Page 27 of Santa's Wish
The tables had turned. I'd been the one to ask Irena about her day and to point out the little pinpoints of light she'd missed while she wallowed in her grief. Now, she asked me about the source of light in my life, and I clung to the opportunity to share like a life raft. The words poured out of me. I'd only known Boz for three weeks, and already, I could fill an hour talking about him to my old friend.
I'd just gotten through telling her about the disastrous ending to our first date when a server interrupted us.
"Reservation for twenty in a half-hour."
Irena nodded in acknowledgement, but her gaze never left mine.
"I'll let you take care of that," I said.
"Thank you," she whispered, "for coming back. I thought I had said or done something to push you away."
"I had nothing to offer you," I said. "You'd finallymoved on." I nodded to the head chef, who entered through the swinging door into the dining room, presumably to search for his absent wife.
She glanced over her shoulder at him and waved him over. "Fyodor, look who has joined us."
The big man took my hand before I'd fully risen from the table, a speedy feat for a human. He was that grateful, gripping my hand in both of his, telling me in Russian how happy they both were to see me again.
"She loves you, you know," he said. "Like a mother."
She was far too young to be my mother. She reminded me more of my little sister. I'd never consciously noticed their resemblance before, but I'd been drawn to Irena from the start.
I'd left my sister behind in America when my sire whisked me away to Europe. When I'd returned, she was long gone, dead of some disease or another.
I was still alive, a vampire who liberated himself from his sire bond and lived to tell about it, all thanks to a mix-up in Rome. Another vampire had died for my crime, freeing me to return to Boston.
Alone. I'd been alone a long time, but then I'd met my friends. Irena and Fyodor. Key and Greed.
Boz.
I gave Fyodor's hand a gentle squeeze and let him go. Then, I turned to Irena, kissing both her cheeks. "I'll see you next week."
"You'd better," she said. "It's the eve of Christmas Eve."
Time to prove I could be a better person, vampire, whatever.
The pizza was late.That was my excuse for not knocking down Boz's door the minute I returned and kissing him senseless.
I wanted to woo him with the best pie in Boston, first. They called it Chicago deep dish, but it smelled best from a little hole in the wall just down the street. Better than anything I'd scented in Italy, and miles above any of the rat food they served in the Big rotten Apple. I'd never been to the Windy City, but I assumed it was better than theirs, too.
Finally, the delivery guy showed up with the two pizzas and large order of breadsticks I'd ordered. He almost fell on the slippery sidewalk leading up to the building. I didn't know when it had started snowing, but it wasn't his fault he'd been a little late. Before I helped him back to his car, I tipped him an extra twenty for the weather and put sand down for traction.
I was racking up good deeds all over the place tonight. Surely, that meant I was about to score big with Boz. He seemed like the type to be impressed with charitable actions.
When I knocked, he answered the door right away. He didn't look or smell pleased. I'd never seen him so scared, not even when those vampires had jumped us on the street.
"Is everything all right?" I asked.
"No."
At least he didn't sugarcoat it, or worse, lie to me.
"The vampire from last week, the one who bled all over you?" He asked it like a question, as though I slit another vampire's carotid with my silver dagger so often, I might have forgotten.
"Yeah?"
"He works at Imperial Accounting. He's in our financial planning division, and my boss just put me in charge of their internal audit."
"That's good news, then," I said. The random attack had puzzled me. Boz was attractive, but there were easier human targets, those without vampire companions, on the street that night. This gave the attackers a motive.
