embarrassment.
Usually, for an immortal to access someone’s memories, they had to get the person they were reading to recall them. Stephanie apparently could access them whether the person was thinking of them or not.
“You think I’m a freak now,” Stephanie said unhappily.
“Not a freak,” Drina said quietly. “Apparently very gifted.”
The girl relaxed and smiled a little at that. “Gifted?”
“Very,” Drina murmured, and turned in her seat to face front, doing her best to keep her thoughts as blank as possible. Stephanie’s abilities weren’t normal, but she didn’t even want to get near that thought in the girl’s presence. She needed to think, but away from Stephanie.
She also needed to find a chance to talk to Harper, Drina thought on a sigh. While she was glad he wasn’t avoiding her this morning, he had last night, and his blowing hot and then cold was leaving her uncertain and worried about the future. She had started out her journey to Port Henry determined to be patient, but that was before she’d met and spent time with him. The more Drina got to know Harper, the more emotionally invested she became, and she’d started out pretty invested to begin with for the simple reason that he was her life mate.
The moment Drina had walked into Casey Cottage, tried to read him, failed, and acknowledged that Marguerite was right, and he was her life mate, she’d thrown in half her emotional chips. But with every conversation they had, and every experience they shared, she was throwing in more chips, and Drina was afraid of getting hurt here if his guilt proved too strong for him to put aside.
“Are you feeling all right, Stephanie? You look pale.”
Harper glanced to the girl at Drina’s words and frowned as he noted her pallor.
“I’m fine, hungry is all,” Stephanie mumbled. “Can we stop and get a sundae or something on the way out? That’ll settle my stomach.”
“I don’t think it’s food you’re hungry for,” Drina said solemnly. “We’ve been at the mall for hours now, and you’re a growing girl. You need to feed.”
“I’ll get the cooler out of the trunk and put it into the backseat before we leave. She can feed on the way back,” Harper murmured, ushering them toward the exit nearest to where he’d parked.
“I don’t want to feed,” Stephanie complained, sounding as cranky as a five-year-old.
“I said you
Harper couldn’t help but notice this made Stephanie’s lower lip protrude rebelliously. He suspected they would have a fight on their hands getting the girl to feed at this rate, and then noted the way she was rubbing her stomach, and said, “It will make your cramps go away.”
“Whatever,” Stephanie snapped, leading the way outside in a stomp.
“She just needs to feed,” Drina murmured, excusing her behavior as if worried Harper might think badly of the girl.
“I know,” he assured her, and then, finding it adorable that she would defend the girl like a mother bear with a cub, Harper slipped his arm around Drina’s waist and drew her to his side to kiss her forehead. “You’re going to be a good mother.”
She turned a stunned face to him, then quickly looked forward again, and Harper smiled wryly. He supposed she hadn’t yet considered the possibility of children. Not that he had, either. He hadn’t really considered much at all yet.
Anders’s words the night before had shaken Harper sufficiently to send him back to his room and into bed, where he’d lain contemplating the possibility of losing Drina to death. He’d been so wrapped up in his own emotional struggles, he hadn’t even considered how it might affect her. Oh, certainly, she’d made him consider that if he didn’t claim her, he might lose her to some possible alternate life mate, but that had seemed a far-off thing. Harper supposed, in his arrogance, he’d also imagined that he would have a chance to win her back in that distant future if his actions drove her away now.
But Anders’s words had made him worry about her actually dying, killed as a direct result of her emotional upheaval and distraction. The possibility had scared the crap out of him and made him face what was important here. Jenny was dead, and while he felt responsible, there was nothing he could do to bring her back or rewrite what had happened. He had grieved and been wracked by guilt for a year and a half now. How much longer would his conscience demand he suffer for a death he never imagined, let alone intended? Did he really feel he needed to lose Drina, even temporarily, to make up for the loss of Jenny? And did he really want to risk losing her permanently to death just to satisfy that conscience?
The answer had been no, and Harper had finally gone to sleep around dawn having decided he wasn’t going to avoid her anymore. It was time to put his guilt aside and embrace his good fortune, because he was definitely one lucky son of a bitch to be given a second chance at the brass ring of happiness with a life mate, especially so soon after receiving it the last time.
Harper wasn’t foolish enough to think it would be easy. Deciding not to feel guilty was a first step, but he knew he would have to fight on occasion to keep to that decision. However, he was determined and felt sure he could do it. . for Drina.
“Hurry up you two. Gawd, you’re as slow as snails,” Stephanie complained, shifting restlessly beside the car.
Harper heard Drina sigh with exasperation at the teen’s moodiness and briefly tightened his arm around her waist in sympathy. He then dug his keys out of his pocket.
“You two get in. I’ll get the cooler,” Harper said, moving toward the back of the vehicle.
It was Drina who’d thought to bring blood along. Which was another reason he felt sure she’d be a good mother. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Stephanie needed to feed more often than they did. As he lifted the cooler out of the trunk, he smiled at the thought of Drina with a little Drina in her arms. Or a little Harper, he thought as he closed the trunk and moved around to open the back passenger door and set it on the seat behind his own. Or both even. He grinned as he closed the back door and moved to open the driver’s door.
“How am I supposed to feed? I don’t have any straws,” Stephanie snapped, as he slid behind the steering wheel.
“We’ll stop at a drive-thru and buy a couple of drinks. You can use the straws,” Harper said calmly, starting the engine.
Stephanie muttered under her breath, but didn’t comment otherwise and Harper shifted the car into gear, then reached out to place his hand on Drina’s leg as he steered them out of the parking lot. Her thigh was as hard as steel at first, telling him Stephanie’s behavior had put her on edge as he’d suspected, but some of that tension left under his massaging fingers, and by the time he steered the car into the line at a fast-food drive-thru, she had relaxed considerably.
“What do you want?” Harper asked as he nosed up to the speaker. “Coke?”
“Whatever,” Stephanie muttered.
“Coke it is,” he said cheerfully, and quickly ordered three.
The moment Harper received and passed over the drinks, Drina passed Stephanie hers along with the straw from a second one. She then set the third drink in the holder for him, and took the lid off her glass to drink from the cup itself.
They were silent for a bit, Harper glancing in the rearview mirror occasionally to see that Stephanie actually was feeding. The fact that she went through three bags one after the other, stabbing the straws viciously into them and then grimly and steadily sucking back the thick red liquid, told him how badly she’d needed the blood.
They were nearly to Port Henry by the time she’d finished the third one, and Stephanie heaved an audible sigh as she scrunched up the empty bag and tossed it back into the still nearly full cooler.
“Feel better?” Drina asked, turning in her seat to smile tentatively at the girl.
“Yeah,” Stephanie admitted, sinking back in her seat with a sigh, and then, sounding embarrassed, she muttered, “Sorry if I was cranky.”
Drina shook her head. “I should have kept better track of the time and thought to feed you sooner.”
Stephanie smiled wryly. “Well, it’s not like you’re used to having kids around. Everyone in your family is old.”
Harper glanced to Drina to see a cloud of worry cross her face and guessed this wasn’t something she’d told
