“Why?” Hell, why couldn’t she shut up?
“Because as much as I’d love to go there with you, it’s not safe. For either of us.”
He’d love to go there with her? Lord, their conversation had taken an unexpected and way-too-honest-for- comfort turn. She let her breath out slowly, wondering what had possessed her. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“No need to be sorry. It’s my fault.” He sighed, and something about it sounded so forlorn. “Listen, I’ll let you get back to work. Just be careful. You might not want to be delivering meals, at least until we can round up these lowlifes.”
“Right now I don’t have the means anyway.”
After they both hung up, Olivia couldn’t stop thinking about him. She’d never been the kind of person who wanted to live dangerously, so her attraction to Campbell didn’t make the first bit of sense. But how could she see him and not be attracted? The man was sex on two very long legs.
“Okay, I’m dying to know,” Mindy said from where she now stood at the entrance to the kitchen. “Who is he?”
“Who?”
Mindy crossed her arms and lifted her eyebrow. “Don’t play that game with me. I know what a woman looks like when she’s thinking about doing naughty things with a man.”
“I’m not thinking about doing naughty things with a man.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.”
“Then what are you thinking about that has you smiling like a fool and nearly burning half a dozen omelets?”
Olivia looked her best friend in the eye and knew she should keep her crazy feelings to herself. After all, Mindy loathed vampires and with good reason. They’d killed her mother and sister, and she’d had to see the horrible result to identify their bodies. Olivia’s nerves fired at what Mindy might think of her if she told her the truth. Would she think she’d gone bonkers? Well, that was an obvious yes. What she couldn’t handle was if Mindy felt betrayed.
But she and Mindy had always had an open and honest friendship, hanging on to each other even more when the virus and the subsequent emergence of vampires had robbed them of those closest to them. What if Mindy had no idea good vampires were real? Could she possibly believe that after what the vamps had done to her family? Once you saw that kind of viciousness, could you ever look beyond it? How could Olivia expect her to?
“I’m afraid to tell you.”
“Afraid? Good grief, do you have a kinky side I don’t know about?”
Olivia stared at her friend, not knowing how to answer that question. For a moment she considered shooing Mindy back into the dining room and avoiding the admission altogether. But she wasn’t used to holding things in. And maybe Mindy could talk some sense into her.
With a deep breath, she met Mindy’s eyes. “I’m thinking about doing naughty things with a vampire.”
Mindy’s eyes went wide and her mouth dropped partially open before she spoke again. The color drained from her face. “Are you crazy? Did they do something to you? Please don’t tell me they have mind-control abilities, because that will just take the world to a new level of hellish.”
Olivia dropped her gaze toward the floor for a moment. She’d known telling Mindy was a bad idea. Why hadn’t she listened to her common sense screaming at her?
She lifted her head but turned her attention back to the grill, where she flipped a few slices of bacon. “Never mind. Pretend I didn’t say anything.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Mindy moved to stand next to Olivia, propping her hip against the edge of the metal countertop adjacent to the grill. “You can’t drop that bombshell, then not tell me what is going on. Seriously, did they do something to you?”
Olivia sighed and wished with all her might she’d kept her mouth shut. “No, I’m pretty sure they don’t have mind-control abilities. Even in the world we now live in, that’s a bit too unrealistic.”
“Is it?”
Olivia met Mindy’s gaze. “I think if they had that ability, they would have used it to calm me down when I was freaking the hell out.”
Mindy considered that tidbit for a moment before giving a curt nod. “So, then, what is going on? You know they’re monsters.”
Olivia eyed the front door when a young couple came in. They looked like tourists. Though the city might never recover to the point where it was a tourist mecca again, amazingly people were beginning to trickle back in. The economy, including her own personal one, sure could use their dollars.
“Customers,” she said to Mindy.
Mindy didn’t even glance through the order window. “They can wait.” This wasn’t the fun, joking Mindy Olivia normally spent her days with. In her place was the hard, cold Mindy from the days after her family was killed. The Mindy who’d wanted nothing more than to go on a merciless vampire-killing spree.
“It’s nothing really. Just crazy thoughts brought on by too much stress.”
“I’ve never heard of attraction being caused by stress. Insanity maybe.”
Olivia shook her head. “I’m sorry I said anything.”
Mindy gripped Olivia’s arm, forcing Olivia to look at her. “Out with it. I’m not letting this go until I know what made you say it in the first place.”
Olivia sighed, trying to figure a way out of this conversation. “You don’t have anything to worry about, okay? One of them was just good-looking, enough that if he still had a pulse, I might be interested. But he doesn’t, so that’s the end of that.”
“Is it?”
“Of course. Why would you ask that?”
“Because I’ve been trying to get you to even look at another guy for months. Not once have you been receptive until now when it will get you killed.”
“I’m not going to act on the attraction. I’m not a fool.” She had to convince Mindy of that even if she wasn’t so sure herself.
Remembering the long phone conversation she’d had with Campbell the night before and feeling like a teen lying to her mom, Olivia couldn’t meet Mindy’s eyes anymore and returned her attention to removing the bacon from the grill.
“What are you not telling me?” When Olivia didn’t immediately answer, Mindy pressed. “Liv?”
“I...I talked to him on the phone.”
“You talked on the phone, with a vampire?” The volume of Mindy’s voice went up with each word.
Olivia motioned for her to be quiet. “Keep it down. I don’t need to lose what little business I have. And speaking of which, that couple has been waiting long enough.” She motioned toward the dining room, where the newcomers had taken seats at a window table behind Jane’s.
Mindy looked about to protest, but instead she stalked into the dining room, not happy in the least. And Olivia couldn’t blame her. Despite her assertion otherwise, Olivia knew she was ten kinds a fool.
As Mindy took the couple’s orders and did a round of the room to check on the other customers and top off coffee cups, Olivia took the moments to try to bring her racing thoughts under control. She eyed the back door, for a split second considering making a run for it despite her injured ankle. But then she remembered the news Campbell had shared with her and resisted the urge to shove a large appliance in front of the door.
Mindy blew back into the kitchen and slammed a dirty plate down on the prep table. “Okay, duty done. Who is this vampire and what on earth did you find to talk about?”
“Min, please let it go. It’s not important.”
“No, I’m interested.” She didn’t sound interested, more as if she was compiling information for when she called the guys with a straitjacket to haul Olivia away.
