He was halfway down the walk to his car when I leaned out the doorway. “Rick? Good luck.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder, buried his hands in his pockets, and continued on.
Ben came up behind me, body to body, and put his hand on my hip. “I don’t have to tell you that guy made me nervous, do I?”
“Yeah, well, let’s hope you never meet the guy he’s trying to replace.”
“That’s the guy with a file on Cormac.”
“Denver’s Master vamp.”
“I didn’t know Denver even rated a Master vampire. You’ve met him? What’s he like?”
“Let’s just say Rick has his work cut out for him.”
I squirmed out of his embrace just enough to close the door, then pulled myself back into his arms. The beer hit me all at once, and I was about to fall asleep on my feet. I tugged at his shirt and hoped my voice wasn’t too slurred. “Let’s go to bed.”
The getting drunk worked, because I fell asleep without thinking of babies, miscarriages, blood, vampire wars, or much of anything at all.
My cell phone, sitting on the bedstand, rang. I jerked awake, fe
eling like someone had hit a gong over my face. Then the headache struck. I groaned and burrowed under the pillow.
“Are you getting that?” Ben sounded annoyed.
“What time is it?”
“Early.”
And the damn phone kept ringing. I grabbed it and checked caller ID. My parents’ number showed on the display. It was Tuesday, not Sunday, Mom wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t Sunday. Unless something was wrong.
I pressed the talk key. “Hello?”
“Kitty?” My father answered.
I sat up. Something was wrong. I loved my dad, and we got along great—at least since I’d moved out on my own. But he never called me. A sudden wave of gooseflesh covered my arms.
“Dad, hi.”
Ben propped himself on his elbow, watching me, his brow creased with concern. He’d probably sensed something in my voice, and in the way my whole body went rigid.
“Can you come up here today? This morning?”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Your mother’s checking into the hospital.”
“What?” My voice came out too high-pitched. “Why, what for?” Ben’s hand moved to my leg, a comforting pressure.
“Did she tell you she went in for a mammogram last week?”
“No. Wait a minute—how long has she known about this?” She’d known something was wrong during our phone call on Sunday and didn’t tell me. My eyes stung, suddenly, painfully.
Dad took a deep breath—a calming breath, preparing for exposition. It couldn’t have been that bad, I told myself. If Dad could be calm, nothing could be that wrong.
“She went in because she found a lump,” he said. “It could be nothing, it could be benign. They’ll remove it and run the tests. She’ll only stay there overnight. It’s perfectly routine.”
Was he trying to convince me, or himself?