LITMIR.BIZ

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whirled inside of him. His hands trembled and he willed his body to relax. He had to calm down. Even more, he had to sleep. To heal.

      He breathed, in and out, a steady motion that soon hypnotized. The blackness overwhelmed him.

      No tossing. No turning. No dreaming.

      He’d regretted the last many times since he’d turned into a vampire. But now, for the first time, he found himself thankful the sleep was so all-consuming.

      Jake had a hard enough time pushing Nikki Braxton out of his thoughts when he was conscious and fully aware of every reason why he couldn’t—wouldn’t—touch her again.

      Unconscious? He knew he didn’t stand a chance in hell.

      THE CLICK OF A LOCK pushed past the fog of sleep that gripped Nikki. The knob creaked and hinges groaned and she smiled. She rolled onto her back, her hand going to the empty sheets next to her. She patted the mattress.

      “It’s about time you came back to bed.”

      “If Jimmy John Charles couldn’t talk me into the sack—and he had flowers and candy and my favorite denture cream—you can damn well bet I ain’t slippin’ off the support hose for the likes of you.”

      The female voice crackled in Nikki’s ears and wiped the smile off her face.

      It couldn’t be.

      “Well don’t just lay there. I already said no, and that fella you had in here’s long gone for now. Get your butt up so’s I can change the sheets.”

      Nikki forced one eye open.

      Winona Adkins peered down at her over a thick pair of bifocals.

      Winona was the great-grandmother of Eldin Adkins, owner of the Skull Creek Inn and the Elk Lodge’s current bingo champion. Eldin’s parents had retired to Port Aransas and left him in charge of the inn and Winona.

      Winona, who was as headstrong as she was nosy, saw things a little differently. She kept her chubby hands in everything, from the front desk to the housekeeping. She also kept the entire senior ladies’ bingo squad informed of the latest gossip. Winona was the squad’s president and best friend to Nikki’s great-aunt Izzie.

      Nikki blinked, hoping the old woman would disappear. Instead the sleepy fog lifted. Her vision cleared, and Winona’s features went from blurry and dreamlike to sharp and focused in a matter of seconds.

      With a short, chubby body, a head full of snow-white hair and an aren’t-you-just-the-sweetest-lookin’-child smile, Winona looked like the classic grandmother. Her hair had been rolled into tight little sausages that covered her head like a football helmet. She wore the familiar flower-print smock, knee-high panty hose and white orthopedic shoes. Aqua Net mingled with Lysol hovered around her. She held a thick ring of keys in one hand and Nikki’s panties in the other.

      “I—I can explain.” So much for a discreet one-night stand. She’d been caught. Not in the act but close enough. And by Winona, of all people.

      Her gaze zeroed in on the white cotton undies. Her panties, for cripe’s sake.

      Her heart pounded as a dozen possible excuses rushed through her head.

       I sleepwalked in here and took off my undies.

       A saucer full of little green men held me at gunpoint and demanded I take off my undies.

       Those aren’t really my undies, they’re just an illusion.

      Her stomach knotted and her throat went tight. Think, her brain screamed. She needed a semiplausible story that would salvage as much face as possible.

      “I—I was just visiting the man in this room,” she blurted. “He’s an old friend and we haven’t seen each other in such a long time and we had so much to talk about. One minute we were reminiscing, and the next I was out like a light. I’ve put in so many long days at the salon. I guess they finally caught up with me.” She summoned a loud yawn.

      “You really know the handsome young man who rented this room?”

      “Not in the biblical sense,” she rushed on, crossing her fingers under the sheet. “We’re just friends. Buddies. Old, old acquaintances. I can’t believe I just conked right out on him. He slept on the floor and left the bed to me.” There. She’d done it. Semiplausible. Now all Winona had to do was bite.

      “Of course he did.” She nodded. “The minute I opened the door I figured it was something like that.”

      As lame as it had been, the old woman had bought it. Despite the undies in her hand and the rest of Nikki’s clothing that lay in full view of God and everyone.

      Nikki waited for a rush of relief, but it didn’t come. Instead time pulled at her and suddenly she was back in high school. The only girl who didn’t get mentioned on the boy’s bathroom wall. The opposite of her mother, who’d gotten her name and number scribbled with frightening regularity.

      Nikki had been proud of both at the time. But at the moment…

      “I mean, really,” Winona went on. “You and that handsome young man? Talk about crazy.”

      “I don’t know if I would go that far.”

      “Are you kidding? I saw him when he checked in last night and, believe me, the two of you are totally wrong for each other.” Winona patted her shoulder. “Not that you’re chopped liver or anything like that. But you’re not anywhere close to centerfold material, and that boy’s straight off the pages of one of them GQ magazines.”

      “But opposites attract,” Nicki heard herself say.

      “Opposites, sugar, as in same species. That boy’s from the so-good-looking-it’s-a-downright-shame planet. You…well, you’re nice.”

      “Men like nice.”

      Winona gave her a get-out-of-here look. “Men, child, like nice if they’re looking for a housekeeper or a nanny or a personal assistant. If they’re looking to fornicate…well, nice just doesn’t cut it. See, there are two types of women in this world. You’ve got your drop-dead man teasers like Mae West and Marilyn Monroe. That’s the sort a man goes for if he wants a love interest. The pleasers—those poor, desperate souls so starved for love that they’ll do just about anything for a man except sleep with him—are the nice girls. The sort that’ll make you cookies for Valentine’s Day instead of doing a striptease and giving a lap dance. The pleasers operate with the misguided notion that the way to a man’s heart doesn’t involve a direct route through his pants. Not true, on account of a man’s heart is located directly in his pants.”

      She was not hearing this.

      Not now.

      And certainly not from Winona.

      The woman stood next to Nicki’s great-aunt Izzie in the church choir every Sunday morning. And she played Mrs. Claus during the tree-lighting festival at Christmas. And she spearheaded the Pies for Pennies charity bake sale every other Friday.

      Like Nikki’s aunt Izzie, the old woman was wholesome and sweet and…nice.

      At the same time, Nikki remembered her mother talking about Winona when she’d been much younger and not so nice. She’d had bright red hair and matching lipstick and, rumor had it, had spent her evenings down at the local saloon.

      “Now it’s not that men don’t like the pleasers,” Winona went on. “They do. They just don’t see themselves spending eternity with a woman who’d rather cook for them than warm the sheets. Men see those kind of women more like sisters. Somebody to listen when a man feels like whining, to cook when he feels like eating and to boost his ego when he feels down and out. Sure, men get involved with pleasers every lovin’ day, but the first whiff they catch of a teaser, bam—” she slapped her hands together “—the pleaser is stuck home on a Friday night watching reruns

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