LITMIR.BIZ

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asked, more attuned to their connection than the humans at the table.

      “No, Bruce. Everything’s just fine,” she lied, but the meal had been ruined for her.

      She remained quiet, as did Blake, while the others finished up their dinners, but she sensed he still had more to say to her. To his credit, he chose to keep silent as they cleared off the table and proceeded to finish up for the night.

      Since Diego had entrusted her with the kitchen and because of all that he had done and continued to do for her, she always made a point of making sure everything was perfectly in order.

      Satisfied, she told everyone to call it a night, and the few remaining people straggled out the door, Blake included, leaving her alone in the kitchen.

      She took a few minutes to glance lovingly at the space—her space—pleased by the current state of her life, vampness notwithstanding. If there was one blemish on what might be her idea of Happy Ending it was her immortal status. She hadn’t quite had that on her list of what to do before she died.

      Of course, thanks to Blake she hadn’t even hit item number one on her list of what to do before she died. Normally anger would rise at him and at her situation, but tonight a mix of sadness and satisfaction came instead.

      She had to acknowledge that if not for the whole undead thing, she would be back in the Midwest doing something other than what she wanted to be doing. If it hadn’t been for Blake she wouldn’t have trained to be a chef and she wouldn’t have started to receive some notice of her skills from the local papers.

      The door to the alley opened and Blake walked back in.

      He stopped short as he saw her standing there. “Sorry, love. I didn’t mean to intrude. I just needed to clean up before I left.”

      “Go right ahead.”

      As Blake walked to the sinks by the pantry, she did as well, pulling off her dirty apron and chef’s jacket and tossing them into the laundry bin.

      From the corner of his eye, Blake admired all her curves beneath the loose checkerboard chef’s pants and the small black tank top she wore, reminiscent of what she had worn on the day they had first met. Desire rose and he soaped up and scrubbed his arms and then splashed bracing cold water over his face, hoping to quell the need she would not appreciate.

      He was about to reach for a towel, but she was there, handing him one, challenging his control.

      “Thanks.”

      As he toweled down, he noticed that she had slipped on a tight-fitting denim jacket and loosened her blond hair from the French braid she usually wore while she cooked. She looked so young. A pang of guilt rose up—thanks to him, she would always be that young.

      Some women might have liked that, but not Meghan. In the last four years he had come to know that much about her—she feared little. He suspected that was why after her initial reaction to being a vampire, she had settled into immortal life.

      With the damp towel, he motioned to the kitchen. “This seems to suit you.”

      She crossed her arms and the action plumped up her already generous breasts, dragging his gaze there. Aware of his interest, she immediately changed her pose and said, “It wasn’t quite what I had planned for my life, but I like it.”

      He tossed his dirty towel into the laundry bin. “What had you planned on, love?”

      “You mean what had my parents planned for me,” she said. Before he could respond, she continued, “Going back home after college. A nine-to-five job somewhere with the requisite husband, house and a few kids.”

      “Can you say ‘boring much’?”

      Blake hadn’t expected that she would reply, but he sensed her pique as he walked to the pantry, snagged his black leather jacket from a hook on the wall and slipped it on. When he turned, she was so close, he nearly knocked her down.

      He took a step back to give her some space, but she advanced on him and poked him in the chest. “So I suppose you had so much more planned for your life. Tell me, Blake. What did you want from life?”

      She probably wouldn’t understand, but he gave it a shot. With a long heartfelt sigh, he said, “Just to survive, love. Just to survive.”

       Chapter 6

       Wales, 1858

      Blake’s pockets hung heavy with the new potatoes he had pilfered from the abandoned farm up the road from the meager cottage he shared with his mother and five brothers and sisters. The smallish potatoes were all he had managed to round up that day to feed his family.

      With the latest accident closing the coal mine, there had been too many young men like him in town, looking for either jobs or handouts. It was possibly harder now than it had been when his da had passed in an accident nearly a dozen years earlier. At least back then he had found a way to put food on the table.

      A chill sweat erupted through his body at the memory of what he had done for the coins for that food. Of the old man’s cold touch and the press of the papery dry lips against his. The slide of a gnarled hand into Blake’s pants. Pants made loose from weeks of hunger.

      He had survived those weeks by finding greens in the forest and boiling them with water to make a thin soup that somehow managed to sustain him. Whatever food he had been able to scrounge back then, or buy with the coins the old man gave him in exchange for the liberties he took, he had left for his family.

      Luckily the mine had reopened several weeks after the accident that killed his da. With the mine shorthanded due to the men that had been lost, Blake had secured a job going down into the pit in place of his da and labored there for over a dozen years. His young boy’s body had become a man’s, filled out with thick, hard muscle from the arduous labor and the food he had been finally able to put on the table.

      But then another, much larger accident a month ago had forced the closure of the mine. The main shaft had been too badly damaged to repair, and the mine had nearly been tapped out anyway. With only one other mine left in town, many men had lost their livelihood, Blake included.

      As he approached their small homestead, guilt assaulted him that all he had to show his family was a few handfuls of stolen potatoes. At least it would be enough to take the edge off their hunger, he thought.

      To Blake’s surprise, the smell of something rich and earthy filled the room when he entered the cottage, making his stomach rumble and clench. He approached his mother as she stirred the pot at the stove, laid a hand on the small of her back as he had watched his da do for so many years. He leaned over her petite body and glanced at the thick, meat-filled stew simmering on the stove.

      “Ma, that looks wonderful. Where did you—”

      “Bryan caught a pair of rabbits in his snares this morning. Managed to find a patch of wild carrots as well,” his mother replied. But her anxious glance told him she didn’t quite believe Bryan’s explanation for the sudden bounty.

      Neither did he, judging from the thick diameter of the carrot pieces floating in the stew. No wild carrot he’d ever seen was that plump, not to mention that the wild rabbits had been scarce that spring, a by-product of the many snares that had been set to catch them.

      “I’ll talk to him, Ma,” he said, and emptied his pockets onto the work-rough surface of the kitchen table.

      His mother picked up one of the potatoes. “These will make a nice addition to the stew. You’re a good son, Blake.”

      He took hold of her hand and squeezed it tenderly. “Don’t worry about Bryan, Ma. I’ll see to it that he stays out of trouble.”

      His mother shot him a grateful glance and a nod of approval. “I know you will, son.”

      With that, he walked out of the cottage and

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