14
After crutching myself inside the house through the sliding glass doors at the back patio, I heaved the door shut with some difficulty, having to balance on one leg and one crutch to do it without the weight of the door making me fall backward. Once done with that task, I stood trying to catch my breath, a little winded just from the exertion of crutching myself all the way back up to the house from the pond. My heart was still beating rapidly and loudly from Jake’s text, too.
It wasn’t, however, beating so loudly in my ears that I couldn’t hear some distant noise in the house. This struck me as strange, because with Jen, David, and Wanted down at the pond, no one else was supposed to be home. My dad was out leading patrol, of course, and my mom was at her childcare center in Sweetwater with Mason and Alex. Mark was also in Sweetwater, at his law office, along with Carol, who’d started coming in to help the office’s secretarial team sometimes. As far as Mel and Matt, they’d completely finished moving out of the house with their kids days earlier. That only left Sam, Maria, and Trevor, but as far as I knew, they were all out on patrol with my dad and the others.
Adding to the strangeness of hearing someone in the house when it should have been empty, I could tell that the noises I was hearing were coming from the level of the house that I’d entered, which was odd, since the house was a three-story split-level, and I’d entered through the back of the partially-sunken ground level. Even when the house was packed, this floor was usually deserted, containing only my dad’s office; a billiards room; a few storage rooms; a bathroom; and some spare bedrooms.
Mystified, I strained my ears, continuing to listen, and soon heard more distant noise in the perfectly still house. There was a noise that sounded maybe like a man clearing his throat, although I couldn’t really be sure, followed by some sort of a dull bang, like maybe a cupboard or a drawer being closed. The latter sound was repeated a few seconds later.
Thinking that one of the men in the family had to have come home for something, I ventured further into the ground floor of the house, with the rubber tips of my crutches soundless against the hardwood flooring. Soon, I heard another sound like maybe a drawer being shut, and I could tell that it had come from my dad’s office.
Coming up the hallway, I breathed out a sigh of relief that I hadn’t been aware I was holding, then called out to my dad, asking what he was doing. “You kind of freaked me out for just a second.”
Maybe I hadn’t been exactly “freaked out,” although “mystified” somehow seemed like it’d be a funny thing to say that I’d been, even though it was true.
I continued crutching myself down the hallway, surprised to not hear my dad respond, especially since vampires possessed hearing a bit sharper than that of regular humans. However, knowing that he had a lot on his mind as of late, and figuring that he might just be too immersed in something to respond right away, I tried again.
“Dad? Did you hear me?”
I paused, awaiting a response, but all noises coming from my dad’s office had gone silent. Now suddenly truly “freaked out,” I just stood stock-still for a few moments before managing one more word, which I uttered in a quiet, shaky sort of voice.
“Dad?”
The voice that finally responded didn’t belong to my dad; however, it was familiar.
“It’s not your dad, Chrissy. It’s me.” Maybe seven or eight feet further up the hallway, Paul emerged from my dad’s office, holding two sheathed, dagger-type knives. “Your dad sent me here to the house on an errand to get weapons capable of killing Warrens. Some of the other newcomers came here to the farm with nothing but flimsy pocketknives; and today, your dad decided that everyone needs to be well-armed and ready to kill enemies, whether they’ve done it or not before.”
Still feeling a little winded, and with my heart still beating rapidly, I stood just trying to catch my breath for a long moment. “Oh.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you, if I did.”
“Oh…no, you didn’t.” Seeing a little dubiousness in Paul’s eyes, I cracked a small smile. “Well, you did maybe a little.”
Paul cracked a small smile in return. “Sorry.”
He really was gorgeous. I’d already known that, of course, but now, while I surveyed him in the golden sunlight filling the hallway, this fact was really sinking in. In fact, I now had to wonder if Paul was even more attractive than Jake. I really couldn’t make up my mind about that. All I knew was that currently, just the mere act of looking at Paul from a few feet away was making me have to fight a huge grin.
Knowing that if I just looked at him a moment longer, my grin was going to come out, I told him not to worry about having scared me a little. “I know you didn’t mean to, so….” Not knowing how to finish the thought, I suddenly cleared my throat. “Anyway…is there anything I can help you find in my dad’s office?”
Paul said he knew what he was looking for. “I am having a little trouble opening one of your dad’s locked drawers where he keeps some of his knives, though. He gave me descriptions of all the knives he wants, plus three different keys; and two of the keys work fine, but one just doesn’t seem to want to work.”
Crutching my way down to Paul, I said I could guess exactly which one it was. “The key to the bottom drawer, right?”
He said yes, and I nodded.
“Yup…one time, I was in his office when my dad was complaining about that one ‘sticky’ lock. He said he has to keep spraying it with WD-40, and I know exactly where he keeps it. I’ll show you.”
We both went into my dad’s office, and I made my way over to a storage closet, where my dad kept boxes of old files related to the farm and creamery finances, and annual profit-sharing payments to community members. The closet also contained a tall stack of boxes containing files related to “Watcher payments” sent to different community members from “Watcher headquarters,” a place I knew next-to-nothing about. All the files were old, anyway, with most of them having belonged to my dad’s dad; since taking over leadership of the farm, my dad had done everything on computer.
After opening the storage closet door, I used the end of one of my crutches to point up at a blue can of WD-40 on a tall shelf. “Right there. I think my dad just sprays a little of it into the keyhole in the bottom drawer, and then the key turns in the lock just fine.”
Saying thanks, Paul grabbed the can, brought it over to my dad’s desk, and soon the bottom drawer was open. Once he’d selected all the knives he needed from it, he locked everything back up and put all the knives in a leather satchel-type thing my dad had told him to get. We then just stood silently, and I realized that he was probably going to leave soon, and that I didn’t want him to. Not just yet, anyway. I was just simply enjoying being in his presence too much, if enjoying was even the right word. I was definitely enjoying the mere sight of Paul, at any rate. In fact, dressed in work boots, battered jeans, and a plain, fitted white t-shirt that displayed his physique to its best advantage, and with his beautiful gray eyes sparkling in sunlight from the windows, Paul almost seemed to be compelling me to look at him.
Wanting to prevent him from saying that he had to go, I suddenly asked if he could help me get upstairs so that I could make myself some lunch. “It’s just really hard for me to manage the stairs on my crutches. I mean, I can do it, but…it might just be helpful to have you nearby in case I stumble or something.”
Feeling a little shameless, I willed the guilt of a little white lie not to show on my face, because the truth was that I’d actually gotten quite good at going up the half-dozen stairs to the upper-level ground floor with my crutches, first throwing one of them up to the landing, and then going up to it with the other under my arm and one hand on the bannister. Not to mention that I could already put some weight on my sprained ankle, which was healing quickly. I really didn’t need any help.
If Paul could tell that I was fudging the truth a bit, he didn’t show it, and instead said that he’d be glad to help me up the stairs. “I can even just carry you up if you want. That way, there’ll be no chance of you stumbling and falling.”
I had the funny feeling that Paul and I were both kind of “using,” in a way, my being on crutches, me to keep him from leaving, and him to get the chance to carry me. However, I found that I didn’t mind this at all. In fact, something just told me that I was going to really enjoy being carried by a devastatingly handsome vampire for the second time in a week.
With butterflies fluttering in my stomach, I told Paul that I’d take him up on his offer. “Just so that I don’t fall down the stairs and break my neck or something.”
He gave me the sort of smile that made me think that he didn’t buy my reasoning one bit. “Of course.”
Soon I was in his strong arms, being carried up the half-dozen stairs to the upper-level ground floor. Knowing that my time of being carried was probably going to be far too short, I wished that we had numerous flights of stairs to climb.
Earlier, outside, I’d been reading a paperback book, which I’d tucked inside one of the pockets of my jean shorts before heading up to the house. Now, on the third or fourth step, the book fell from my pocket and tumbled down to the bottom landing. I glanced at it over Paul’s shoulder, and he glanced at it over his shoulder, too. When he returned his focus forward, I winced.
“Yes, that book just fell from my pocket. But please don’t call me a bookworm.”
Paul cracked a smile. “I won’t. I’ve learned better.”
I smiled in return. “Good.”
For a long moment, we just looked into each other’s eyes, smiling, and I had the funny feeling that we might soon kiss. However, I didn’t make any move to lift my face to his, and he didn’t make any move to lower his mouth to mine. To my surprise, although not really, I realized that I wouldn’t have minded at all if he had, despite the fact that I hadn’t forgotten that I had the possible beginnings of a relationship going on with Jake.
Instead of kissing me, Paul just spoke with a lower-than-usual sort of voice, with the smile on his face having become replaced by a look of seriousness. “I’m really sorry for calling you a bookworm the first day I came here to the farm. To be completely honest, I felt a little out of my element, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, as far as how your dad and all the other vampires would perceive me, and, anyway….” Taking a deep breath, Paul paused before letting it out slowly. “All that probably made what I said come out in a more antagonistic way than I meant it.”
“But then, you doubled down and called me a ‘messy, ice-cream covered little bookworm.”
Seeming to be fighting a smile, Paul said he couldn’t deny that. “But you have to admit, Chrissy, you were covered with ice cream. The front of your apron looked like people had been lobbing scoops like baseballs at you all day. It looked like part of your hair was even matted with it.”
Now fighting a smile myself, I found that I was liking Paul more and more. “Look. Working in the creamery can get a bit hectic. Sometimes milkshake mixers overflow and spray everywhere. Sometimes a person leans over a counter and picks up ten different flavors of melted ice cream on their apron. These things are just hazards of the job. So, if I looked like a complete wreck with my—”
“I never said you looked like a ‘wreck.’ In fact, when I first set eyes on you, I thought you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in my life. The way your hair was falling over your shoulder, and the little spark you had in your eyes….”
Swallowing, Paul didn’t seem like he was going to finish the thought, and I suddenly decided to speak a few words that had just popped into my brain.
“Please just kiss me.”
*
Seeming all too eager to comply with my request, Paul lowered his face, bringing his mouth to mine. Within an instant, I was in heaven, reveling in the feel of his firm yet gentle lips, knowing that my request hadn’t been a mistake. What was happening simply felt right to me, no matter what was going on between me and Jake. After all, he didn’t own me, I thought to myself, not to mention that we weren’t even officially dating. We just had a “thing,” maybe just some sort of a “pre-relationship thing,” and we’d only kissed once. So, just enjoy this with Paul, Chrissy, I told myself, giving myself permission to forget that Jake even existed for the time being.
Paul and I had only been kissing for a brief little while when neither of us could forget that cell phones existed. This was because Paul’s began going off loudly, interrupting our reverie.
After a few moments, he broke our kiss with a faint groan. “Sorry. This is probably your dad, wondering where I am. I’ll take you upstairs and then check.”
The whole time we’d been talking and kissing, Paul had remained on the fourth stair step, where my book had fallen from my pocket. He now continued up the two remaining stairs and then set me down on the landing before pulling his phone from his pocket. “Yup, it’s your dad.”
He tapped the button to answer, but just a split-second before, the phone had gone silent, and no one responded when Paul said hello.
Sighing, he began jogging down the stairs. “I’ll get your book and your crutches.”
While he jogged back up, I had an idea and told him I’d text my dad. “I’ll tell him you’ve been helping me so that he won’t be mad that you’re late.”
Paul said I didn’t have to do that, but I insisted, and a minute later, I’d sent my dad a text, saying that Paul was going to help me get my lunch around in the kitchen, too, if that was all right. It’s just too hard for me to do it all myself with my crutches, Dad.
Somewhat to my surprise, I had a single, one-word response within a few seconds. Okay.
Thinking that what Sean had said about my dad liking Paul had to be true, I told Paul what my text had said and what my dad had responded. “Maybe first, though, I should have asked you if you’d mind helping me make my lunch.”
Giving me a half-grin that was almost devastating in its sexiness, Paul said that he’d love to help me make lunch.
A short while later, once we’d made our way down to the kitchen, we tried to do just that. However, I found the fridge nearly bare, pretty much containing just condiments and pickles. Telling Paul that I supposed I’d just have to settle for a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich instead of the turkey-and-Swiss that I’d wanted, I got a jar of peanut butter out of the pantry, but it felt awfully light. Looking inside, I saw that someone had put it back in the pantry just about empty. There was maybe enough to cover a hundredth of a sandwich.
“Well….” After tossing the jar in the trash, I crutched my way over to the pantry again and began looking around. “There’s cream of mushroom soup, which I hate, and boxed macaroni and cheese, but we don’t have any milk or butter to make it with. Then, we have some taco shells, but no meat, cheese, or lettuce to go in them. Really, I guess we’re just kind of out of everything. Jen usually buys groceries once or twice a week, but I guess she’s been too busy with the pond lately to make a trip to the store. I’d make one myself, but for one thing, it’s just annoying to get in and out of the car with crutches, and for another thing, I don’t know how I’d push the shopping cart.” With my stomach growling, I turned from the pantry to Paul. “I guess maybe I’ll just have a handful of the ducks’ organic croutons.”
A clear glass cookie jar sitting on the island was filled to the brim with them.
Paul said he had a better idea. “Maybe I can just swing you into Sweetwater real quick to grab some lunch to take back here. We’d only be gone twenty-five minutes, a half-hour, tops, and maybe your dad can spare me for that long. I just don’t want you to have to go hungry until Jen or someone can get to the store.”
Touched by his concern, and liking his idea a lot, I said I had an even better one. “I’ll just call my dad and explain the whole food situation, and ask him if we can go into Sweetwater for lunch and grocery shopping both. That way, we won’t have to rush, and also, then my mom won’t have to go grocery shopping after work with the twins in tow. They always make a shopping trip about three times longer than it has to be, which is why Jen usually just does it.”
Soon I had my dad on the phone, and after I’d told him my idea, there was a long pause.
However, he then said that sounded fine. “You can take some emergency cash from the envelope in the ‘junk’ drawer next to the silverware drawer.”
Standing just feet away from Paul, I resisted the urge to mouth a silent, triumphant yes. “Okay. Thanks, Dad.”
He said I was very welcome. “Just have Paul bring me those knives, please, before the two of you leave. And, also, Chrissy, please don’t spend all day in Sweetwater. Lunch and shopping should only take a couple of hours, and I’d like Paul back on patrol at least by late afternoon.”
Thrilled by my dad’s vagueness, because now Paul and I could really take our time in Sweetwater, maybe even doing some date-type activity on top of lunch and shopping, I again resisted the urge to mouth a silent, triumphant yes. “Okay, Dad. No problem. I’ll make sure we’re back in plenty of time for Paul to rejoin patrol by late afternoon.”
We soon ended the call, and after pocketing my phone, I looked at Paul with a smile. “Just bring my dad those knives, and we’ll be all ready to go.”
With his beautiful gray eyes twinkling, he smiled in return. “Just let me do that and grab my truck, and I’ll pick you up in five minutes.”
On the way to Sweetwater in Paul’s old, battered, yet clean black truck, I took the opportunity to find out a little more about him, asking him how long he’d been a vampire.
He responded by saying just a year. “Although sometimes it feels like longer.”
I asked him how come that was, and he hesitated before answering.
“Oh…I guess I’ve just felt like I’ve had the weight of the world on my shoulders, in some ways.”
“Just with kind of sorting out all the ethics and stuff that come along with being a vampire, you mean?”
With his gaze on the road ahead, Paul again hesitated in responding. “Yes. I’ve already experienced enough ethical dilemmas to last me a lifetime…and I guess you could say that a few of them are still ongoing.”
“Well, being that you’re still such a new vampire, I’m sure you’ll probably be sorting things out in your mind for years to come. From what I’ve heard, and I’ve heard a lot about vampires being that I was born into a family of them, that’s pretty normal. Don’t worry, though. No matter what ethical dilemmas you’re still dealing with, just know that by coming here to the farm and joining us Watchers, you’ve definitely made a moral choice. Not to sound superior, because we really don’t intend to, but since all Watcher vampires drink from animals, and since we fight vampires who hurt humans, we always think of ourselves as the ‘good guys,’ and I truly believe that we are.”
For the first time since we’d been talking about vampires, Paul glanced over at me, smiling a little. “I like the sound of that. I’ve wanted to be a ‘good guy’ my entire life.”
I gave him a little smile in return. “Well, to me, you already seem like a ‘good guy.’”
Glancing over at me again, Paul gave me an even bigger smile. “Even though I committed the cardinal sin of calling you a bookworm?”
I laughed. “Yes. I’ve decided to let that go.”
We both fell silent briefly until I spoke again, asking Paul how he’d come to be a vampire in the first place. “Were you turned during some sort of an attack, like David and Sean, or do you come from a family of vampires?”
Inexplicably, I thought I saw Paul’s hands tighten on the steering wheel in response to what I’d said, although I couldn’t be sure. At any rate, his voice held a clear note of tension when he spoke, and that was unmistakable.
“I come from a family of vampires…in southern Indiana…but we’re not very close. And I think we’re becoming even more distant with each passing day.”
Sensing that Paul was holding a lot of deep pain about the way things were, but not sure that he wanted to talk about it, I asked him kind of a “testing” sort of question, just to see.
“So, does it make you glad that you’re becoming more distant from your family, or do you wish that things could be fixed?”
Surprising me, Paul’s initial response was a short, sharp laugh. “Things can’t be fixed. Unfortunately. My family is far too set in their ways. So, I’ve come to realize that I can only fix myself. I can only make choices that I feel are right.”
I said that I understood, even though I only kind of did, and Paul abruptly changed the subject, asking me where I wanted to go for lunch.
“My treat.”
I thanked him, then asked if he’d mind if we picked up a boxed lunch from my favorite sandwich shop, and then took it to a certain park with a pond. “It’s a pretty place, and I always like to feed the ducks my scraps.”
Wearing a near-comical mask of surprise, Paul glanced over at me. “And you’re not yet sick of being surrounded by ducks just from being at your own home?”
The thought hadn’t even occurred to me, and I laughed.
“I guess not. Maybe Jen’s love of ducks is starting to rub off on me.”
About twenty minutes later, I enjoyed my lunch while sitting across from Paul at a picnic table in the little pond park. Across the street, children shrieked and laughed while playing on a massive jungle gym in the sun.
Once I had only a few scraps of bread left from my lunch, Paul and I went down to the pond and fed a few lucky ducks. On the way back to his truck, while we walked side-by-side, with me using only one crutch, our hands briefly touched, and next thing I knew, we were holding hands. It felt almost as good to me as kissing Paul had, and I was sorry when I had to let go of his hand when I got in the truck. However, once he’d backed out of our parking spot, he took my hand once again and began driving one-handed, caressing the back of my hand with his thumb every so often. I couldn’t deny that Jake was quickly beginning to fade off my radar.
When Paul asked me where to next, I asked him if vampires were too strong and tough for paddle boating.
He glanced over at me with the corners of his full lips twitching. “Not this one. I’d love to go paddle boating with you.”
Doing this activity was how we spent most of the afternoon, after having rented a paddleboat for two hours at the lakeside campground where Bucky and Phyllis stayed in the summers. However, partly because I couldn’t really work the pedals very well with my bum ankle, we didn’t really spend the bulk of our time actively paddle boating as much as we did just simply floating. Being that it was a weekday and not very hot, the lake was nearly empty, and hand-in-hand, Paul and I just floated all around the shallows, talking, laughing, and even doing a little kissing a time or two.
By the time we returned our boat to the rental stand, I couldn’t believe that I’d ever become so angry at Paul just for calling me a bookworm. I also couldn’t believe that just a few hours earlier, my thoughts had been almost exclusively focused on Jake. Now being so near to Paul, I was really beginning to forget why, specifically, I’d been crushing on Jake so hard. I remembered that he was kind and very attractive, but despite this, I couldn’t really muster the same feeling I’d had toward him, or even really recall it with much clarity. Not while holding Paul’s hand or kissing him, anyway.
We became even closer just while grocery shopping, stopping numerous times just to ask each other questions, or talk about something, before continuing on down the aisles. By the time we reached the checkout lanes, I realized that I’d fallen hard for Paul. And maybe I even had earlier in the day, when we’d kissed on the stairs.
Once back at home on the farm, he carried all the groceries inside for me, then helped me put things away. By this point, it was nearly five, and after glancing at a big wall clock adjacent to the stove, he said he should probably get going.
“I don’t want to push my luck with your dad.”
Reluctantly, I agreed that he probably shouldn’t, and he soon left after giving me a long, tender kiss that turned my insides to jelly.
Still in something of a daze from our kiss, I was eating a bowl of melon a short while later, sitting up to the island, when a knock sounded on the front door. Thinking that maybe Paul had forgotten something, I crutched my way out to the foyer. However, when I opened the door, it wasn’t Paul standing on the porch but Jake. And, looking into his vivid blue eyes, I suddenly remembered why I’d been crushing on him so hard.