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I scrambled to my feet, looking down at Father Simon’s book. Without bothering to even put it back on the shelf, I tore out of the back room and closed the shop in record time hoping I hadn’t screwed things up already.

* * *

He was still there, thank goodness.

Mazzie’s Maine guitar player was nailing a Willie Nelson song … no wonder she wanted him to come down here to play. Incredible.

“There she is,” Mazzie called from behind the bar. “I’m glad you could make it. I told Lem that you would chat with him about doing something in the store.”

“He’s incredible,” I said, trying to concentrate on my conversation with Mazzie but couldn’t stop watching Nolan, wondering what he was thinking. Usually, I could tell but tonight … tonight was different.

“What are you drinking?” Mazzie asked. “I never know with you. Could be beer. Wine. Mixed drink.”

Nolan and I exchanged a look. For the first time since I arrived, he smiled. Not his usual one that reached up to his eyes, but it was a start.

“She’ll take a Flight on draft.”

Mazzie looked at me, and I nodded as she walked away.

“How did you know I was in a beer mood?”

He shrugged. “I could just tell.”

Of course he could. Nolan knew everything there was to know about me. Well, except for one thing.

“So what’s going on?”

If I said ‘nothing’ or tried to pass it off, Nolan would see right through me. And I didn’t want more distance between us.

Just the opposite.

How could I have been so stupid, all this time?

“What are you like in bed?” I blurted, a vision of Riven popping into my mind. The question came out before I could stop it.

Mazzie’s amusement told me she’d heard the question, but instead of commenting, she slid the draft beer to me and hurried off.

The lazy, expert strum of the guitar and Willie Nelson’s words cut through my mortification at having asked, but it didn’t help. The song made me want to lean closer to Nolan.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

If Riven was somehow a version of Nolan, as he hinted, that meant Rowan was too. That correlation was obvious, but the vampire one … not as much.

Because I’d never even dared to think of Nolan in that way.

“It’s just funny,” I said, reaching for my drink. “We talk about everything, except sex.”

He blew out, as if expelling a demon. That Nolan thought of me as more than a friend couldn’t possibly be more obvious, now that I was looking for the signs. The way he looked at me now. The way he took care of everything in my life.

Took care of me.

But it wasn’t the Rowan version I was curious about. That one, I knew well.

“I’m not sure this is a great topic idea Lena.”

He looked at me, straight in the eye, when Nolan said my name. An answer wasn’t necessary. I already knew.

“I just never would have expected it. From you.”