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“How’s your family?” I asked him.
“They’re Breckenridges.”
“Rich, fancy, and condescending?”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Pretty much. Yours?”
I considered my answer. “They’re Sullivans. Political, particular, and very focused on Cadogan House.”
“I think we’re supposed to be enemies.”
I looked up at him. “Are we? I mean, I know there’s no love lost, but I didn’t know there were active grudges.”
“I’d call it more lingering resentment.”
I nodded. I didn’t doubt he was telling the truth about his family—they were Brecks—but I think he was being sarcastic about the rest. His voice was so flat, it was hard to tell. On the other hand, there were shifters who didn’t like me, and they hadn’t bothered to mask the emotion, so I decided to play along.
“Okay. We should put on a good front for Connor, though. Especially since he went to all the trouble of assuring we’d talk to each other.”
He nodded, cast a dour glance out the window. “I don’t care for conversation.”
“So I gathered.” I finished my coffee, slid to the edge of the booth. “I’m going to do you a solid and let you out of it early.”
He looked at me, skepticism in every inch of his face.
“I have no argument with introverts,” I said.
“I’m not an introvert,” he said, sliding out of the booth to stand beside me. “I’m just a misanthrope.”
I grinned. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m a vampire.”
He was smirking when I turned back toward the door. I considered that a victory.
***
When the bill was paid and the gas was pumped, we gathered outside again. Alexei took off first without a word to me or Connor, taking the lead for this portion of the trip.
“He has a unique sense of humor. Dry as a bone.”
Connor smiled. “It took me a while to catch on to that. Figured he was just an asshole Breckenridge. He’s quiet around those he doesn’t know. But he’ll talk the ears off those he trusts. He’s smart, savvy, and loyal. And loyalty matters.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
FOUR
We saddled up again and headed northwest. Two more hours slipped by beneath a rising crescent moon that shone among a million diamond stars. We pulled off the freeway near our third (or fourth?) cheese curd castle, then drove through flat pasture to a small town with little more than a grocery store and a gas station. We turned into a neighborhood of tidy ranch houses with flowers on small porches, then into the gravel driveway of a low brick house. Flowerpots flanked the door, and a wrought iron bench held court beneath a picture window.
Connor turned off the bike, pulled off his helmet.
“Our second and final rest stop,” Connor said as the porch light came on, illuminating the front door.
“No Alexei?” I asked, pulling off my helmet and rolling my neck.
“He’s going to drive ahead, check the lay of the land.”
“That’s very vampiric of you,” I said with a grin, throwing back his comment.
“We occasionally have strategic thoughts,” Connor said with a smile. “But we try to avoid them as much as possible.”
