I ate and drank, going back for seconds and eventually thirds. I felt like one big, gaping hole that needed to be filled up before I could focus on anything else. And—oh yes—I was painfully, viscerally aware of how many things required my focus right now. But at the moment, the soup was here, while the person who could answer at least some of the many questions I had was not.
I finished the entire damned pot of soup, along with two bottles of water. When I was done, I dutifully washed the pot, bowl, and utensils, setting them to dry in one side of the sink. Then I succumbed to paranoia and peeked out a front window just to confirm that the car was still there.
It was.
My eyes scanned the darkness outside, illuminated only faintly by the moon as it played tag with banks of clouds. There was no sign of glowing blue eyes... no silhouette of a brooding figure in my field of view. I could have made a circuit of the other windows in the house to check—or just gone outside and walked around the cottage—but Rans had made it clear enough he wanted space.
Besides, now that my stomach no longer felt like a black hole, exhaustion was hitting me again. The soft bed I’d collapsed in earlier suddenly sounded a whole lot more appealing than playing hide and seek in the dark with a pissed-off vampire. I left the kitchen light burning and headed back to my room, pausing this time to undress and pull on an oversized t-shirt before climbing under the covers.
Jesus. I desperately needed a shower. Unfortunately, the moment I touched the bed, my body seemed to grow heavier and heavier until my arms and legs were too difficult to lift. My eyes slid closed once more.
* * *
Daylight. Once again, the smell of food reached my nostrils. Oatmeal, maybe? My stomach rumbled, and I began to wonder how much food it would take to convince my body that it wasn’t being starved anymore.
I felt a little stronger than I had when I got up during the night. As tempting as the smell of breakfast was, the smell coming from my armpits really needed to be dealt with first. I poked my head out of the room, but the little cottage still had that quiet feeling of emptiness about it. The door to Rans’ bedroom was once more standing open. The main room was devoid of life.
I went into the bathroom to scope out the bathing options. An old claw-foot bath had been outfitted with a shower nozzle on a freestanding metal arm, positioned so it would rain down over the center of the tub. There was no shower curtain to prevent splashes, but the tiled floor sloped down to a drain in the center of the small room.
Good enough for me.
The water pressure sucked, but it was at least nice and hot. Scrubbing at the days of grime, I let it flow over my head and face, blocking out the rest of the world. The soap and shampoo options were basic, but I had some leave-in conditioner in my luggage. Brittle hair probably shouldn’t be my biggest worry now, regardless.
I dried off and wrapped the towel around myself before returning to my room. Not gonna lie, here—the silence of this place was starting to get to me. I took comfort in the familiar ritual of moisturizing and picking out my curls, then I noticed something folded up in the corner of my bag.
It was Rans’ shirt—the one I’d stolen as revenge after he tore my nightgown. Chewing my lip, I debated for several moments before pulling it out. It smelled like him, with a faint hint of my body lotion layered over his scent from when I’d worn it briefly back in Chicago. I put it on and buttoned all but the top two buttons.
The pot was back on the stove. As I’d suspected, it contained oatmeal. Since my dietary choices still seemed to be relatively low on the list of things likely to kill me, I ladled up a bowl and grabbed a sports drink from the fridge, wishing briefly for orange juice instead.
After blowing on the first spoonful of oatmeal and popping it in my mouth, I made a face and reached for the cheerful little sugar bowl sitting in the center of the table with the salt and pepper. Rans had salted the oatmeal but not sweetened it at all. I wondered if that was an Irish thing... or maybe a Middle Ages thing. With the addition of what was probably too much sugar to counteract the salt, it was surprisingly good.
So... now I was fed, rested, and bathed. Which meant I was quickly running out of excuses and distractions. Real life was going to come crashing back down on my head before long, I was certain.
I staved it off for a few more minutes by brushing and flossing my teeth. Then I repeated the faintly ridiculous ritual of checking that the car hadn’t moved, because seriously—did I think the oatmeal had cooked itself? It was still parked in the same place.
The morning was beautiful. So was the landscape around the cottage. Yesterday’s gray clouds had given way to brilliant sunshine, turning the blue of the sky and the green of the fields to jewel tones.
For the lack of anything better to do, I pulled on some shorts under the oversized button-down shirt and padded outside barefoot. It was pleasantly cool here. Much cooler than it would have been in St. Louis or Chicago in late June.
That gave me pause. It was the end of June, though I couldn’t honestly have said what the exact date was. But I knew it was almost July. It was almost the twentieth anniversary of
