Page 48 of Vanessa’s Bravery

“Just one rule: if we encounter a vampire, please let me handle him,” she demanded.

Cole simply grunted, and it wasn’t hard to guess that he wasn’t going to stick to that rule.

23

Cole parked the Land Rover in a parking garage near Union Square. As he and Vanessa left the building, he took her hand into his, and they walked in the opposite direction away from Union Square. Some shops were open late, and there was also a good number of theaters in the area, as well as restaurants, accounting for the busy traffic on the streets and lots of pedestrians on the sidewalks. He figured while they were walking along these streets, it was unlikely that a vampire would attack in front of so many witnesses, making this the ideal time to talk.

After meeting Vanessa’s parents and brother, and finding out that she was a trained bodyguard, it made a little more sense why she had been able to kill his attacker with such ease. But it had also thrown up a lot of other questions.

“Your parents seem very easygoing,” Cole started.

“They are the best.”

“You look a lot like your mother. And she looks barely a few years older than you.” It had been downright puzzling when he’d conversed with her while waiting for Gabriel and Vanessa to finish their private talk.

Vanessa gave a one-shouldered shrug. “She takes care of herself. And I guess she has good genes.”

“Apparently Gabriel does too.”

“You think he looks young? I guess I can’t really tell. To me he’s just Dad. Maybe it’s because he dresses young,” she suggested.

“Hmm. Maybe. I was quite surprised to hear that you’re a trained bodyguard. That’s an unusual choice for a woman like you.”

She cast him a sideways look. “What do you mean like me?”

Cole smiled at her. “Beautiful with a body for sin.”

Her eyes sparkled at the compliment. “Perhaps I use my physical attributes to distract my opponents, and they don’t know what hit them.”

He let out a laugh. Vanessa had a way of avoiding answers to his questions, but he wouldn’t let her get away so easily. “I agree. You can be very distracting. But in earnest, why bodyguard training? Is that a prerequisite for working at that company? Scanguards?”

“Not a prerequisite per se. But every new employee is required to do the training with them so they can be used anywhere in the field. There are a few exceptions though.”

“Like?”

“My mother. She’s a physician, and she runs a clinic for Scanguards.”

That sounded odd. A clinic for a private security company? “Are you saying that every Scanguards employee goes to her clinic if they get sick?”

Vanessa hesitated. “Uhm, it’s more like when anybody gets injured on the job. Sometimes we bring victims of violent crimes to her.”

“But that’s what the emergency room of a hospital is for.”

“Victims of crimes like you who were attacked by…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “…a vampire.”

Cole stopped and pulled Vanessa toward a building and out of the path of a group of pedestrians. “Are you saying that what happened to me last night, happens frequently here?”

He noticed the hesitance with which Vanessa nodded, and leaned closer. “How many freaking vampires are running around here trying to suck people dry? And how do you even know about them?”

He’d wanted to ask this earlier, but with everything that happened between them, there hadn’t been the right time, because he hadn’t wanted to spoil the romantic mood between them. But now, they were patrolling the city on the lookout for vampires, and it seemed the appropriate time to ask these questions.

Vanessa took a visible breath, her chest lifting.

“What is it?” he added. “Something wrong?”

She shook her head quickly. Maybe a little too quickly, before she answered, “It’s complicated.”

“I’ve got time.”