Heidi's friends gave up and started the volleyball game without her. Heidi shuffled over to an Adirondack chair, the one farthest away from the game in progress. Her chair sat under the bows of a large pine tree, so she had plenty of shade. Since nobody else was on that side of the lawn, she had privacy too.
I marched over there and dropped onto the chair beside hers. "Thought you liked sports. Why aren't you playing with your friends?"
She raised her brows. "You really don't believe in easing into a conversation, do you? It's straight to the intrusive questions."
"Why not answer? Maybe I'll go away if you satisfy my curiosity."
"Doubtful. You seem like the kind of guy who has an insatiable curiosity about things that are none of your business."
I might've thought I'd annoyed her if not for the calm, almost sultry tone of her voice. Her lips curled up a touch too. And her blue eyes sparkled, even though the sun didn't hit them directly.
She was beautiful. Was it any surprise I wanted to seduce this girl?
"You're right about one thing," I said, leaning over the arm of my chair to get closer to her. "I am insatiable."
"Hmm." She roved her gaze over my entire body. "Why aren't you dressed like a Dracula knockoff anymore? Thought that was your shtick."
"I'm not a knockoff of anyone. I'm an original. Johnny Cash always wore black, you know, but he wasn't a vampire."
She turned slightly sideways, toward me. "You like country music? I would've thought you'd be more into death metal."
Her lips curled up even more when she said that. Heidi was teasing me.Score one for the Dracula knockoff.
"I like good music," I said. "Don't care if it's country, classical, or jazz fusion. What about you?"
"What music do I like?" She shrugged. "Not into music except at parties. Then I don't care what it sounds like as long as I can dance to it."
Now there was the Heidi Mackenzie I expected to see. Except I wasn't seeing it. She told me she loved to dance, but she sat there in an Adirondack chair wearing khaki cargo pants and a baggy T-shirt. She still had that baseball cap on too. Carefree Heidi was still in hiding.
I jumped up and held out my hand to her. "Let's dance."
"What?" She drew her head back like she thought I might've been concealing metal spikes in my palm. "There's no music. And nobody else is dancing."
"Let's be trailblazers. Maybe we can inspire other people to get off their asses and do the rumba." Not that I had one single clue how to rumba, but that wasn't the point. "Come on, Heidi. Have a little fun."
She shook her head. "I don't dance anymore."
"Why not? Did you join one of those cults where every guy has ten wives and the women have to wear ugly brown dresses?" I glanced at her clothes. "Or maybe the cult uniform is cargo pants."
"I am not in a cult." She gave me the once-over, puckering her lips like she was trying not to smile. "You're the one who usually looks cult-ready. You probably want to sleep with me just so you can make me your satanic sacrifice."
"People wear uniforms at work. It's not a cult thing."
"I was talking about your fake-gypsy outfit."
Fake gypsy? She was trying to annoy me, but I wouldn't fall for it. "Relax, Heidi, I'm not into sacrificing beautiful women. I might bite your neck, though, and suck on various parts of your body."
"Celibate, Damian. I've told you already there will be no sex, no kissing, no anything that you're thinking about right now."
I chuckled. "You read thoughts? That's supposed to be my shtick."
"Don't need a crystal ball to know what you're thinking."
How could I convince Heidi to have fun? Maybe I should've been asking myself why I cared if she didn't have any fun. It was a challenge, I supposed, and I'd always loved those.
"Okay, no sex," I said. "But let's at least go for a walk. That'll be a lot more entertaining than sitting around watching other people have fun. And besides, I have a secret place to show you."
"A secret place?" She said that like she thought I was going to drag her off to my satanic-sacrifice lair.