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He bowed his head, and she wondered if he came from the same country initially as Levka and his friends. She always thought it was a quaint way he had of acknowledging her with a gentlemanly bow of his head, kind of like the Japanese do, except Vlad and the Texans cocked their heads more to the side and not as formally.
A chill shivered down her skin. He was eerily like Levka and the others. Was that why Levka and his friends had caught her attention because they were so much like Vlad?
She still couldn’t believe Vlad had followed her here. “How’d you know I was going to be here?”
“I called your old home and was transferred to your foster parents’ place. They gave me your cruise route. This was the first place I could catch up to you.”
“And the cave?”
“I contacted the ship to see if you were planning any excursions. This was the first on your list. If you hadn’t left the ship, I would have joined you there. How’s your foster sister treating you?”
She didn’t know why she felt the need to lie, but she said, “Fine. She’s up ahead with another tour group. Their bus just left.”
“Why wouldn’t she be with you? In fact, you seem to be all alone.”
“My friends hadn’t made arrangements to come ashore. But we’ll be going together on the next shore excursion,” she said, defending being by herself. Why? He hadn’t tried to be with her any time before the trip. Maybe if he had, she wouldn’t have felt so out of place. If he’d still been her boyfriend…
She shook her head.
Levka was the one she wanted to be with now. Yet, he would return to Texas, and she’d be left behind in Florida. If Vlad truly intended to continue to be her friend, he was at least living in the same city. Until he had to go away for business. Constant business.
Caitlin climbed onto the bus. When she sat beside a girl from her high school, the girl suddenly moved to another seat and Vlad took her place. “So polite. Someone from your new high school?”
“Yes.” But the girl had never been friendly, which was probably why she left the seat so quickly.
“Did everyone enjoy the Hato Cave?” the tour guide asked.
Most everyone said yes.
Vlad reached for Caitlin’s hand, and this time she let him take it. She wasn’t one to hold grudges, though she still didn’t trust he wouldn’t leave her again without word.
“Next stop will be the rum factory,” the tour guide said.
The rum factory was just a big metal building and inside an exhibit room of sorts was used to “explain” the process of producing rum. Photos of the process lined the walls, and small throwaway cups of rum samples were offered to the passengers on a tray. She thought she’d actually get to see the rum makers making the rum. A waste of money.
By the time they returned to the ship, Caitlin was dying to get away from Vlad and see Levka again. She hadn’t ever felt that Vlad was pushy before, but then she’d changed some, grown up some maybe, since the accident. But now she felt him smothering and oppressive. She couldn’t move an inch without him beside her, touching her, as if he were afraid he’d lose her again.
She humpfed under her breath. He should have thought of that before he gave her a year of the silent treatment.
Levka stood at the booth where passengers checked back in, a strict security measure to make sure people who didn’t belong onboard didn’t slip in and that passengers who had left the ship were accounted for.
At once her spirit was uplifted when she saw him, and she smiled.
He wore a broad absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder smile, but when he saw Vlad checking in behind her, his look turned dark.
Grabbing her hand, Levka pulled her down the hall and away from the check-in counter. “Levka, I wanted you to meet—”
“Don’t tell me. That’s Vlad,” Levka said, his voice nearly a growl.
“You know him?”
Levka was silent, and Caitlin looked up at him. “Levka, do you know him?”
Chapter 12
How could Levka tell Caitlin that the vampire, Vlad, wanted her permanently for his own? How could he warn her when he himself wanted her in the same way?
And no, he didn’t personally know the guy. But he was one of Levka’s kind. The gold tinge around his black eyes, invisible to the mortal eye, proved beyond a doubt he was one of the ones turned nine-hundred years ago during the plague that infected some and left others untouched.
