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“Don’t patronize me. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to show up at a stranger’s doorstep with a vampire in tow. He could be a maniac. He could be an antivampire activist. For all we know, he’s got silver stockpiled in there, and he’s just waiting for an opportunity to try it out. After the night we’ve had, I’m not willing to take any chances.”
“Would it make you feel any better if I tried to—”
“Scan the immediate future for my bloody, violent death via farm implement? Yes, it would.”
“Just don’t touch anything, or make any decisions, or move,” he said. He closed his eyes.
I pressed my lips together and crossed my arms. “So insulting.”
He closed his eyes as if concentrating, a line of frustration forming between his brows. After a few long, silent moments, he groaned. “I can’t tell!” he hissed. “I can’t tell what the best course of action is. Damn you and your wily ways, woman!”
“Oh, come on,” I said, chuckling. “I’m not that unpredictable.”
I sat on what looked like a wooden picnic table on the ground. It gave way beneath me, collapsing. I fell back, tumbling ass over teakettle down concrete stairs. I hit the earthen floor with a thud, whacking my head on a bag of feed corn.
“Ow,” I muttered, wiggling my fingers and toes to make sure I hadn’t done permanent damage.
There was a blur of motion, and suddenly Collin’s face was hovering over mine. “Are you OK? Does anything hurt?”
“My pride,” I groaned. “And my ass.” He helped me sit up. “You didn’t see a hint of that? Nothing?”
He shook his head.
“You’re trying not to laugh at me, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“I hate you,” I moaned. “I hate you so much.”
“No, you don’t. You’re just upset with me.”
“I am, but I’ll get over it,” I grumbled, sitting up. “Eventually, I will understand you were trying to do something good. Your heart was in the right place, but your head was up your own ass.”
“That’s a memorable and disturbing image.”
I’d apparently fallen through the unlocked external doors of the farmer’s root cellar. The farmer used this room as a storage space/storm shelter/winter pantry. Rows of carefully preserved green beans, peaches, and applesauce lined the shelves. I took a plastic gallon jug of distilled water and twisted it open, draining much of it in one long, blissful pull. My eyes landed on a first-aid kit and then the camping lamp hanging over our heads. Collin reached for it and tried to open the little glass cylinder.
“You don’t light it,” I told him, flicking the little switch on top.
“Interesting.” He scanned the little windowless room, with its low ceiling and bare earthen walls. “Rather homey, isn’t it? Clean, roomy, no instruments of death lying about. We can always just sleep here for the day.”
“Yeah, it will be great, until the farmer decides he needs a jar of pickled beets tomorrow afternoon, opens the door, and then you’re a little pile of dust.”
“Have a little faith.”
“Really, Collin, why don’t you just run ahead or something? You can cover the distance in a night, right? I’ll be fine. I’ll get home on my own.”
“Because I’m a vampire, not a cheetah,” he told me. “I can’t run that fast or far. And second, I’m not leaving you behind. If I arrive without you, your employer will know we had trouble.”
“I think she’ll notice when I show up without her car.”
“I’ll take full responsibility for the car. She can’t be angry with you over something a client did.”
“Your sudden bout of cockeyed optimism is annoying. Besides, say we survive the day undetected, then what?” I asked. “We find a phone, call Iris, and beg her for bus fare?”
“We’ll find a way,” he assured me, lifting my face to meet his gaze. “I promise you. We’ll find a way to get home without getting you into trouble. Come on, woman! Where’s the girl who showed up at my door three nights ago? The girl who called me a piece of work and reminded me I had no way of getting home except for her car? She would scoff at this little travel … hiccup. Sleeping in a root cellar with a vampire. It’s child’s play. I would think it would appeal to your perverse sense of adventure.”
“You’re right. I should make the best of—hey! What do you mean, perverse?”
