Kindling Flames—Gathering Tinder

  Vicky’s breath caught as she felt his fingers pull through her hair and tuck the loose ends behind her ear. His fingers caressed her locks as he bent over her. She was sure he was going to kiss her on the cheek when she felt his breath on her face.

  “Sleep,” Darien whispered into her ear.

  Vicky’s eyes closed as the suggestion stole the tension from her body. Within seconds, she had fallen into a deep and restful slumber.

  He caressed her hair one more time before turning his attention to the three people watching silently from the other side of the bed. “I suggest you get some rest, also.” The Irish note was gone from Darien’s voice as he patted his sleeping assistant one more time. “Unless you need to be tucked in, too.”

  Brian, Jenny, and Josie took this as a hint to get out and vacated the room before Darien could make good on his offer. They hadn’t felt any trickle of power when Darien had put Vicky to sleep. Either she was very susceptible to suggestion, or he was just that powerful. Either way, they didn’t hang around to find out.

  Darien sighed deeply at the speed with which the three visitors left. By the time he woke up, his story would have been shared with the rest of the house. He really didn’t mind that, but it meant that the entire place would walk more softly around him for a while. Of course, last night’s little outburst of power hadn’t helped matters, either.

  Darien let out another sigh and opened the window at the far end of the room. Taking a deep breath of cool, morning air, he dropped himself into the overstuffed armchair next to it. Crossing his ankles on the matching ottoman and folding his hands across his stomach, he relaxed back into the soft cushions, letting his consciousness slip away for a much-needed rest.

  Vicky yawned as she woke from the most restful sleep she’d had in a long time. Shaking away the last of the cobwebs in her head, she sat up in the bed. The soft scent of lilacs filled the room, and she looked around for the source of the smell. Her eyes found the open window at the other end of the room before shifting to the man sleeping in the chair next to it.

  Vicky smiled at how cute her boss looked, sacked out in the chair, with his head bent forward onto his chest. The afternoon sun sent a beam of light to dance on his lap, just below his hands. She slipped from the warm covers to close the curtains, so the light wouldn’t touch his skin. He could handle the little bit of sun, but she knew that Darien made a habit of avoiding it if he could. Now she understood why. It was the least she could do for the kindness he had shown her last night.

  Vicky moved as quietly as she could, so as not to wake the sleeping vampire. Now that she stood next to him, she looked down at his unmoving body intently. After watching Darien for a full minute to see that he drew no breath, Vicky was half tempted to touch him to make sure he was still alive. Deciding to leave him be, she went to the door on the other side of the room. She was glad to see her suspicions were correct, and it was a rather large bathroom.

  After quickly relieving herself, Vicky stood in front of the vanity mirror as she washed her hands. She stared at her reflection in the mirror for a long time. Even though her world had changed, she still looked the same. The wound on her neck was completely healed, and the only trace of the incident was the blood that had dried on her chest and the front of her nightgown.

  Wetting a washcloth, Vicky wiped away as much of the dried blood as she could, thinking about her predicament as she worked. What was she going to do? Her boss was a nine-hundred-year-old vampire, masquerading as a human. She paused in her scrubbing and looked at herself in the mirror as she came to a conclusion. It didn’t matter that he was a vampire. He was still her boss, and she really did enjoy her job. This only added to his eccentricity. Shutting the water off, she dried her hands and headed back to the bedroom to see if she could find something more appropriate to wear.

  Vicky opened the bathroom door to find that Darien had left while she was washing away the blood. He had pulled open a few drawers on the bureau and the doors on a wardrobe before leaving. Curiosity drew Vicky to the open wardrobe, and she found it contained a variety of clothing in a range of sizes. It took her a moment to find some jeans and a shirt that would fit. She borrowed them from the closet and tossed them on the bed. Searching through the open drawers, she found an assortment of undergarments. Taking some out, she added these to the pile on the bed.

  It didn’t take her long to change out of the soiled nightclothes and into the clean garments. Vicky picked up the brush left on the bedside table and shuddered as she remembered what had happened the night before. She recalled Sue’s advice and pushed the memory of the bite away. Now that she’d had time to think about it, Vicky was determined not to let the incident overshadow the rest of her life. She quickly sorted through her sleep-rumpled hair before slipping out of the bedroom and wandering down the hall, barefoot, in search of someone who could point her in the direction Darien had gone.

  It didn’t take Vicky any time to realize that the hallway outside the bedroom was the main hall and would connect her to the onsen, the lounge, the kitchen, and finally, the foyer. She made a quick stop in the changing room of the onsen to see if she could find her shoes, but the basket where she had left them was empty.

  Next, she headed into the room where she had met everyone last night, but no one was there. Puzzled by the lack of life in the house, Vicky headed back down the hall to the kitchen. She found several plates with food on them, but no one was in there, either. Her stomach growled at the smell of food, and she snatched up a blueberry muffin from a stack before heading back out the door and down the hallway to the foyer.

  She could hear voices coming from the open front door, and she walked over to see what the excitement was about. The entire menagerie was standing in the doorway, gaping at Darien as he tried to get Roger to look at the Torino.

  “It’ll take Charlie three hours to get here with the wrecker,” Darien explained to the astonished man. “Can you fix the damn car or not?”

  Vicky giggled at the awed look on Roger’s face as he tried to pull his attention away from the vampire standing in the sunlight to look at the car. Slipping past the shocked residents, she went to save her frustrated boss.

  Vicky danced across the hot concrete, only stopping when her bare feet found the cooler ground in the shade of the car. By the time she made it, Roger had actually gotten the hood open and was trying to look under it.

  “I think they’re just surprised to see you out here, Mr. Ritter. I’ll take care of this.” Vicky patted her boss on the arm. “I’m pretty sure I saw a fresh shirt in the closet in that bedroom. Why don’t you go get cleaned up?”

  Darien looked at her, then down at the wrinkled, bloodstained shirt he was wearing, and snickered. “All right, Miss Westernly but let me know if we have to call Charlie. He’s going to kill me if I’ve torn up one of his babies.” He turned to go back inside.

  Vicky watched as the crowd at the door parted to let the vampire back into the house. She laughed as they followed him inside in amazement. Turning her attention back to Roger looking at the doorway where Darien had just disappeared, she prodding the mechanic back to work. “Close your mouth and check out the car.”

  Roger snapped his mouth shut and turned his attention to the machine in front of him. “I didn’t just see that, did I?” he asked the woman next to him.

  She pulled the paper off one side of her muffin and picked at a blueberry. “What, a twenty-three-year-old woman ordering a nine-hundred-year-old vampire around? Or said vampire walking around in the sun?” she asked, nonchalantly, before nibbling the berry she had pulled from her pastry.

  “Both,” Roger gaped at her.

  “Yes, you did. Now can you fix the car?” Vicky took a bite of the muffin while she waited for him to get himself together enough to check out the problem.

  Roger shook himself and looked at the engine of the car. “This is a really nice car.” He twisted the cap of the radiator off and peering in it to see that there was
no water inside.

  “It’ll do the quarter mile in 13.99 seconds at 101 miles per hour.” Vicky rattled off what she’d heard Darien tell Mr. Rodgers yesterday. It got her the same appreciative whistle from Roger that had come from the shipping hub manager.

  “That’s hot!”

  “Right now, it’s got a busted radiator hose,” Vicky explained.

  Roger dropped to the ground to check out the damage. “What is this?” he called from under the car. In a few moments, he sat up on the driveway, holding out the remainder of the stockings that had been wrapped around the hose. They were dirty and slightly burnt, but it was obvious what they had been at one point in time.

  Vicky swallowed to clear her mouth and tried to remain unaffected by his find. “You act like you’ve never seen a pair of stockings before.”

  Roger looked up at the girl curiously.

  “What?” she said, defending her choice of repair material. “It worked to get us here.”

  He dropped the ruined silk to the ground and stuck his head back under the car. “Well, the radiator hose is cracked,” he called from under the car.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Vicky sassed back at the man.

  Roger chuckled at her. He wasn’t sure she was the same shy woman they had met last night. “I should be able to get a replacement at the parts store in town.” He pulled himself up from under the car and shut the hood. “I just need to know the year and model of the car.”

  “It’s a 1970 Ford Torino.” Vicky got another appreciative whistle from Roger.

  “That’s going to be a hard order to fill, but I think I know just the guy who would have what I need.”

  “Good. Please let me know how it goes,” Vicky answered very professionally.

  “Do you want these back?” Roger picked up the stockings and held them out to her.

  “No. You can keep them if you like,” she smirked.

  Roger grinned and turned to head back to the house with the damaged stockings in his hand. He had only walked a few steps before Vicky sprinted past him across the hot driveway. He looked back over his shoulder to see what had caused the woman such haste. Unable to see anything unusual, he turned back to find that Vicky had reached the shade of the porch and was rubbing the bottom of one of her bare feet into the calf of her opposite leg, trying to soothe the tender skin.

  “Where are your shoes?” Roger asked as he mounted the steps to the porch.

  Vicky looked up from inspecting her foot. “No idea.”

  “You should’ve said something. I would have been happy to carry you back.”

  Vicky cocked an eyebrow at him. “Are you hitting on me?”

  “I would never dream of it.” Roger smiled as he spoke.

  She rolled her eyes at the sarcasm in his voice. “Let me know when you have an answer on the car.” Vicky laughed as she turned back into the house. She was hungry, and that muffin had not been enough.

  Roger sighed and went to go make some calls.

  ***

  Vicky made her way into the kitchen to find that the abandoned plates had once again been claimed by their owners. Stopped in the doorway, she was unsure if she should enter and disturb the host talking excitedly around the table. It surprised her to find that almost everyone had gathered in there, discussing what they had just witnessed.

  “How is that even possible?” Terrance waved his fork around as he talked. “I mean, it’s five in the afternoon and not a cloud in the sky!”

  “Any of the other masters would be in trouble if they tried that,” Liz said as she stirred the beef stew around on her plate. “I nearly died of shock when he stepped out into the light.”

  “She said he could walk in the sun, but I really didn’t believe it.” Josie shook her head as she tore a hunk of bread up and dipped it into her gravy.

  Natalie looked up from her plate at the new addition to the room and almost knocked over her chair as she stood. “Victoria!” she cried, and the rest of the room fell silent.

  Startled by the woman’s outburst, Vicky instinctively took a step back.

  Natalie rushed to her and took her hand. “I am so sorry.”

  Vicky’s eyes widened at the unexpected apology.

  “I didn’t know, or I would never…” She patted Vicky’s hand and smiled apologetically.

  “It’s okay,” Vicky said reassuringly.

  Natalie looked at the younger woman for a moment before pulling her into a tight hug.

  Vicky returned the embrace to show there were no hard feelings.

  When Natalie finally released her, she stepped back and looked at Vicky. “You must be starving.” She pulled the younger woman into the room, placing her in a chair at the table

  “We’re sorry, too,” Liz said as she tapped her spoon on the bottom of her dish.

  Natalie set a plate of the same beef and vegetable mix in front of Vicky.

  “It’s okay,” Vicky reassured her. “I’m not upset.”

  Liz nodded and dug back into her stew.

  Marsha squished a carrot with her spoon and looked up at Vicky, slightly remorseful, as if she wanted to say something but didn’t know how to go about it.

  Vicky took up her spoon and dipped it into the thick gravy. She stirred it around before taking a bite. “This is very good,” Vicky complemented Natalie’s cooking.

  She thanked Vicky and went back to eating her own food.

  Vicky could tell that her presence made the group a little uncomfortable because they didn’t return to the conversation they had been having. They ate in an awkward silence, until Roger came into the room and reclaimed his chair.

  Roger looked over at Vicky. “I found what I need to fix your car.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he talked. “The guys should be delivering it within the hour.” If Roger had noticed the heavy air in the room, it didn’t show.

  “Thank you,” Vicky answered as soon as her mouth was empty. “Mr. Ritter will be happy to know that we don’t have to call Charlie out to pick us up.”

  “Who’s Charlie?” Roger asked, as he sat forward to start into what was left of the meal Darien had interrupted.

  “He’s the guy who takes care of all the cars,” Vicky explained. The rest of the table watched her intently as she spoke. This was more information about the enigma that was Darien.

  “What types of cars does he have?” Roger asked between bites.

  Vicky shrugged. “All kinds. He’s got some new sports cars and several classic cars, but you’ll need to ask Mr. Ritter for details. I really don’t know much about them. But, he takes the classic ones out once a week to show them off.” Vicky scraped another bite from her plate and stuck it in her mouth.

  “Do you really work during the day?”

  Vicky looked up at the odd question from the other end of the table.

  Embarrassed, Marsha turned her face away.

  “Yes,” Vicky replied. “From seven AM till whenever Mr. Ritter is done.”

  Marsha looked up and met Vicky’s gaze. “Does he really eat and drink food?”

  Vicky could see the disbelief in her eyes. “I have seen him eat and drink many things,” she answered, and a murmur of astonishment circled the table. “Mainly coffee and clementines.”

  “And you really didn’t know he was a vampire?” Liz asked.

  “No.” Vicky could see the amazement in the faces around the table as she answered. “Up until last night, I thought vampires were B-rated horror movie fodder.”

  “There are some really great vampire movies out there.”

  The entire table turned to look at Darien as he walked into the kitchen with Clara.

  Vicky’s heart skipped at the sight of her boss dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. His damp hair hung messily onto his face.

  Darien shook it back and ran his fingers through it, so it would stay out of his eyes. “Some of them fall way off the mark, but they’re still entertaining.”

 
“But, there are also some really bad ones out there,” Vicky pointed out.

  “Too true,” Darien laughed and dropped himself into the empty seat next to Vicky.

  “Good evening, Miss Westernly.”

  Vicky looked up at the woman who had come in with her boss.

  “I am Clara, the head of the Vampire Council.”

  Clara was fair-skinned with mousy, brown hair that hung neatly to her shoulders. Vicky studied her hazel eyes, but she could not find anything that screamed vampire.

  “I would like to apologize for your ill treatment last night. I have had words with Michael, and he asks that you forgive his misconduct.”

  Vicky’s hand strayed to her neck as she listened to the woman speak.

  “I assure you that you are safe here for the remainder of your stay, and in the future, if you choose to return. You are welcome here at any time.”

  “Thank you.” Vicky smiled and stood up to shake Clara’s hand. “I would gladly come back.”

  Clara smiled warmly at her guest.

  “Have you heard anything about the car, Miss Westernly?” Darien asked as he eyed the plate of stew Vicky had been working on.

  Vicky turned to address her boss. “Roger said he was getting the parts delivered from town within the hour.” She sat back down and picked up her spoon.

  “It should only take me about thirty minutes after that to get her up and running,” Roger said around a mouthful of food.

  Darien nodded his approval. He could feel the eyes of the other occupants in the room on him. Placing his elbows on the table, he picked up a roll and toyed with it. Darien tore a bit off and rolled it in his fingers. A smile curled the corner of his mouth as he dipped the bread into Vicky’s gravy.

  “Do you mind?” Vicky scowled at the invasion.

  “No,” Darien smirked, as he popped the gravy-laden bread into his mouth, earning him a gasp from the rest of the room.

  Vicky rolled her eyes and went back to her food. It was easy to see that he was showing off.

  Clara sighed. “You’re going to make yourself sick,” she said as she circled the table and took the chair next to Brian.

  “I haven’t done that in a long time.” Darien chuckled as he bit off another piece of the bread. “Anyway, I like the taste of food and have always wanted to try Natalie’s cooking.” He chewed for a moment before turning his attention to the cook. “It’s very good.”