouldn’t he be tougher than this?
“Ryker?”
“I…” He sank onto the couch, covered his face, and bent forward. Claire waited until he could say more. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m not in love with her anymore. I didn’t even want her standing on my lawn. I… It’s like all I see in her eyes now is the coldness. So I shouldn’t be freaking out like this. I should be fine.”
“Or—and hear me out on this—you’re not emotionally bulletproof like you try to be. You have soft spots just like everybody else.”
“I love Leslie,” he blurted. “I love her, Claire.”
“I thought so.”
“So this shouldn’t still…still…”
“Hurt,” Claire said. “That’s the word you want. It still hurts.”
“Yeah,” he whispered.
“Are you going to tell Leslie she’s here?”
“I want our weekend together first. I’ll tell her after.”
“Is that worth the risk Jacqueline will show up somewhere and introduce herself?”
He could see her doing exactly that, if she figured out ahead of time where they planned to be. Maybe he ought to talk to Leslie, but everything in him cringed away from the idea. At last he said, “I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Claire said. “Go try to sleep and decide tomorrow.”
“Yeah. I could try that.”
“Anything else you need to say first?”
“You’re a good friend,” he said.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
He needed the laugh that filled his chest and began to ease the tension across his shoulders. “Why did you text me? You didn’t know she’d been here.”
“Just a feeling,” she said. “And I always trust my gut.”
Ryker had been trusting Claire’s gut instincts for years, but she’d never seemed to read his mind before. “That’s all? You’re not plugged into surveillance on my place or anything.”
“If you’re spinning random theories in your head, it really is time for bed.”
“Yeah, okay. Thanks, friend.”
“My pleasure, friend. Good night.”
He hung up and leaned back against the couch, eyes closed. Then he sprang to his feet before he could fall asleep that way and regret it later. He’d deal with Jacqueline tomorrow. He’d tell Leslie when the time was right. He’d make it all work out. Tomorrow.