Mom’s voice softens. “Instead of applauding the strong woman you are, I forced you away.” She draws a sharp breath. “I’ve heard such awful things about vampires. The blood. The killing. I never believed they existed, of course, I thought it was all fiction. But I only have to look at you to know that there is nothing inherently evil in what you’ve become.”
I put my hands over hers. She doesn’t wince at the contact. “I could make you well,” I say simply. “It would be painless. There’s a period of adjustment, but I would take care of you. We could tell the family we’re going to a clinic—to try a new treatment. When you come back, you will be strong again. The cancer will be gone. You’ll have your life back. Yes, it will be different, but I’ll stay with you as long as you need me to.”
Mom is quiet for a long moment, her eyes straying to a picture on her dresser. It’s a family portrait, taken when I was a child. My mother, father, brother and I, all in our Easter best, posing with broad smiles and happy faces.
“Thank you for offering,” she says at last. “But I can’t accept.” Her hands tighten on mine. “My faith is strong and I believe in an afterlife. I know it will be hard on Dad and Trish when I’m gone, but they have you and Daniel and each other. I think it was God’s plan to bring Trish into our lives, knowing I had not long to live.”
She pats my hand. “We will be together again one day. You and your brother and the daughter he never met. All of us, when it is time. For now, it seems you have a destiny to fulfill. An important destiny. And you will soon have a husband and a wonderful little boy to raise. Make the most of your time with them, Anna. Don’t let it slip away.”
Then we’re hugging again, holding each other tightly. Mom’s voice at my ear. “I am so proud of you, Anna. So proud of the woman you’ve become. You are so much stronger than I have ever been.”
After a long moment, she breaks away. She’s frowning. “I suppose this isn’t something we should share with your father.” Her expression is serious, but her words carry a hint of humor.
“Probably not,” I agree. “At least for now. He has enough to deal with, I think, without the knowledge that his daughter is not exactly normal anymore.”
“Then it will be our secret.” Mom pats my cheek. “Don’t you worry about it. I’ll tell him when I think he’s ready.”
A shudder wracks her body. She leans back against her pillows, her face drained of color. “I think I’d better rest now. We have another big day tomorrow.”
I bend over her, tucking the blankets around her, trying to keep the alarm from my face. “We will take care of everything,” I reply. “If you want to spend the day in bed, you just do it.”
She smiles—a real, genuine smile full of love and acceptance and it warms me. Suddenly, I feel better, lighter in spirit, than I have in days. I sit at her bedside until she drifts off.
It’s only as I tiptoe out of the room that sadness descends once again.
I glance back at my sleeping mother. In some ways, telling her about me, offering her the chance to overcome the illness strafing her body was a victory.
In other ways, though, it was a bitter defeat, because for all my talk of immortality, I can do nothing now to save her.
FREY FINDS ME LYING IN THE DARK—CURLED ON OUR bed, knees drawn to chest. He shuts the door quietly and slips into bed beside me, letting me burrow back against him.
“I guess I don’t have to ask how it went,” he says.
My voice is a soft monotone when I recount the conversation. When I finish, he strokes my hair.
“Your mother’s faith in her own kind of eternal life is strong,” he says. “She does not fear death. It isn’t surprising that she wouldn’t agree to be turned.”
“But she’s not thinking of anyone else,” I snap. “She’s being selfish. She’s not thinking of what her death means to Trish or Dad or me. We need her.”
I’m crying again, angry tears that burn hot and seem to sizzle on my skin. Frey’s arms tighten around my waist but he doesn’t say what I know he must be thinking. He simply waits for me to say what he knows I will.
“That was stupid, wasn’t it?” I struggle into a seated position, wiping my face with the sleeve of my shirt and shifting so I’m facing Frey. “I just called my dying mother selfish. She accepted what I told her. Made me feel accepted and loved. Even apologized for criticizing my life choices when I left teaching. And I just called
Frey is smiling, one arm resting behind his head on the pillow. “You didn’t mean it. I understand.”
I snuggle back down beside him. “How do you put up with me?”
“It’s a constant struggle.”
I push myself back up. “One thing I didn’t tell her,” I say, half turning so I can look at him. “Is the part sex plays in the vampire dynamic.”
“Probably a good thing,” he says, slipping his free arm around my waist. “That might have been a little too much information.”
Then I’m smiling, too. To a vampire, sex and feeding warm the blood. They are the two things that make our bodies feel alive, feel
“So do you really think we should practice abstinence for the next couple of days?” I ask, pulling my sweater over my head.
Frey sits up straighter. “Probably. We don’t want to cause your dad any more embarrassment.”
Leaning down, I gather Frey’s T-shirt at the waist and strip it off, dropping it on the floor.
“Or we could be very, very quiet.” I’ve got his jeans unzipped about the same time he’s managed to lower mine and we kick out of them together.
He pins me beneath him. He’s hard and ready and I raise my hips. When he slides inside, he moans, a deep, guttural cry of joyful abandon.
“Yikes.” I push a finger against his lips. “We have to be quiet, remember?”
Even in the dark, I see the color spread up his face. He drops his head momentarily, then with a wicked gleam, begins to move. He drives my passion ahead of his own with each thrust and at the moment of climax, when I forget myself, he smothers my own joyful cry with his lips.
After, when we’re lying together, spent, sated, I hear his soft laughter. “See?” he says, tracing a finger along my backbone. “Being with you is a constant struggle.”
CHAPTER 19
MOM IS DOWN EARLY FOR BREAKFAST THE NEXT morning. She looks so much better, rested, relaxed. I’m determined to see she stays that way. We share a conspiratorial smile and a quick hug before taking our places at the table. Trish and John-John are deep in a good-natured discussion about who would win in a duel to the death—Iron Man or The Hulk. Even with the age difference, John-John seems to be holding his own.
Frey and Dad discuss the wine business; Mom and I go over the wedding list one last time. There really is nothing to do today but fill out that questionnaire from the wedding planner and wait to hear back about when we’ll meet. The real action takes place tomorrow when David and Tracey get in and the grounds are turned into an open-air wedding chapel.
I insist Mom spend the day relaxing. The next two days are going to be more than a challenge. She gives in reluctantly, but does give in. She rises from the table to go up to her room when the front doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it,” she says, switching directions to head for the door.
Conversation between the rest of us—me, Frey, Dad and the kids—swirls around how to spend our Saturday.
But as soon as I pick up on what’s happening at the front door, I’m on my feet. Frey raises an eyebrow, but I wave him off and make my way to join my mother.
