Chapter 22

Jameson sat in The Bear Claw, swirling his glass of beer in his hands, drawing designs in the condensation. It was almost 8:00. Cora was on a date with Bryce. She hadn’t come in to the BBOC. She hadn’t called. Did she even have his phone number? He’d gotten Carick his own smartphone, and a computer, so he had his phone back. Maybe she had Bryce’s number. Jameson groaned and leaned back in the booth.

He couldn’t handle the thought of Bryce and Cora together. Cora was… intelligent. Mature, with the most wonderful sense of humor. She was dainty and feminine and bright. Guys like Bryce were well-meaning, but bulls in china shops when it came to women. Good looks, sweet personality, but no depth. They didn’t realize how hard women fell for them, and never imagined the pain they put one through when they moved on.

Besides, Cora should be with him.

Never gonna fucking happen. Carick had said as much, again, when he’d seen Jameson staring out the window after her as she gotten in her car the day before.

“Keepers are only twined with the cause, not bound by the coven. Your duty is to serve all switches, not only one, and not with your body. It has always been so. She is not for you.”

Right. He had his duty to keep him warm at night, to fold into his arms with a soft sigh just for him.

Cora’s laughter played through his mind and he snarled. Fuck, but he wanted her so badly. And she was attracted to him. Maybe she didn’t want him, but she would let him take her on a date. Maybe kiss her neck under the stars, tell her how enchanting she was. He knew enough about women to know she would.

Wait, was he actually hearing her laughter? Oh fuck, he was. She and Bryce were in the diner, in the adjoining room. Jameson froze, not sure what to do. In order to leave he’d have to go past them. Wait them out?

An unseen Bryce laughed good naturedly.“She didn’t have to be so hard on him. He liked her for real, he just didn’t realize it until after he’d gotten to know her.”

Coralie came right back, laughter also. “Like he was paid to do. Believe me, that’s always a deal breaker.”

Bryce teased her. Jameson could see the broad smile in his voice. “You’re not very romantic. I expected different from you.”

Cora teased him back. Jesus, they sounded like they were together already. “I tell you what, the next time that scenario happens to me, I’ll give the guy a break. Just for you.”

Jameson sipped his beer out of habit and considered the back exit.

But they must have been there for a while, already. Plastic scraped against wood. Bryce picked something off the table. “Let’s see, Cora, your part comes to… eleven-fifty. I’ll get the tip.”

That was interesting. Bryce wasn’t paying for dinner? Maybe they weren’t together.

Jameson kept quiet. They paid and went to leave. He could see them at the front door and his heart seized at Cora’s petite form and long hair. They never turned around to see him.

He finished his beer, thinking about nothing very much at all. Duty, maybe, a little.

After enough time that they had to be gone, Jameson paid his own bill and slipped outside into the hot dark of the parking lot. But the two of them were still out there, closer to the road than the diner. Had they been talking? Kissing? Shit. Bryce climbed into his Jeep, cranked the engine and gunned it out of there. Cora leaned against a sporty blue car and stared at the sky, her face unreadable. Jameson was stuck. He wanted to go back inside, but why hide from her? It wasn’t going to get better. In fact he was going to see worse than that if they really did this thing with the vampires.

Jameson froze and watched Cora instead. The parking lot was only dimly lit and they were out in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t seem to notice any of it, only the dark sky above. They stood that way for several minutes, her studying the stars, him studying her, and then she spoke. “This staring is not helping to convince me you aren’t a serial killer who plays the long game, contriving a way to make his victims think they’re crazy before he kills them in the basement.”

Shit. Caught. Was he flushing? Jameson couldn’t tell in the heat. “I wanted to make sure you were safe. Didn’t want to disturb you.” Even if she didn’t buy it, it was something for him to say.

She turned her eyes back to the sky. “Safest place in the world to live, right here in Five Hills. Did you know that?”

Jameson moved to stand next to her, tipped his head back, and leaned against her car. “There’s a reason for that, you know.”

She snorted. “Figures there would be. Magic. Savage witches. No one would dare pull some shit out here.”

Jameson could only agree. “Maybe.”

Cora looked straight at him. “You mean you don’t know?”

“I know there’s a reason, but I don’t know what it is. Magic seems as good a reason as any. That’s what the Native American legends refer to. Magic.” He sighed. “Magic, fate, accident, I don’t know, but I lean toward the first two.”

She stiffened like she didn’t like that, still staring at him. Before he knew what was happening she’d stepped in close enough to put her hand on his shoulder, reach up on tiptoe, and kiss the skin two inches from his lips.

Do it again, shot through his mind like a lightning bolt as her fresh, pure scent overtook him. He lost himself for just a moment, gazing at her, forgetting what came next in normal human behavior.

A blush covered Cora’s cheeks and her green glow, barely visible a moment before, surged like the northern lights. Cute as hell. Sexy as sin. Jameson wanted to touch her face but she stepped away, hurried into her car. He came to his senses and lunged for her window, tapping on it, still no words in his head. See her again? Yes. Definitely.

She smiled at him as she rolled down her window, her face turned up to him. “Yes?”

Jameson grasped her doorframe and blurted the first thing he thought of. “Training. Tomorrow. Killing vampires and all that.”

Her face fell and Jameson realized he was making a stabbing motion with his free hand. He stuffed it in his pocket. “Pick you up after lunch?”

She nodded, but with no smile this time. “Yes,” she said, finality in her tone.

“Good,” he replied, but she was already speeding away, the cab of her tiny car glowing green for as long as he watched it.

Jameson watched her go, his heart aching to realize he’d hurt her somehow. Couldn’t have been the kiss. She hadn’t meant anything by it. Couldn’t have. He frowned, some realization dancing just out of his reach as duty drop-kicked his heart. Cora glowed green. Jameson didn’t think he’d ever seen another woman glow like that, but maybe that was because he’d never paid attention. Or because there were switches out there who weren’t glowing yet; Carick had mentioned switches only glowed once they’d been in close proximity to a vampire for the first time.

Cora couldn’t be the last. What if he sent out word to the shifters: watch for glowing women-

Shit. He had seen that glow before, but it hadn’t been green. It had been magenta, almost fuschia.

They didn’t all glow green. And he fucking knew of another switch. One who’d been switched on by getting close to a vampire. Auntie. Every strange thing she’d said to him over the years came flooding back. It all checked out.

Time to talk to Carick.