“Honey, some days I’m not too sure about that. But ever onward, I say. I gotta tell you, I think we’re a little out of my league here and I’m really not qualified to offer you guidance. Have you thought about getting counseling?”
She huffed, and whatever moment of honesty and openness had passed. The defenses slammed back into place. “Counseling? I don’t need help. I’m not weak.” She clicked off.
I sighed. “Alrighty, then. Public service announcement here: there’s no shame in getting help. Really. Honest. We’re all in this together, and life is a little easier when we act like it. Well, it looks like we’re out of time. Alas. Now, for next week I’m trying to dig up information on a vampire-only beauty pageant held in New York City last month. Apparently it was all very hush-hush and no one’s talking about it. But I’m bound and determined to bring the winner of that pageant on the show for an interview. Join me for the next exciting Midnight Hour. This is Kitty Norville, voice of the night.”
Two weeks later, I was set to go.
Ben and I stayed awake for a long time the night before I had to fly to Montana. I was still contemplating backing out of the whole thing. If he’d told me right then that he didn’t want me to go, I’d have called it off and stayed, just for him.
But we were both trying to pretend that neither of us was that needy.
We’d made love, then made love again, and now lay sweaty and tired, arms around each other. I absently ran my fingers through his hair—scruffy and tangled no matter how much I combed it and smoothed it. It was amazing how long I could focus on his hair. I was comfortable, with his arms around my middle holding me to him like I was a giant pillow. His face nuzzled at my neck, moving along the skin, around my ear, into my hair, as he breathed deeply all the while. Like he was trying to memorize my scent.
“I can’t smell that good,” I whispered.
“Yes, you can,” he whispered back. “I’m not going to wash the sheets ’til you get back.”
I pulled away so I could look at him, and so he could see my goofy smile. “That’s so romantic.”
“It is? I was thinking it was another one of those creepy things that only a lycanthrope would say.”
“That, too,” I said. “Maybe I can get myself voted off the island early.”
“Hmm, cool.”
We kissed again, and again, and again.
chapter 3
When Joey Provost said the mountain lodge where the show was being filmed was in the middle of nowhere, he wasn’t kidding. I arrived at the Great Falls airport, then had to wait for another, smaller airplane that would take us to the site. The lodge was accessible only via aircraft or a long, hard hike. Was it bad that I kept thinking, limited escape routes?
“Kitty! You’re here!” a female voice squeal
ed when I entered the tiny waiting area at the far end of the concourse, and a minute later Tina McCannon had her arms around me.
I resisted an urge to snarl or flee. “Tina, you know better than to sneak up on me like that.” But the moment of panic faded—I managed to convince Wolf that just because someone ran at us didn’t mean they were attacking—and I hugged Tina back.
Tall, thin, buxom, she was the eye candy for the paranormal-investigator TV show Paradox PI and the secret of its success. She had an uncanny sixth sense, and spiritualist tricks like Ouija boards and automatic writing actually worked for her. She always knew which places were really haunted. She was kinda scary—the same way I was kinda scary. We were scary only if someone knew what we were. Otherwise, we must have looked like a couple of really girly girls, hugging and carrying on.
Tina stepped aside, and I glanced past her to see Jeffrey and Ariel, also waiting for the same flight out. TV psychic Jeffrey Miles gave me a big hug. In his thirties, clean-cut, with sandy hair and a photogenic smile, he was handsome and charismatic. Friendly as all get-out. You couldn’t help but like him.
“You look great!” he said. And he totally wasn’t kidding about that, because he could read auras. At least, he said he could. The first time we met, he’d pegged me as a werewolf before I’d introduced myself. Like Tina, he was too nice and friendly to be too scary.
I beamed at him. “Thanks. It’s good to see you.”
I’d never met twenty-something Ariel in person, but I recognized her because her photo was on her website, and we’d talked on the phone—a lot. Ariel, Priestess of the Night, hosted a talk-radio show like mine, if a bit fluffier. She was way nicer to her callers. Her black hair was pinned up in a bun, and she wore a black dress with a lacy black cardigan, and cool boots. Goth-y, and she wore it well.
“Kitty!” She squealed, just like Tina had. God, this was going to start sounding like a fourth-grade sleepover. She wanted to hug me, too. “I’m so happy you’re here and I finally get to meet you.”
“God, Kitty. Do you know everyone or what?” Tina said.
“Kinda. Just because I end up interviewing everyone on my show. Come on, sit down, tell me everything.”
We traded gossip and recent life stories for about half an hour before the pilot for the local commuter airport came to tell us the plane was ready. We filed out behind him to the tarmac.
My confidence was not boosted. The pilot was brusque, not talkative. He wore what he probably considered to be a uniform, the logo of the tiny commuter airline embroidered on the sleeve of his khaki shirt, tucked into slacks. He wore aviator sunglasses and didn’t smile. And the plane—I wasn’t convinced it would even get the five of us and our luggage off the ground. We barely fit inside, and the walls seemed paper thin.
I hesitated, staring at the tiny airplane.