“You holding up all right?” Zak asked her in a quiet tone, concern clear in his expression.
Tina hugged herself. “I’m okay. This is just a little unexpected, you know? I was just getting used to the idea of shapeshifters. I’d heard there might be vampires too, but I never even dreamed of actually meeting one, much less having one walk into the bakery in such a state.”
Zak surprised her by taking her into his arms, but she went willingly. His hug felt so good. Warm and cuddly. Protective and strong. He made her feel secure, which was something she needed, especially after the shock of the evening and her unexpected guest.
“I guess Tom and Brody made my sisters stay away, huh?” she asked in a small voice. Before they’d come to Grizzly Cove, her sisters had been her comforters and protectors. She’d never been left all on her own to deal with it difficult situation like this before.
“No doubt,” Zak agreed. “But it’s okay. I’m here. Lean on me, honey. I’ve got you.”
She liked the surety and strength in his soft words. And she liked the way he held her, the gentle touches on her back and the slight sway of their bodies as he offered her comfort, asking nothing in return. He was a really sweet guy.
Brody came over with Tom, a few moments later. He cleared his throat to get her attention, and she blushed, realizing she’d been totally sidetracked by Zak’s warm embrace. She jumped a little, but he wasn’t letting her go so easily. Rather than struggle, she just turned her head to look at her two new brothers-in-law.
“Tom can run you over to his place,” Brody said quietly. “Pick up Nell on the way, and you three can shelter with him for a bit while we get this sorted out, okay?” Mutely, she nodded agreement. She couldn’t wait to tell her sisters about everything that had happened. She also couldn’t wait to be surrounded by their comforting presence…although, Zak was a top notch substitute.
“Zak,” Brody went on, “I need you to come down to the office with me. We’re going to have to dust off the official forms and get on the computer. This has to be done by the
human
book, unfortunately, and you’re way better at that than I am. Plus, you found the guy. It was on your watch.” Brody sounded almost gleeful over that little fact, since it probably meant that Zak would have to do the majority of the paperwork.
“Roger that,” Zak replied, throwing Brody a casual salute. “Give me five to help Tina pack an overnight bag and lock up.”
Brody seemed startled by Zak’s words, narrowing his gaze on his deputy, then turning that suspicious look on Tina. She fled. She was in no mood to answer nosy questions—or even questioning looks—from her new brother-in-law.
She hadn’t quite gotten used to having brothers-in-law yet, for that matter. The fact that her two sisters were now happily mated to two guys her sisters swore hung the moon and lit the stars still hadn’t quite sunken in completely. It was all so new. Only a few weeks old.
Tina ran upstairs, hearing Zak following behind her. She ran up. He took the stairs more sedately, but when she reached the small kitchen, he was only a step or two behind her. Maybe he’d taken them two at a time? And he wasn’t even breathing a little faster.
The dude was in shape. But she knew that from the time she’d spent over the past week, ogling his bod. Zak was fit with a capital F, I, and T. And the way he filled out his uniform golf shirt ought to be illegal. He might not be quite as tall as Brody or Tom, but he was a lot taller than she was, and his shoulders were massive, his muscles ripped.
Was it warm up here?
“How long do you think I will have to stay at Tom’s?” she asked, looking for something to say.
“Probably just overnight,” Zak replied. “Just a precaution, until Big John and the master figure out what’s what.”
“Are you sure this Master Hiram guy is who he claims to be?” She frowned, trying to puzzle through their reasoning.
“I think he is, but that’s one of the reasons we’re taking precautions. John will check out his bona fides—or have me do it while I’m knee deep in computer databases. Vampires don’t usually leave a lot of tracks, but I’m pretty good at ferreting out the stuff they can’t get around. Plus, we can call the Lords and see what they know, but that’ll probably have to wait until morning, just out of courtesy. If Hiram continues to be a good boy, all will be well.” Zak moved closer to her, the width of the kitchen table between them as he held her gaze. “If things go south, we can protect you better if you’re all together. Don’t worry, Tina. You’ll be safe at Tom’s with your sisters.”
“But what about you?” she whispered, unaware until the words were out of her mouth that she was going to speak them.
Zak’s expression changed. His head tilted to one side as he smiled slowly, but thankfully, he wasn’t laughing at her. Instead, he seemed sort of…touched…by her concern.
“I’ll be okay, baby. Trust me.” The silence dragged while their gazes stayed locked, unspoken words of concern and reassurance passing between them. Zak finally broke the moment by clearing his throat. “You’d better pack that bag. They’re waiting for us.”
“How do you know?” she asked, already heading toward her room.
“I can hear them,” Zak said, following right behind.
She wasn’t sure if she really wanted him to see the state of her bedroom, but it was too late. She grabbed for a lacy red bra she’d accidentally left splayed over her pink bedspread, but she definitely heard Zak chuckle as heat flushed her cheeks.
“That shifter hearing thing is pretty cool,” she said, just for something to say while she busied herself finding a small bag and throwing things into it somewhat haphazardly.
She turned abruptly when she heard her bedroom door click softly closed behind him. He had his back to the door and an intense expression on his chiseled features.
“Even shifter hearing has its limits though,” he said softly, letting go of the doorknob behind him and walking slowly—predatorily—toward her. He was stalking her, and oddly enough, she wasn’t scared. Just…excited.
“Really?” She couldn’t think of anything more coherent to say. Not with the way he held her gaze as he prowled steadily closer, coming right for her.
“For example, right now, as long as we keep it low, they won’t have a clue what we do up here.”
“Is that a fact?” Her mouth was suddenly dry as he stopped right in front of her.
CHAPTER FOUR
Without words, Zak simply held out his arms, and Tina seemed to fall into them, like a magnet clinging to its opposite polarity. His strong arms came around her, and she breathed deep of his masculine scent, burying her face in the hollow of his neck. They were a perfect fit, as far as she was concerned. He was just the right height for her to feel safe and secure without being overwhelmed. As the shortest of her sisters, that was something very important to her.
“I lost about ten years off my life when that vamp walked in,” Zak admitted. “I was so afraid he was going to go for you.” His arms squeezed her close, and she heard the emotion in his voice.
Wonder filled her at his response. It sounded as if he…cared…for her. Her heart leapt in her chest. She liked that idea. A lot.
“Would he really have bitten me if I hadn’t gotten the wine?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Honey, the wine was dessert. He had me for dinner,” he revealed. “Shifter blood is a delicacy to them, and it gave him more energy than your mortal blood would have.”
“You let him bite you?” She pulled back, looking up to meet his gaze. Then she checked his neck for bite marks, but he chuckled.
“He took it from my wrist,” Zak told her. “And we were damn lucky the guy was a gentleman. He’s a master, which means he’s an old son of a gun. Powerful. Probably stronger than anyone in this little town. We’re lucky he asked politely, because he probably could have just taken whatever he wanted. Including you.” He tucked her head into his shoulder and hugged her again. “In the state he was in, he would have killed you. And I would have died too.”
That sounded serious. She pulled back to meet his gaze, noting the slight tremble in his hold.
“Why?”
He let some of his emotion show in his gaze and she caught her breath. “I would give my life for you, any day, any way. I would have tried to protect you. Give you a shot at running.”
She clutched his shoulders. He was saying something important here, but it still wasn’t clear to her. Would he do that for any weak human stuck in that sort of situation? He was the town deputy, after all. He had some kind of duty to protect. Or was it more personal?
Lord, how she hoped it was personal!
“Thank you,” she said calmly, her mind racing. “But I wouldn’t run. I wouldn’t want you to die for me. I’d probably have tried to fight him with you.”
“Then we both would have died, and I couldn’t do this…”
Zak’s head dipped low, his lips catching hers in a gentle kiss that soon turned molten.
Oh, yeah. This is something she’d wanted for a while now. Zak. Kissing her. Making her toes curl in her shoes. Dayum.
She wasn’t sure how long the kiss lasted, but eventually, well after her senses were swimming and her equilibrium was shot, he pulled back with a soft curse. She frowned. Why was he stopping?
“I’m sorry, honey. We’re about to have company.”
He set her back from him, holding her shoulders for a moment until she had regained some of her balance, then let her go. He picked up the bag she’d dropped and stuffed some of the clothing that had spilled out back into it.
“Do you need anything else? Toiletries? Shoes?”
Her mind finally clicked back into the
on
position, and she reached down for a pair of flip flops she kept near her bed. She used them like slippers and sometimes wore them outside, when she didn’t have to work in the bakery. Flour-dusted sneakers were the order of the day when she was working, but otherwise, she liked lighter footwear.
She found a stray plastic bag and shoved the flip flops into it. She filled a small cosmetic case with the essentials—moisturizer, face wash, hairbrush and toothbrush. Zak took both of the smaller bags from her and put them into the overnight bag.
Just as he was zipping it up, a knock sounded on her bedroom door.
“You two about ready?” It was Brody’s voice, and he sounded perturbed.
Well, that wasn’t Tina’s problem. Brody was her sister’s husband. Let Nell deal with his moods. Tina sailed past Zak, opening the door and heading straight out into the hallway, past a frowning Brody. She didn’t look, but she kind of thought the men growled at each other for a moment before following her out of the apartment.
Tina didn’t have another chance to be alone with Zak. Brody hustled her out of the bakery and into Tom’s truck while he all but ordered Zak to go to the sheriff’s office and get the paperwork started. But she saw the way Zak’s gaze followed her, just as she kept looking at him until Tom rounded the bend in the road and Zak was lost to view.
She turned around in her seat and regarded Tom as he drove steadily toward Brody and Nell’s home in the woods. Tom seemed tense, although it would take someone who knew him as well as she did to realize it. Tina had a talent for noticing things about other people. It was like a sixth sense. She could tell by the set of someone’s jaw or the way they held their shoulders what their mood was.
“So this vampire guy showing up…” she said, placing her opening bid for conversation in the quiet of the pickup truck’s cab. “It’s a really bad thing, right?”
Tom threw her a glance and seemed to relax a fraction. “Not necessarily. We knew he’d probably come check us out sooner or later. John was aware of his yacht out there at the mouth of the cove for the past couple of days. He figured the master would come visit. We just didn’t expect him to show up quite the way he did.”
“What happened to him? Did he say anything else about it?”
She should probably have asked the question long before now, but Zak had distracted her. Oh, boy, had he distracted her. And she desperately wanted to be distracted by him again. Real soon.
“Something in the water attacked his boat. Killed the crew. Smashed the yacht. He just barely escaped.” Tom sighed, and his shoulders tensed again, ever so slightly. “Whatever’s out there, it’s not good.”
They didn’t talk much after that, each lost in their own thoughts. They picked up Nell, and then, Tom drove them all back to his place, where Ashley waited. The sisters reunited with hugs all around while the two older girls made a fuss over Tina, asking for a detailed play-by-play of what had gone down in the bakery that night.
Tom prowled around the house, leaving them alone for a bit, which Tina thought was both considerate, and a little scary. It was pretty clear Tom was keyed up, checking all the windows and doors. He even seemed to be checking the wiring of the elaborate alarm system he’d installed in the house when Ash had moved in with him.
Tina tried not to notice his stealthy movements, but his quiet vigilance was starting to creep her out. She literally jumped when his phone rang, and was glad when he went into his home office to answer questions and rustle papers. No doubt his legal expertise would be needed in dealing with the mess that had been made of the vampire’s yacht.
“I can’t believe an actual vampire walked right in to our bakery,” Ashley said, leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping the coffee she’d made for all three of them. “Was he sexy?”
“Ash, the guy was so beat up, I couldn’t really tell at first. He was scary when he arrived. His eyes were glowing. And red. Blood red.” Tina shivered, cupping the hot mug filled with coffee in both hands. “When I came back down later, he was a lot better. And he’d taken off his shirt. He wasn’t pasty white, like you see in the movies. He wasn’t tan either, mind you, but he was definitely hunky under the healing skin. Muscular. Polite. Handsome. But the freaky part was the way he healed. His torso had these parallel rows of what had to be teeth marks. They were angry and red when I first saw them, then he put a wine-soaked towel over them, drank a few bottles, and when he removed the towel, the marks were gone. Like completely gone. As if they’d never been there.”