~
“That guy seemed nice,” Jenny announced as if she’d been thinking about it long and hard during their mutual lovefest of all things cake.
“What guy…?” Bonnie had been more than distracted. When she turned towards Jenny and got a knowing look and a pointed finger towards the ceiling, she snapped back into the present. “Oh, the roof guy. He seemed nice to you?”
“Well, he’s a lot better than your last psycho neighbour, let’s put it that way…”
“Don’t remind me,” Bonnie said on a quick shake of her head.
She didn’t want to think about the past, she just wanted to leave it behind her in the city, where it belonged.
She had a new life now. This was a new start, and she was damn certain that she was going to embrace it … she just wasn’t so keen on embracing any of her neighbours.
“He’s a shifter, you know?” Jenny said and Bonnie frowned.
“I know…” she didn’t get the point.
“They’re like … hot stuff, and woman are drawn to them like magnets.”
“Well, not me…” Bonnie assured her.
“Live a little…” Jenny urged.
“I’ve … lived enough lately. I just want me some peace, and some quiet, and a little down time…”
“You want to feel safe,” Jenny shot back. “Well, how safe will you feel with that guy in your bed?”
“That’s not an image I want inside my mind…” Bonnie looked at her as if Jenny had just stolen the last cake from the box and wolfed it down.
“Sure?” Jenny’s eyebrows reached up for her hairline and her lips bowed upwards in a wicked smile, “because that image is smokin’ hot, and so is he…”
“I don’t need to stand that close to the flame. Besides, if he’s that hot then he’d probably burn down my house or something, because that’s the way my life’s been going.”
“Cabin, not house, and what’s wrong with a little fire between the sheets…?”
“Can we talk about something else?” Bonnie groaned inwardly.
“No,” Jenny gave a playful shrug off her shoulders, and Bonnie gave her a sigh in return.
“You need to let this drop.”
“Really? Why? It sounds like the perfect way for you to face up to life again and come out of hiding beneath the bed…”
“I’m not hiding beneath the bed…”
“Ok, but you are hiding out here…” Jenny motioned around them at the scattered boxes and ragtag furniture.
“There’s nothing wrong with here. I told you – I always wanted to live in the…”
“Middle of nowhere…”
“Countryside.” Bonnie scowled at her friend’s negativity.
She’d had that exact same attitude since the moment that they’d rolled out of the city, only the further away from urban life that they got, the more she put a downer on it.
“But, I’m going to miss you…” Jenny whined…
“So that’s it,” Bonnie gave her a knowing smile. “It’s not about my living all the way out here…”
“Nope, it’s about that too…” Jenny shrugged again. “Unless you’re going to take up with that big shifter guy…”
“Yeah, I don’t see that in my future.” Bonnie assured her. “He growled at me…”
“In what context?”
“Excuse me?”
“Was it a growl like he wanted to eat you, or a growl like he wanted to … devour you like you just devoured those cakes?” Jenny wiggled her eyebrows and offered her the best kind of wicked smile that backlit her eyes with mischief.
“I think the first one, he was berating me at the time…” Bonnie said.
“He’s got a really sexy friend, did I tell you that?” Jenny’s grin was all wicked and no teasing then as Bonnie reached for her mug of coffee. “I met them in town.”
“Another shifter?” Bonnie asked before she sipped at her drink…
“Vampire.”
Bonnie almost choked. She swallowed hard and screwed up her face as she tried not to spout the coffee down her nose, but with enough willpower and determination; she managed to get it down.
“Vampire?” Bonnie said; tipping her head as if she hadn’t hear her friend right, and Jenny gave a slow nod of her head. “That’s … different…” Bonnie didn’t know what to say. “I don’t think I’ll be going out to stargaze anytime soon.”
Jenny giggled, and the giggle turned into a chuckle, and as Bonnie joined in, that chuckle turned into a full blown laugh; as the pair of them cackled together.
~
~
~
Karl grunted in amusement. He’d heard the conversation that had been going on inside the cabin, and if he’d heard it then he knew that the vampire had heard it loud and clear…
“What?” Bailey frowned as he gave the shifter a sideways glance.
“She likes you even less than she likes me…” Karl grinned at the thought.
“Ah, yes, but she’s not my mate,” Bailey offered back with a smirk, and that smile dropped from the shifter’s lips like a stone.
“Not the damn point,” Karl growled, just enough to let the vampire know not to keep going, but Bailey never seemed to manage to take the hint.
“So is the point…” the vampire laughed with the kind of smirk that made Karl want to land his fist right in the middle of the man’s face…
“I’m warning you, Vampire…” Karl growled.
Karl’s large hands clenched into fists at his sides as his bear rallied at the scenario that the vampire had painted so vividly for them. He felt the first rush to real anger inside of him, and he tried to hold back the beast that rallied just beneath his skin – he was sure that he could feel the prickle of the animal’s fur trying to break free. And that would be bad…
“Oh, now it’s Vampire,” Bailey said with a snort of a chuckle at the man’s expense. “Don’t shoot the messenger for your mate’s lack of interest in being wooed by you.”
A heartbeat later and Karl’s fist came out sideways from his body and it crashed into Bailey’s jaw, blindsiding him, and knocking him sideways over the top of a bush…
“Ouch…” Bailey ground out from the other side of the foliage.
“I didn’t shoot you…” Karl growled, keeping his eyes on the cabin, and allowing a smile of sheer satisfaction to grace his face…
Then the door to the cabin was wrenched open and the big shifter threw himself down into the dirt…
“Who’s out there?” Jenny’s voice was demanding, and Karl bit down on the whisper of a string of curses…
“We are!” Bailey jumped up to his feet on the other side of the bush and dusted himself down…
“Get down…” Karl growled.
“Get up!” Bailey shot back.
“Who’s we?” Jenny demanded.
“I’m not here…” Karl whispered…
“It’s me, your friendly neighbourhood vampire, and the one rolling on the ground is the cowardly bear shifter…” He heard the deep, angry growl, and grinned at it.
“I’m going to kill you…” Karl growled out.
“For that you need to be on your feet…” Bailey offered back.
“What do you want?” Jenny called back.
Her eyes were looking in the direction that his voice was coming from, but all that she could see were the shadowy bushes as the moonlight refused to illuminate that part of the garden.
“Came to say hello…” He lied.
“Hi,” Jenny shot back, and he could hear the confusion and uncertainty in her voice.
He just hoped that she didn’t think he’d stopped by for a quick snack…
“And I found the bear already here…” he almost said lurking, but then he remembered what Jenny had said about the other female that lived there, and he changed his tune so as not to frighten her.
“What does he want?”
“I think he came to say hi too,” Bailey offered back. “Get the hell up, you moron…” he whispered down to the bear that was still lying face down on his belly…
“No!” He growled back.
“Then they are going to think you are weird, weird and lurky is not a good combination. Weird, lurky, and hiding like a nun at a vampire gathering is just wrong on so many levels…”
“A nun at a vampire gathering?” Karl growled.
“Don’t ask…” Bailey shot back. “Just get up.”
“It’s late. I’m not going to invite you in,” Jenny offered back and the bear snorted in amusement.
“That’s sounds familiar…” Bailey grinned. “I seem to have heard that line somewhere before, could it be because I have fangs and a taste for blood, I wonder?”
“That too,” Jenny offered back with a little song in her voice.
“Now that is species profiling,” he offered back.
“I never said I was perfect,” Jenny tossed back at him.
“And yet, you are,” he turned on the charm.
“Ooooh, you like her…” Karl said it like an accusation and Bailey grunted in annoyance.
“She looks … tasty.” He offered down to the shifter, just loud enough for the man to hear and not spook the female.
“No – no, it’s more than that,” Karl was like a dog with a bone.
“Very tasty, and she smells good,” Bailey shot back, wanting his friend to shut the hell up.
“She’s … your mate!” Karl roared, and the vampire’s eyes snapped towards the woman at the door just at the moment that she heard the bear shifter’s words.
Her head snapped forward on her neck as her wide eyes stared into the darkness of the night, and her lower jaw snapped downwards…