Love Knots

Evernight Publishing www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright© 2011 Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy ISBN: 978-1-926950-69-3

Cover Artist: LF Designs Editor: Caitlin Ray

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATIO' For Mary L. Sontheimer Clark, cousin and summer sister, who once said she should have known that I would be the writer, who put up with my imagination on overdrive during our shared childhood, who whispered with me in the summer nights in my bedroom, and who left life too soon, leaving behind a space that no one else will ever fill.

LOVE K'OTS Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy Copyright © 2011

Chapter One

When you’re a Texas girl, weaned on old Gunsmoke episodes and every other old Western movie from Roy Rogers to Clint Eastwood, you know when it’s time to get out of Dodge. After Will and I picked ourselves up after Sallie Hawkins, that five hundred year old bitch of a vampire did her level best to destroy us; it felt like time to me. Although I loved our huge rambling home on the river bluff hills just outside Memphis and I adored going out on the road in the big rig with my Will, I decided we needed diversion. A change of scenery seemed just the thing. Our experience left us both with a few scars. I would always carry the vertical line on my left wrist where I cut myself to save Will and the scar on the far edge of my face, the one Sallie put there as I killed her, would be there forever. He would bear the mark on his throat where Sallie almost drained him to death – or an end to existence for us vamps - forever. The physical marks didn’t matter but inside, we both suffered emotional damage. Most of it healed as soon as we knew that the other survived but I still felt more than a little jumpy. Will didn’t want to admit it but he remained nervous too. For the first few days after he began to recover, we lived in each other’s shadow. I could not bear to be away from him and he wanted me always beside him to remind him I was still his. Those awful hours when he felt sure I must be dead were the worst he had ever experienced, he told me more than once. “Without you, mo anam cara, there would be nothing.” I would save those sweet words to put in my mental memory book, like virtual pressed flowers, to keep. But I had to remind him, “You have Seamus.”

“Aye,” he sighed with the faint trace of a grin. “He wouldn’t be a replacement for you, darlin’, and we have yet to find him. I’m glad that my brother is somewhere in the world but as much as I want to see him again, I would rather have you.” That warmed my heart too; I knew it but it never hurt to hear it. “We’ll find him. I promise you that.” We sat beneath the stars in our “moon room”, a glassed-in sunroom off the kitchen. Since we are both vampires, we can’t use it during the day but the plants there love the sun and grow well. During the winter, it’s warm and smells of growing, green things. With four glass walls and a glass ceiling, we can sit out there and look up at the night sky. “You did,” he said as he put a match to the tip of his cigarillo. “And you told me that we should go away on a trip somewhere. How can you do both?” I stretched out my hand so that I could stroke his arm. “I’m going to buy a laptop computer and take it with us. That way I can search wherever we are. Where would you like to go, Will?” He blew out smoke as he pondered that question. “I’ve no real preference, Cara. Someday I would like to go home to Ireland but we’d have some logistics to work out for that. Anywhere at all is fine with me as long as we can work our traveling around our days.” I slid down to sit on the floor, at his feet so I could lean against his knees. He ran the fingers of his free hand through my hair and I let the little waves of pleasure that brought ripple over me like wind through ripe wheat. Visiting Ireland someday sounded pleasant. “What logistics?” “We would need to know how long the flight takes and if it can be by night,” he said. “Morning can’t take us by surprise when we’re aboard an airliner. Going by sea would be the other option but it was difficult at best when I came.” He sailed from Liverpool, I remembered, and for the first time wondered just how he had made that work. “How did you manage?” Will laughed. “I made myself a hidey hole down in the hold with the goods being shipped. It was dark enough but the rats were fierce. I had the most terrible time keeping from being bitten and all.

I finally had to rest inside a box and hope that they didn’t gnaw through to me.” I shuddered at the idea of rats. “Yuck. That must have been awful.” “Aye,” he said, crushing out his smoke. “It was. I might have gone back across the water if it hadn’t been. I imagine conditions have improved.” “I hope so,” I said with feeling. “Well, for now, let’s stay in the U.S. I would like to go to a beach, maybe, or Las Vegas or maybe Savannah, Georgia. I don’t know.” “Anywhere that you like will be fine,” Will said. “If home is where the heart is, then I’m home whenever I’m with you. I’m hungry, though, and before it’s too late, do you want to go down to Dyer’s?” His mention of a thick hamburger at one of my favorite places made my tummy rumble. I loved Dyer’s and it wasn’t just for the good food. That happened to be the first place I ever ate anything with my sexy vampire man. Back then I was still human and he wasn’t. I’d yet to learn that vampires can eat food too although we don’t need it. All we need to exist is blood. Dyer’s sounded good to me. Since it was Saturday night or really Sunday morning, they would be open until five a.m. “I would love that.” Will offered his hand to lift me to my feet. “Then let’s go.” We headed out in his vintage Cadillac and we wheeled over to Beale Street with speed. Last time I walked this trippy, crazy street I stalked Sallie Hawkins but I would rather not think about that experience or about that bitch. Since this remained one of our favorite places, I focused on our shared experiences here and by the time we walked through the door at Dyer’s, I was laughing at some joke Will made. At the table we ordered up our Triple Triples and then sat, hands clasped together while we waited. I caught a few glances in our direction but that always happened when we went out. Will, dressed in his standard black, exuded such magnetic sensuality that he turned heads and caught attention everywhere. Since I became a vampire, he says that I do, too, but I don’t think the interest in me reaches the same off the charts levels. Maybe that’s because I’m new or else I just don’t notice. Most of the ones staring had to be tourists because the other locals knew us by sight and reputation.

A lot of the gals who frequent Beale Street hate me because they can see I’m with Will. He’s told a few that I am his wife but I don’t think they all believe it but they know we’re together. When I give them my hardest, meanest stare, they get the message that he’s off limits, too. That night, though, some platinum blonde got bold and sauntered her ass over to our table. “Don’t I know you?” she simpered at Will, batting her eyelashes like something out of the 1950’s. “I think you bought me a drink and we danced last week.” I opened my mouth to shut her down but Will shook his head. With difficulty, I muzzled myself and waited to see what he would tell her. “I think you must have made a mistake, ma’am,” he said, letting his brogue temper his words with musical charm. “I’m a married man and a happy one. Besides, last week I was sick at home.” Her face shifted from flirtation to frustration and she opened her mouth to protest so I spoke first, “He was and you wouldn’t want to know what I did to the last bitch who tried to come between us.” Every experience we have becomes part of who we are. Although I didn’t relish performing the violent act that ended Sallie’s existence, the knowledge that I could be capable of it changed me. It didn’t make me mean but it strengthened me. I know now that I can do whatever it takes to protect my own and that I will. This woman heard some echo of that in my voice and she mumbled an apology before retreating with haste. I looked up at Will, afraid that my fierce words might have angered him but he grinned at me, wicked sweet. “Well-said, Beatrice,” he told me. “Beatrice?” He laughed aloud at that, a rich, sweet sound that filled my senses with the warmth of good liquor. “She’s one of the main characters in Much Ado About othing, my darling óinseach. She hates Claudio and she says, O God that I were a man, I would eat his heart in the marketplace.” “Am I like that?” I asked, uncertain if he complimented me or not. “You can be, mo anam cara, and it’s a good thing. I know that you have my back.”

I met his gaze, full on me, and knew he meant it. I smiled. We ate our food in harmony, savoring each bite of the delicious meat and cheeses slapped between two buns. I picked up a hand cut fry and popped it into my mouth. “I love the food here,” I told Will and he nodded. “It’s good. I think, though, we might pick up donors before we go home.” “Yes, we should.” So when we left Dyer’s, we found a pair of stragglers, wornout partiers separated from their friends. They walked in a haphazard way and it took little effort to direct them into an alley. We fed in just moments and set them on their way, unharmed. That little rush, that frisson of sensual pleasure I always got from blood lingered. I linked my arm through Will’s as we emerged back out onto Beale Street. “Do you want to go dance?” I asked. He looked over the tops of the old brick buildings, past the neon at the eastern horizon. “I do but there’s not really enough time,” he said. “Let’s go home, Cara.” On the way, I scooted across the seat to sit slap up against Will, close enough to feel the pull each time he moved the large steering wheel. I rubbed against him like a cat against a favorite piece of furniture and he turned his eyes on me long enough to grin. I felt his heat rising and knew just exactly what we would do when we made it to our place. Although I could see that first hint of light at the edge of the horizon as we pulled down the drive to park, Will lifted me into his arms and carried me inside. He bounded up the stairs with me and I tingled all over with anticipation of what we were about to do. No matter how often we came together, I never got enough. I would never say no to this amazing, sensual man. In our bedroom, he pulled the thin sheath dress I wore off with one swift motion and stripped away my undergarments with the same speed. A surge of desire washed over me like flash flooding after a heavy rain back home. I wanted him and more than that, I wanted my senses, all of them to drown in him. A rush of cooler air grazed my bare skin, sensitive to his touch and raised my own need to a fever pitch. So I grasped his shirt with both hands and undid the

pearl snaps without care. He bent to kiss me and removed his pants in the same second. Our flesh touched and I melted. Will’s mouth sought mine with the urgent need of a growing flower for the sun, seeking heat and sustenance. My lips answered to fill that need and I parted them so that his tongue could enter. He caressed the inside of my mouth, our tongues tangled into one as the urgent desire between my legs escalated into near emergency. His hands moved across my flesh like the wind over the plains of Texas, strong and firm, wreaking havoc wherever they touched. Will’s touch became a living and powerful force as he bent low, passing over my throat and breasts to taste me where I ached to be filled. His tongue, moments ago so sweet in my mouth, entered me and I squealed with delight worse than a kid jumping into cold creek water. Each thrust, every lick spiraled pleasure through me with such intensity that I could not hold onto a single thought so I let the sensations pour over me, savoring each. When I thought he would enter me with his cock, ram into me with his rod he surprised me by moving back up to tickle my throat with his kisses. I could feel the sharp edge of his teeth as he nibbled with such delicacy that he never broke the skin and thought I might just pass on from this realm into another where physical pleasure was paradise. Will clutched my breasts with his whole hand, one at a time, squeezing with a soft touch that provoked. Then he thumbed each nipple until they expanded, sensitive and full. To give back as good as he gave, I stretched upward so that my mouth suckled his nipple and I felt the frisson of pleasure that shifted through him. Inspired by my act, his lips caressed my nipples in tandem, going from one to the other with skill. I moaned in ecstasy at that and when I could move through the spirals of bliss that echoed through my body, I ran the flat of my hand down his abdomen slow and steady. I let my nails rake just enough to titillate before I grasped his hard dick in my hand. I squeezed but with a gentle hand and he grasped me. “Love is begun by time,” Will gasped “And time qualifies the spark and fire of it.” He gave me Shakespeare; I gave him back the Pointer Sisters, a few lines sung in a breathless tone, “Burn me up with fire.” So he did. He thrust into me with all his strength, filled me full, and brought me to that exquisite climax where we both exploded

with sensual completion. I clung to him as I came and he hugged me into the shelter of his arms. Somewhere outside dawn spilled over into day and sunlight illuminated the world with golden beauty. Inside, in our bed, I savored the only universe I needed and went to my rest, wrapped in the arms of Will Brennan. Tonight, I thought paraphrasing Scarlett O’Hara, would be another night, a new beginning. And it was.

Chapter Two Each spring, my grandparents would take me down to the local department store so that they could kit me out for Easter in style. From the top of my head to the soles of my feet, they would make certain that I had new garments. That meant a frilly dress with enough flounces and lace for a princess; a straw hat trimmed with ribbon or flowers, new underclothes, little white ankle socks, and black patent leather shoes that shone like mirrors. I almost always picked a light blue dress, rejecting the pink because it was too girlish for me. Somewhere between picking me and reaching the children’s mezzanine, my Grandpa would usually vanish. He might go to the men’s section to buy a new pair of bib overalls or some socks. If he could, he escaped all the way outside or even across the street to the benches around the courthouse square. That taught me early in life that men and shopping don’t make a very good mix. Will, bless his beloved heart, was no different. He shopped for what we needed and that was about it. If he could get Malachi, his manservant to do it, he considered it so much the better. So when I said I wanted to go out and buy a laptop computer and he promised to tag along, I felt very happy. When you love someone, you do those little things to please them and although I had no doubts how Will felt about me, I enjoy the proof. We could have gone to some big electronics chain store but I hate them almost as much as Will dislikes shopping so I decided to go to Sam’s Club, the big wholesale chain. Will had a membership and he bought some of our necessary items (like booze) there to save money. We got there after dark and I headed straight for the computers. Will wandered off somewhere. I knew what I wanted so it didn’t take long and once I made my pick, Will paid for it and we were out the door. “Thank you,” I said once we were back in the car. “I think I’m going to like this thing and it will help us find your brother because I can take it with us.” “You’re welcome, darlin’,” he answered, “I’ll buy you whatever you want. You just have to ask; I’m not much on thinking up gifts. I did buy you something, though.”

I felt a silly grin spread over my face. I’m like a little kid when it comes to surprise presents. “What?” He smiled back at me and reached into his pocket. He withdrew a small box and I stared. “Open it and see if you like it, mo anam cara.” I lifted the lid and gasped. A pair of bridal rings, an engagement ring that sported at least two carats worth of diamonds nestled against a diamond studded wedding band, sparkled in the light from the dash. I felt as stunned as a bird that crashes into a picture window and falls to the ground. I loved it on sight but I wondered why. “It’s beautiful,” I said, tears hushing my voice down to as whisper. “Will?” He understood what I asked and answered me. “I never thought of a ring when we married. I don’t need a ring to prove that I love you or that you love me but that woman last night at Dyer’s made me think about it. Too many people don’t realize that we are man and wife. I just thought I would make sure they know it. Do you like it?” “I do,” I answered. “It must have cost a fortune, though.” Will shrugged his shoulders; like anyone with plenty of money, cost meant little to him. “That doesn’t matter. So will you wear it, mo chroide?” I held out my left hand and gave him back the box. “I will if you’ll put it on for me.” He slipped the rings onto my finger and kissed my hand, his lips touching my flesh with benediction. I wondered if he wanted a ring too and he picked the question from my mind. “Aye, I’ll wear one if you want but it’s not necessary. This scar on my throat brands me as yours, mo anam cara. Though that bitch put them there, ‘twas you saved me from a final end. If you want me to wear a ring, I will. But, with those rocks on your hand, I think there won’t be any doubt that you’re mine.” “I am and I always will be.” I liked what he said about his scars, even more than I adored my new rings. This time, I thought of a beautiful quotation to share with him from the Songs of Solomon, “My beloved is mine and I am his.” Will can never be upstaged and he answered me with the ending lines of the Glory Be,

“As it was in the beginning, as it is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.” Between his gift and his words, taken from that now familiar Catholic prayer I learned from him, he moved my soul to depths that I had not even known existed before Will. My heart filled with love until I thought I might burst and I moved toward him, needing his embrace. He opened his arm to me and I entered the circle of his arms. He didn’t kiss me in those first few moments, just held me in that halcyon haven where I basked in what we shared. People talk about the love of their life or about their soul mate without ever understanding what it is, that it the other half of your whole, the completion you lacked until you found it. Then he kissed me with tenderness and grace, a blessing from his mouth to mine. That kiss was like communion, a sharing of body and soul beyond all else. I forgot for the moment about the laptop, about Seamus Brennan, and thought of nothing but this amazing man who I loved, who loved me. Our physical love, sweet as it was, faded against the overwhelming incredible power of this emotion between us. After such a kiss I had nothing to say but I sat beside him as he started the car and left the parking lot. I did not ask what our destination might be but savored the moment. Above, a full moon swelled fat in the sky and a silver, magical light filtered down over Memphis. That enchanted orb captivated me and I peered upward through the windshield with a childlike delight. When Will parked near Beale Street I thought we must be going to a few clubs but instead, he walked me down to Handy Park. In that small space, he held out his hand to me and said, “Let’s dance, mo anam cara.” I accepted his hand and let him lead me in the old slow waltzes of another age. I grew up doing the Texas two-step and gyrating to music but we danced and I adored it. The lunar light reflected from his dark hair and made him look like a creature from a storybook. We danced and I understood for the first time why some called this tripping the light fantastic. A few others came and went as we danced but we ignored them. They did not really exist because this was our night. We did not notice the cold or if there was wind because our world shrank to the small space that enclosed us. There

was no music but his soft humming, the old Irish air used for the song Morning Has Broken, the one sometimes called Blackbird. We danced and then we stopped. It wasn’t late when we went home but we did not stop to eat at any of our favorite places. At Will’s castle, we entered with measured steps, still entranced with our romantic interlude and we climbed the stairs walking on air. In the bedroom, he undressed me with a slow hand and with that same quiet pace, we loved each other as if time did not exist or matter. Sometimes we loved with hectic pace and almost violent fervor. Other times, we cherished and caressed. This time, we adored each other with our hands, our mouths, our tongues and our bodies. We didn’t hurry but dawdled. I touched his skin and admired it as if I saw it for the very first time. I recognized his beauty, a loveliness that resonated in every cell of his skin and I paid homage to it, with mouth, with fingertips, tongue, and even nails. I admired the way that his firm muscles fit to the bone and marveled at well put together a man’s body could be. By the way that he stroked and patted over me, Will felt something similar. He fondled my breasts with the reverence that the priest uses to approach the altar and when he dipped low to love my innermost folds, my secret center, he approached with adulation. By the same token when I took his hard penis between my lips, I did it with appreciation for its wondrous qualities. As Will entered my sanctum he did it with slow tenderness that built the rising tide of passion into a tsunami. I tightened myself so that I could caress him with the inner walls of my vagina, to make the fit as close as possible so that his pleasure would equal mine. I watched his face open to the unholy joy of our coupling, felt his body shudder and quiver as the waves of our shared completion broke with force over our flesh. I felt him pour himself into me, empty into my waiting chalice in this communion of love everlasting. When that powerful tide of love broke over the beach of my body, I cried out with the wonder and the pleasure of it. His own noises covered my own until we were one in every way making the beast with two backs, as I learned to call this joining, this union that from one of Will’s Shakespeare references, one I liked very much. After we lay together, our two bodies still wanting to remain one flesh, our need fulfilled, our sensual hunger slaked, our thirst for this quenched for now.

Will shifted so that his mouth could whisper into my ear, “Come live with me and be my love and we will all the pleasures prove.” That quote I knew, from a little brown book of poems I bought when I was twelve. “Christopher Marlowe,” I said. “A Passionate Shepherd to his Love, isn’t it?” “Aye.” “I think we just did,” I told him, my hand reaching down to stroke the length of his leg, “We proved all the pleasures.” “So we did. I’m hungry, now, though.” I felt ravenous myself. “So let’s go downstairs and I’ll cook something for us.” He nodded. “I would like that, Cara. I’ll set up your wee laptop for you while you do.” So I rolled out of bed, dressed and headed downstairs. I made biscuits and then found ham steaks in the fridge. I fried the ham, then eggs over easy so that by the time the biscuits browned, I had our meal ready. “Will!” I called up the back stairs and he came, two steps at a time. “Supper’s ready.” Knowing what to call meals when you sleep by day and prowl by night is tricky but supper worked for now. He paused at the foot of the stairs to kiss me. “So is your laptop. You can play with it after we eat for a bit. Something smells grand.” “Come eat before its cold,” I said, savoring the taste of his mouth on mine. Ham and eggs is, I think, a meal fit for royalty. Will scarfed down his ham, each bite dipped in the soft fried egg and buttered another biscuit. Everything tasted fine to me but part of my pleasure was watching his enjoyment. “Is it good?” I asked. He nodded, swallowing before he answered, “It is, Cara. Your biscuits are as fine as your mama’s tonight.” I tossed a biscuit at him in recognition of the old joke between us. “It’s about time you thought so.” He laughed but said little as we finished the meal. The silence felt comfortable, there was no strain between us but I wondered what

might be on his mind. Most of the time, conversation consumed us and when he kept quiet, I knew his thoughts were often heavy, serious ones. “What is it, Will?” I asked, as I cleared away the dishes and filled the sink with hot water. Whatever it was, it wasn’t dangerous or frightening because if it had been, I would have picked up on the emotion. He glanced up at me, looking sheepish as a child caught with their hand on the cake plate, and fired a smoke. “You noticed, then.” His voice came out soft. “I did. Is it Seamus?” He smiled, humble at being so easily read. “Aye, it is. I just wondered how you think we can find him so easy. It’s not like Sal – she – left any clues behind, is it?” “Well, no.” I searched the house she had leased and where she died but found nothing. She would not have been one to write down anything, though. I still felt confident that I could track his brother and reunite them. “But I’m sure it can be done.” “Maybe – if she told the truth,” Will said. “Do you think she did?” He wanted his brother, the last one of his family, to exist in the same world that we did but he didn’t want false hopes. For too long, Will wandered through life alone and until I came along, he felt unworthy because of what he became. His wistful question twisted my heart for his sake. I wanted to find Seamus Brennan just as much as he did. “I do, Will,” I said. “When she told you, she thought she would destroy you within minutes. She told the truth so that you would suffer in your last moments, not so you could find him. She never thought she would fail or that you would not die.” “True,” he said as smoke wafted from his mouth, “I want it so much that I’m afraid to think it might be true. I wish that I could have known all the many years. It would have been a comfort to me.” I turned from the sink at his wistful tone and although they were wet, I put my hands on his shoulders. “I’m sure it would have but Will, once we find him, everything will be good. We can all be happy together.” He stuck his cigarillo between his lips so he could put his right hand over mine, “That’s what I want but I don’t know if it can be.”

“What is it that you’re not telling me?” I gave up on dishes to give him my full attention. Will turned back to look at me, shaking his head. “Woman, there are times that I think you have the Sight.” “My Granny did,” I told him, my damp hands massaging his taut shoulders. “I just know you and I can pick up on what you feel.” “You must,” he said. “It’s a small thing, really, but I’ll tell you. You’re so young at this life that you wouldn’t know. In these many years I’ve been a vampire, I haven’t known that many. We tend to be a solitary breed most of the time but of those I have encountered, I know that a few are like me, still decent, are not malevolent despite our condition. Many are not.” His calm statement made the fine hairs at the back of my neck prickle. “What do you mean?” “Some who turn vampire, whether by choice or chance, turn wicked, mo anam cara. They decide that they will thrive as evil creatures of the night and some meanness grows in them. Just like I felt that I was somehow bad because of what I became, they take that guilt and let it change them. Some vampires are truly blood sucking killers, Cara, and I don’t think I would want to know if my brother went that dark direction.” Although my hands kept moving across his shoulders, my mind froze and I pondered his words. Having just defeated and then destroyed a very nasty, malicious vampire, I had no desire to meet another even if he were Will’s own blood. But I could not imagine anyone who shared my darling’s DNA could ever be the kind of foul thing he described. “Tell me about him when he was a boy,” I said. “Was he a little hellion and always in trouble?” I felt his tense shoulders relax just a tad at that question and he chuckled, “No, Cara that was me. My wee brother was a good lad, most of the time, no worse than most. My mam babied him more the rest of us since he was the littlest and the last after my sister died. He ran outside and played until dark if they let him but like us, he did his time in the pratie fields. He played a trick or two but nothing that meant any real harm and he could be good to help Mam or anyone.” He paused to light a new cigarillo from the butt of the last and then continued, “It’s a wonder he wasn’t worse because I was his hero. He toddled after me and tried to do what I did. Even when I

went back to visit, Seamus wasn’t cruel or nasty. Our oldest brother, Connor, he could be a bastard at times and mean but not Seamus.” I combed my fingers through his hair and stroked it. “Then I don’t think there’s probably anything to worry about, Will.” “Aye, I hope you’re right,” he said. “Finish up your dishes then and we’ll go look for him online before dawn.” What puzzled me was the way Will seemed hesitant about finding his brother. I thought he wanted to locate Seamus but now I wondered about his reluctance. I didn’t begin to understand it. Me, if I found out I had a brother who still existed after mourning him for centuries, I would be on it like a bird dog on point hunting quail. So when Will seemed to have cold feet, it left me curious. **** Through the many years, well over two hundred of them, the endless weeks, the days that ran one into another like the links of a chain, Will endured his existence. Until Cara came into his life like sunlight slanting through a break in the clouds after a storm, he survived but he did not live. For nearly one hundred and fifty thousand nights, he lacked anything to motivate him to want to live. It was just that he could not die. After Cara, those first months of their togetherness, their early married life felt richer than any exotic dish, more intoxicating than the finest Irish whiskey, and sweeter than any confection he ever tasted. Will began to live then, to enjoy what life he had and to savor it. Then Sallie burst onto the scene like a wild animal set to attack and devour. He almost lost his Cara and for the first time in those centuries, he remembered the pain that came with loss. In those hours, weak and wounded himself, when he thought her gone, such agony ravished his soul that he thought he would die from it. When her song pierced his unconsciousness and he opened his eyes to see her dear face, joy replaced that anguish but he remembered it much too well. Nothing could ever threaten her again; he could not bear it. Because he wanted the world to know she belonged to him, he bought the rings and she liked that. He loved the way her eyes lit like candles against the night when she saw them. Now that he tasted the bitter vintage wine of loss, of grief, he ached to find his brother. He wanted a reunion more than he had ever

wanted anything except her, his Cara. He valued knowing that someone of his own flesh, who sprang from the same hearth and family existed on earth mattered more than he could have imagined. He had kin again, a brother, and they also shared this blood craving, this eternal unlife. But Will remembered now that what you gained, you could lose and he did not think he could bear losing Seamus over again should they find him. He wasn’t at all sure that was a risk he wanted to take.

Chapter Three My Aunt Irene baked the best pies in all of East Texas and her crust came out flaky perfection. You could break off a piece of crust and see the tender, tiny layers. It melted between your lips no matter what kind of filling she put between the top and bottom crusts. I watched her many times mix the dough and roll it out. It looked so easy, I thought, and so when I was seventeen, I thought I would make a pie for my daddy’s birthday as a surprise. I looked up the recipe in Mama’s old Better Homes And Gardens cookbook, one of the red and white plaid ones. It seemed pretty simple. All I needed was flour, salt, some shortening, and some water. I mixed it all together but it came out sticky. I didn’t quit, though; I kept on and rolled it out. It made a mess everywhere. I had flour on the floor, on my blue jeans, even in my hair. Half the bowls and pie pans in the kitchen got dirty and when I baked it, it came out tough, coarse, and impossible to chew. When I carried my major mistake over to Aunt Irene’s to ask her what went so wrong, she laughed until she cried. Then she sat down with me at the kitchen table and said, “Honey, things look a lot easier than they are. I don’t know of much of anything worth much that isn’t hard. I’ve made pie crust since I was ten years old so its second nature to me by now but it wasn’t always. Just remember, things are never as easy as they look.” It took a lot of trial and even more error but I learned the hard way that Aunt Irene was right. I always thought I could find things without much trouble. As a little girl, I always located my Easter Eggs a lot faster than Mama expected. When I played hide-and-go-seek, I tracked the kids in hiding like a bloodhound on a convict’s trail. When one of my grandparents lost their glasses or their keys, they called me because I could locate them. So I thought finding Seamus Brennan for Will would be simple. It wasn’t. I thought there might be just a few people in the United States with that name but there were twenty-five or more. He might have simplified his first name to James, which upped the possibilities into the thousands. Or he could go by Jim, Jimmy, Jamie, JJ, or just J. He might use ‘Jay’ or Jimbo or even Hymie. Add

to that the fact that he might live in Canada, Ireland, England, Australia or any other spot on the globe and it got complicated quick. “Damn,” I said through my teeth as I stared at the multiple choices. Will, at my side, gave me an odd look and quirked one eyebrow upward. “Does that mean this will be impossible?” “No,” I said after a moment’s hesitation. “It’s still possible but it may take a bit longer than I thought. I’ll have to narrow them down by age. How old would your brother be?” “He’s five years younger than me,” Will said without hesitation. “If I’m thirty, he would be twenty five. But we don’t know when he came to her place so he could be older because I quit aging as you know.” I did but it would be better if I had an exact age, not a range. “I’ll need his birthday, assuming he won’t have changed it. I can do this, Will; it will just take more time.” He slipped his arm across my shoulders and caressed the back of my neck with an easy hand. “Then we can look at it all again tomorrow. You can decide where to go on our trip then too. It’s near dawn and I’m tired. Would you like to go to bed?” “That depends,” I said, with a wicked little smile. “On whether you mean to rest or to love.” He put his other hand beneath my chin and turned me to face him. He traced the outline of my lips with a single finger, slow to tantalize. It did; I felt the sweet chills of desire begin at the top of my back and shiver down to spread throughout my body. “I see no reason, mo anam cara, why we can’t do both, one first and then the other.” I moved forward so that my mouth rested about an inch from his. “We can.” I kissed him, my lips forward and insistent as an interruption. His mouth answered back in the same language and as he pulled me from the chair so that he could kiss me standing, he whispered, voice husky but audible, “Give me that man that is not passion’s slave and I will wear him in my heart’s core, aye, in my heart of heart as I do thee.” “Hamlet?” I guessed and he nodded. After that, he seemed much too distracted to quote Shakespeare or anything else because I locked my lips onto his. As I

caught his lower lip between my teeth and nibbled he trembled with pleasure. His hand snaked up under my T-shirt and found just flesh. I never bothered with a bra when it was just Will and me at home – moments like this one, it came in handy. I never saw a man who could remove clothes with the swift finesse Will used and in seconds, I stood naked as the day I was born before him. He faced me, just as bare, and so I raked my hands over his flesh with glee. Earlier I craved the quiet tenderness, the near worship he offered but now, my senses stirred for something stronger. I wanted passion tempered with just enough pain to make it exquisite. I needed heat and strong hands bending me to his will. To feed the fire that spread over us both with slow precision, I used my nails to scratch his flesh and my mouth to nibble. I left his bottom lip for his nipple and used my tongue to bring it hard in my mouth. His fingers reached up into the heart of me, fondling and feeling without remorse but with sensual need. We would never make it to the bedroom before we exploded in a blast of desire or reached fulfillment. We tempted with our hands, used our mouths to drive each other to distraction, and the fire burned out of control. Will pushed me back against the desk that held his computer and lifted me up just enough so that he could enter me with ease. He impaled me there, stabbed me down and held me with the same ruthless force that I pinned the helpless bugs of my science project insect collection to cardboard. I kicked up so that I could wrap my legs around his waist, driving him deeper as I came with a shout of joy that echoed in my ears. It probably almost deafened Will but I didn’t care and by that point, neither did he. When I collapsed against him, wet, sweating, and weak, he caught me into his arms and we sank down to the floor together. After a brief rest there, long enough to catch our breath, he rose with me still in his embrace and carried me to bed. We took our rest intertwined together, the juices of our completed passion sticky and mingled, with the smell of his heady musk and man aroma thick in my nose. I clung to it the way I did to my ratty old security blanket as a child, safe and sure in his love. At night, I woke to Will’s insistent voice in my ear, funneling down through the layers of consciousness and to his soft kiss on my lips. “Wake up, darling,” he said into my hair.

I muttered through a drowsy fog, “What is it?” “I miss you,” he murmured, “And we need to plan our trip if we’re making one.” I could smell the fresh scent of soap on his skin and realized I needed a shower myself. Fifteen minutes later, washed and dressed, I joined him for coffee downstairs, curious. “Thank you,” I told him after he put a hot cup of coffee in front of me. “So you’re ready to make a trip?” “Aye, I am,” Will replied with a smile so sweet that it captivated me. “I have a good feeling about going. I’d like to travel with you, show you some things and places without being tied to the truck or a load. If we do find Seamus, then it would be all the better but I won’t count on that. Then I’m not disappointed if we don’t.” His happiness bubbled out from him with such invisible energy that I swear I could feel it, like silvery laughter in the air. When we first met, he could be melancholy at times with that deep, sometimes dark sadness that seems to haunt the Irish soul but I had watched him find some measure of contentment with me. That morning, though, his bliss sparkled brighter than usual and I celebrated to see it, especially after all we endured. “I’m glad.” I was. “So where would you like to go? Do you have any ideas?” He shook his head. “I’ve no idea, not really. I’ve been so many places driving that all I really want is to be with you in a different place.” Choosing somewhere to go shouldn’t be hard and wouldn’t be under normal circumstances but vampires have a few other considerations to keep in mind. We needed a lively place with plenty of likely donors on hand, twenty-four seven and we required a place with at least a little nightlife. Our dining, any shopping, and all recreation happened between dusk and dawn so it cut the list down fast. Truck runs were easier because truck stops operate around the clock but if we wanted to have fun, we had to give it a little thought. “There’s Las Vegas, Atlantic City,” I suggested with a tentative smile. “Or we could go to California.” “What’s in California?” His question rattled my chain. “Haven’t you been there?” Will grinned. “Aye, I have but not for fun. What would we do there?”

I didn’t have to think about it as a big smile spread across my face like warm butter on fresh baked biscuits. “For starters, we could go to Hollywood and to the beach.” Once before, a few years back, I wandered out to the West Coast, my guitar and I in some kind of Dwight Yoakum inspired trek. I didn’t stay long and my money ran out too fast but I liked it. LA can be a pretty trippy city but Hollywood Boulevard is surreal. Although the glory days happened a long time ago, there’s still enough shtick and sass, glitter and glamour to make it interesting especially by night. “Hollywood?” Will asked and I figured that would be the end of the idea. He almost never watched television and the only set in the house was in Malachi’s bedroom downstairs. “Are we talking movie stars?” “Yeah, we are.” I felt defensive. “It was just an idea, Will.” “It’s a good one. We can see their footprints on the sidewalk.” He surprised me by referencing Mann’s Chinese Theater. “Have you ever been there?” I had to ask. He hesitated. “Aye, I was once. It had just opened not long before and the crowds were terrible.” My coffee cup halted halfway to my mouth. “You were there in 1927?” Will looked almost embarrassed. “Yes, love, I was.” “Oh.” I could not find another word to say. Although I know very well that despite being thirty years of age forever, Will’s been around for more than two hundred years, the reality often escapes me. I think I shove it to the back of my mind because it’s a hell of a lot easier than thinking about it. That’s something I don’t much like to do because it just reminds me of all the living – or whatever the undead might call it – he did before me. I chewed on the idea he had been there, long before I was born and then I said, “I know you don’t watch television. Did you ever go to the movies?” He gazed across the table at me with such a tender look, such compassion that I knew he picked up on all my mixed feelings. “I have but not often.” I had to know. “So what’s the last movie you went to see?”

“Romeo and Juliet,” Will told me, “It was the one with Leonardo Di Caprio, a modern setting with the words of Shakespeare.” His serious expression as he waited to see if that might upset me touched me deep within and I smiled, extending my fingers across the tabletop to wrap around his hand. “That figures but it came out years ago,” I said. What other movie would a Shakespeare quoting man like enough to go see but that, I thought. I should have known. “Did you like it? I did.” “Aye, I loved it.” Will said with a chuckle. “Has it been that long? I don’t suppose I’ve wanted to see anything since.” We sat, hands laced together, and I thought about the movie. Considered rather avant-garde, the modern setting complete with guns and fast cars complimented the beautiful poetic language of the Bard to perfection. You had to have a certain mind set to love it and I did. Apparently so did Will. “So we’ll go to California then,” I said. “We can do more than just go to Hollywood and we can take our time getting there. When do you want to leave?” His lips stretched out in a smile that soon turned into a grin, “I thought we would go tonight.” I opened my mouth to protest and then shut it. All we had to do was throw a few clothes into some bags, pack up the new laptop and we were good. There wasn’t anybody except Malachi to tell, no jobs to notify, nothing but the freedom to do as we pleased. We might not get too far on the long journey tonight but we would begin. “Then we’ll go,” I told him, draining my cup of coffee. “Just give me a few minutes to get ready.” Dark comes early when the calendar reads February so it was not yet eight when we left Memphis. As his big Caddy rolled across the Hernando De Soto Bridge over into Arkansas, I felt a giddy thrill. Although leaving town this way or even over the old bridge was something we did often, this marked the first time we left Memphis for a road trip together in the car. Our other trips had been in his big rig and riding in the old but perfectly restored Cadillac offered a very different experience. If his rig reminded me of sailing the ocean in a galleon or of setting sail in a multi-rigged, many sailed ship, this felt like flying or else like one of the graceful sailboats that travel the waters near

Beaumont, Texas. Will’s car skimmed over the pavement with such ease that I didn’t feel every bump and line in the road. The smooth ride was practically a Caddy trademark, one I liked. That wide front bench seat offered plenty of leg room but I scooted over next to Will, my feet stretching back toward the passenger floorboard. No matter where we were or what we did the place I craved was next to him. My laptop in a carry case reposed in the back seat along with my purse. The rest of the luggage took up a fraction of the trunk; we travel light. My stomach growled and I remember we had not taken time to eat before we left. Now I wished that we had. Either Will heard my tummy or he picked up on my need because he said, “Don’t worry, mo anam cara, I thought we would stop to eat at Forrest City if you can wait that long. It’s less than an hour away.” “I can,” I said and guessed that I could. “There’s not much between here and there anyway.” “There isn’t,” Will agreed. “Don’t worry. I’ll buy you the biggest steak you can eat when we get there.” He fed me at Forrest City, at a chain steakhouse that offered one of those mega food bars along with your meal. The steak tasted decent enough but it wasn’t quite a prime cut. “Don’t worry, Cara,” Will said as I sawed at a particularly tough end of my steak. “Tomorrow night I will take you to Cattleman’s Steakhouse in the stockyards district at Oklahoma City. The fine steak there will make up for the flaws in this one.” “That sounds good,” I said. We rounded out the rest of the meal with odds and ends pulled from the multiple food bars, piece of catfish here, a chicken drumstick, soup, a bit of salad, cheese, and dessert. After that we hit the road. We stopped in Little Rock at one of the now familiar truck plazas for fuel and then rolled on through the night, skimming over the highways with speed as music poured into our consciousness from the speakers, sustenance for the spirit. Just before daybreak we reached Fort Smith located on the far western edge of Arkansas. We traveled the empty streets, trailed past the closed for the night fast food places, the stores, and the mini-marts until we hit the motel district. Daybreak wasn’t here yet but it would come soon enough. With the car, we couldn’t just pull over and climb into the

back to sleep like we did with the truck so when he suggested we stop, I agreed. “Do you want the Motel 6 or the Best Western?” Will asked as we paused for a traffic light. “I don’t care. It depends on whether you want cheap or a little comfort.” I saw his lips curl into a smile by the dash lights. “I prefer my comforts.” We checked into the Best Western and carried our luggage to the room. I pulled the drapes against the coming dawn and we settled down for a long day’s rest. I hung out the door hanger that requested no maid service so that we would not be disturbed and climbed into bed beside Will. Although he normally slept on his back with arms folded across his chest, he turned and wrapped me in the circle of his embrace. I cuddled there, content and drifted into whatever unconsciousness we call sleep. We slept in that position until dusk, unmoving, together in every way.

Chapter Four That old genealogy bug first bit me when I was about fourteen. After almost a decade and a half of listening to family stories, my cousin and I wanted to know more so we started searching. Our first stop was the little library there in Rusk but we soon outgrew that. I had notebooks and note cards and lists and finally a little plastic file box I carried around with all the information. We gathered death certificates, a few birth records, and marriage licenses. Between us, my favorite cousin Mary and I begged or borrowed a bunch of family pictures to put in that file. After a year or so, we either got bored or researched as far back as we could go but it was fun while it lasted. Those research skills I learned back then helped me when I had to write research papers in both high school and college. When I graduated to using computers I possessed the skills I needed to research anywhere. When I woke up in that standard but sufficient motel room in Fort Smith, I set up my laptop on the small table and picked up a signal. While Will slept, I surfed the net and started making a list of every Seamus Brennan that I found. By the time he roused, I had thirty listed in places ranging from Arizona to Massachusetts. If none of them proved to be his long lost brother, then I’d start with the James, the Jims, and go on from there. I stared at the screen, intent on what I did, until I felt Will’s hands come down on my shoulders, firm yet gentle. “What are you doing, leannán?” “Finding your brother,” I said, leaning back so that he could rub my shoulders. One of his hands strayed into my hair while the other caressed my neck. “I’ve started a list of possibilities.” “That’s good,” His lips touched the back of my neck and nuzzled. It felt good, stirring my latent desire into a viable need. “You looked very sweet, so hard at work that I hated to disturb you.” Vibrant electricity lit each tiny cell of my skin with want, a delicious feeling. “I think you’re lying to me, Will Brennan,” I said, tipping back my head and shifting my back in his direction. “I think you planned to disrupt my work and distract me.”

“Do you? The better part of valor is discretion,” He answered. I did not need to turn around to catch the grin I knew flickered across his face like lightning bugs in the twilight. “I’ll take you to eat another time, mo anam cara, if you will let me love you now instead.” For once, I had a Shakespeare quote to throw back to him, one I learned from him, “If music be the food of love, play on!” “Give me excess of it,” Will quoted back to me. Just as I turned to face him, he spun me around so that I did. With a heady combination of hunger and greed, he took my mouth with his, claimed it and marked it. His lips overwhelmed my mouth and flooded it with so much sensation that I thought I might whimper aloud. With heat, his mouth burned against mine that I thought my lips would melt beneath such fire. The way he moved his mouth invoked powerful need deep within and between my legs, I felt the tell tale moisture as I softened for him. Our kisses slowed and we did not hurry this time toward the certain ending to our shared passion. He kissed me until I smoldered, until every sense felt drunken with desire and each part of me sang with need. He was naked; I was not but somehow that heightened the tension between us. I adored the silk of his bare skin against me and I think that the unusual friction of cloth between us spurred him harder. His hands worked over my body with rougher glee than usual but I gloried in it, reveled in each new wave of sensation. With unhurried steps he backed me up against the bed and let me fall backward onto it with a rush. By the time that he cupped my butt with both hands and lifted me higher, I throbbed with desire and the need for my ready emptiness to be filled. I thrashed below him; an effort to force him to give me what I required but his self-control did not waver. He teased that soft flesh between my thighs with little forays that did no more than rub with scintillating torture. Each movement brought a new level of sensuous strain until I stretched myself to meet him, difficult when he held me by the buttocks. “Do it now!” I demanded, “You’re torturing me.” His face assumed that tight look of power, a devilish male expression that he had control and planned to use it. “Aye, that’s the idea, love.” “Will, please,” I said, almost sobbing.

He grinned, features intent and then entered me halfway. Then he withdrew and repeated it. By then I wanted to beg but the kaleidoscope of sensation swept me into the swirls. A roar in my ears that reminded me of an incoming high tide deafened me to all else so I did the only thing that I could – I tightened the sides of my vagina to stroke him, to caress him until he felt the same killing need. As I squeezed, I felt his body go taut and within moments, he entered me all the way. He packed me to full capacity and I caught that soaring wave of pure gratification. I rode it, crying out with my pleasure, and listened, with more than a little satisfaction to his echoing cry. At that final moment, at the zenith point, his mouth found mine and we climaxed, mouths fused as well as our bodies. Even as the tiny aftershocks of our delight rushed over me with tremors, he kept kissing me so that the enjoyment continued until I thought I might just pass out. After that, I felt too weak to move, satisfied and filled. Will crumpled on top of me and we lay that way for far too long. He stirred and after a lazy glance at the clock beside the bed he pulled away. “It’s almost nine,” he said with surprise. “We need to go soon if we want to get on down the road.” My bones felt like they had softened in vinegar and I didn’t want to move, let alone go anyplace. “Where are we going?” I felt the bed sink down as he sat beside me. “I thought we were headed for California for a little trip, then to see if we can find Seamus. I wanted to reach Amarillo by morning if we can.” Damn. He possessed that trucker’s need to get on down the highway. Meandering wasn’t really his style and I knew it. Me, I could have languished there half the night, drove until almost dawn and been happy enough but that wasn’t going to work. “All right,” I groused, “I’ll get up.” Will smiled at me, soft and sweet, “I can no other answer make but thanks and thanks.” His quotation smoothed my momentary mood so as I rose up, I sang a few lines from a Shania Twain song, “Oh thank you baby, for lovin’ me like you do.”

Affection fired his blue eyes with such warmth that it wouldn’t have taken much to coax me into another round of loving. “Bean mo chroi, I’m glad that you do and I love you too.” He cupped his big hand to my cheek and kissed me but soft, without fire. An hour later, bellies full of a good cheeseburger from Ed Walker’s, a retro old school drive in on Towson Avenue; we headed on west into Oklahoma. On either side of I-40, the mountains and hills of Arkansas gradually flattened into prairies as if God’s mother rolled them out with a rolling pin. After our extremely sensuous lovemaking, I drifted into a contemplative mood. Will slipped a Tommy Makem CD into the stereo and the lovely music, ranging from the rollicking to the humorous to the plaintive and even sad, floated over us with near magic Will sang along to many of the ballads, something he did only when he was in the finest of moods and happy. He looked happy, his face visible in the dash lights as we rocketed along the interstate with speed. Sometimes I sang too and our voices mingled into a fullbodied blend that resonated. As he sang, I couldn’t help but notice that that faint hint of brogue in his voice expanded, brought out by the familiar sound. After about two hours, I realized that it wasn’t just the music Will enjoyed, it was the connection to his family, his brother Seamus most of all. “Will, did you sing these songs at home?” He took a hand from the steering wheel to put on my knee. “Aye, we did a few. Most of them are much newer, though, but we sang often. ‘Twas the only entertainment we had, that and the stories to keep us lively.” His nostalgic smile made me want more, “Tell me.” He said nothing for a mile or more, collecting his thoughts so that he could begin. “It was a long time ago but you know that. Toome is on Lough Neagh, the lake and even when I was a boy there, eel fishing is one of the biggest ways to make a living. My family lived just outside the village and we grew praties too on our patch of land but my da, he fished too and so did my oldest brother, Connor. My ma worked hard to take care of all of us, milk the cow, and tend the patch of ground. By night we would be so tired that we would all but fall asleep into our porridge or praties but then we would sing.

The nights that we gathered around the peat fire and sang the old songs that was the best.” The black highway ahead vanished and I could see it, a childhood so very different from my own in a long ago time. We had music, too, though, in my family and that common bond connected us despite the centuries. His words evoked that other time and place. I could hear the emotion in his voice as he spoke and realized that in a few hundred years, I might have the same wistful memories of things long gone. “My grandda told a lot of the stories,” Will continued after a pause. “He told about Cuchulain, the champion of all Ireland. He told about mermaids who came to land to live and love, about Deirdre of the sorrows, and of the Bean Sidhe who predict death. Grandda had been farther than just Toome and he gave me that wanderlust, that yearning for something more. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d never left home at all.” Some of the old tales he mentioned were ones I knew, others were strange but sometime I wanted to hear them all. “I’m glad then, he told you the stories.” His hand squeezed my knee. “Aye, me too. If you’re hungry, we can stop again in Lawton if you want.” “What about Oklahoma City?” I asked. Will laughed. “We just skirted around the edge of it, darling. Look back.” When I turned my head, I saw the bright red-tinted glow reflected against the clouds behind us. Caught up in listening to his memories, I missed Oklahoma’s biggest city and the state capitol. “Lawton’s fine,” I said, shaking my head. “I am hungry, both ways.” Will removed his hand from my knee to light a cigarillo. “I am too.” I had that feeling in my stomach that I knew meant that I needed blood. The dull ache was persistent enough that I could not ignore it. By the time we rolled down Cache Avenue in Lawton, my stomach just plain hurt and by the way that Will hunched forward, I could tell his did too. We were long overdue for donors but it shouldn’t take long or so I thought. That time, however, I was wrong. ****

Part of the trucking life had always been the music, a soundtrack that made the long miles more bearable and helped the time pass away. Since becoming he began driving a truck some decades ago, Will Brennan listened to whatever songs might be popular. Although different, the music bridged the gap between his boyhood and the present. He learned to enjoy many kinds of music, everything from the wildest hard rock to the softest country. One song stood out from those first years, One Is The Loneliest umber by a band called Three Dog Night. It could have been his theme song, he thought, when it climbed the pop charts. He wasn’t alone any longer and having his love at his side allowed him to reminisce without as much pain as before. Alone, he could not bear to remember those childhood days, the songs, or the stories. If he did, he recalled the faces and the warm atmosphere. Life had been hard but the love they all shared constant and steady. Cara evoked that sense of family again. Her folks in Texas welcomed him as their own and that meant much but even more, he could have his own again in memory. And if this search for young Seamus panned out, he might have much more than that again. If not, he had her and the music. After the solitary years, the forlorn decades and the lonesome centuries, it would be enough. But having Seamus again would be grand. He just knew better than to count on it.

Chapter Five One night on my very first trip to Nashville, I ended up in a club on the wrong side of everything, one of those down and out places where trouble brews faster than the coffee. Too many people crowded onto the tiny little dance floor that evening and I ended up trapped at my table, a drink in hand. I didn’t know anyone yet so I was all alone, my first mistake, but all I had wanted to do was check out the competition. After I realized what a dive the place really was, I knew I wouldn’t take a gig here but I couldn’t get out easy so I waited. About midnight, a lone cowboy sent me a drink over. I tried to refuse it – I may have been greener than a St. Patrick’s Day parade but I knew what accepting a drink could cost – but the waitress wouldn’t take it away. With the press of people, hot did not even begin to describe the temperature so I sipped it and he came over. I could see how drunk he was before he said a single word and when he spoke, he propositioned me in graphic terms. I said no, he said oh yeah baby. He tried to pull me up by my hand and I refused to budge. Before long, he clutched me by my hair and jerked me upright. I could see the bouncer making his way, like a barge moving over the Mississippi, but I did not wait for his help. As my hair felt like it was about to detach from my skull any second, I groped for something and found a big glass ashtray overflowing with butts. I picked it up, managed to dump it over his head, and then as he roared, I walloped him with it over the top of his head. He went down hard and fast. I didn’t wait to see what happened next. I headed for the exit with speed and never looked back. I never went to that club again and pushed it out of my head until the night we found ourselves in Lawton, Oklahoma. Lawton may be best known as the home of Fort Sill but it’s also a town in its own right. Tucked away to hell and gone in the far southwest edge of Oklahoma, it rises up out of the Great Plains country. The scenery around there looks like the backdrop for a favorite Western movie and in the Wichita Mountains land nearby, buffalo really do still roam. I had been to Lawton a few times as a kid

because one of my uncles ran a gas station there for awhile until convenience stores put most of them under. What little I remembered looked nothing like the town we entered late at night. Although there were many different businesses lining the main thoroughfare, everything from chain restaurants to discount stores and car lots, most of them were shut down for the night. By the time either Will or I realized that, we were a long way down Cache and the truck stops we passed were back at the highway. My bellyache ramped up enough that I didn’t want to back track and Will didn’t want to either. “It’ll have to be one of the bars then,” he said. “It’s not the best place but it will have to do tonight.” He sounded almost prudish about the bars and I wondered why. After all, we all but made Beale Street our own when we were at home, as comfortable in the bars and clubs there as anywhere. “Is there something wrong with the bars?” Will sighed as his hand strayed to rub his stomach. “No, there isn’t but this is a rough town with a bad reputation. It doesn’t have the same happy or party atmosphere as they do in Memphis. People drink serious here.” “Oh,” I didn’t know what to say but I understood. My experience in that Nashville dive floated to the top of my consciousness, rising up like a nasty burp. “There are many bars,” Will said, as if he thought I needed clarification (which I did). “There are bars where the Army people go, redneck bars, punk bars, cowboy bars, biker bars, gay bars, and local bars. There are places where the white collar office folks go to drink and others where the blue collar guys go to get drunk. Some of the taverns are almost like private clubs and a lot of them probably don’t think much of Native Americans.” I got it now. “So if we go into the wrong kind of place, we might be in trouble.” “Aye, we might. So we go into one, find donors and get out.” “That sounds like a plan to me.” Will took his hand from his belly to put over my hand. “Stay close, mo anam cara and I’ll keep you safe.” With so many establishments to choose from it, we could have spent hours picking one but we didn’t have time for that so Will pulled into the next big club we saw. The tires of his Caddy crunched

across the gravel parking lot as he parked the car in one of the few open spaces. We got out and I could hear the music without trying. I hated Achy Breaky Heart on general principle; hearing it now set my teeth on edge but I didn’t say anything, just let Will take my hand and lead me inside. It was a big place and in the dark, the music echoed even louder. Couples gyrated in what they called dancing and I could smell the mingled stench of stale beer, too many cigarettes, and some puke that most dives exuded. Although I could not see Will’s face, I felt his own distaste loud and clear. This would be quick and then we would go. He led me toward the back where the dark seemed even deeper and sat down at a table sticky with spilled beer. No one came to take our order which was fine with me as Will scanned the crowd looking for a pair of likely victims. Midway across the back wall I saw a short hallway that led to the restrooms and I indicated it to him with a toss of my head. He nodded and we rose in tandem to head that way. Beneath our feet the floor felt gritty with grime and when we entered the hallway, there was no light at all. Just as we did, a man came out of the men’s room; drunk enough to wobble so Will stepped forward. With his customary speed, he leaned over him and bit his neck. Drinking blood takes a very short time and it would have been over except that the guy’s buddy came out of the restroom and screeched like an owl. “What are you doing, dude?” he yelled. “Are you kissing Jeff on the neck? Gross!” Will, distracted by the feed, didn’t look up until Jeff’s pal grabbed him and punched him hard in the face. Caught by surprise, Will staggered back against the wall and before he could move, Jeff himself pounded him with his fists. I stepped forward, angry enough to use whatever power I could summon, but someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me back toward the main bar. “Let go of me!” I cried, “Will!” Will, fully in control now, shot me a glance that told me to stay put. Then, he stood up straight and tall, looking like a dark avenging angel. He backhanded Jeff with such force that he tumbled to the end of the hallway, a good ten feet away, and slammed into the back door of the place. Jeff’s friend stared at Will with open-mouthed horror but he raised his fists with drunken bravado. Before he could

step forward to hit Will – or to try – the hands that restrained me let go and a tall Native American man with a braid the length of his back knocked him to the floor. I started forward, to go to Will’s side, but a woman grasped my arm. “Just wait a minute. Let the guys sort it all out,” she said. “I’m Sharon Hawk and that’s my husband, Wesley, with the braid. I’m guessing the sexy guy in black must be yours.” I turned to face a woman older than me, face friendly and a little shopworn. “He is. I’m Cara Brennan and that’s my husband Will.” “He handles himself well,” she said with obvious appreciation. We watched together as our men tossed the two guys through the back door and came back our way. I could tell by Will’s face and the way he stood that he got enough but I still needed blood. For a moment I considered the woman beside me but she had been kind so I would have to wait. “Thanks,” I said. “Your man does too.” A sharp pain sliced through my stomach and I bent forward, one hand over my tummy. Sharon frowned. “Are you all right?” I shook my head. “I just have a bit of tummy trouble. I’ll be right back.” As I rushed into the ladies room I hoped that I would find at least one straggler and I did. Without any remorse at all, I blocked the door so she could not exit and when she finished drying her hands, I took what I needed. When I finished, I released her. She looked rattled but not upset and I don’t think she had any idea what happened. I felt that rush of strength mixed with pleasure push through my system and I stepped out into the hall, restored. Will waited and he pulled me into his arms. “Are you all right? She said you looked sick.” “I’m fine now,” I told him. “I took care of it. What about you?” He looked terrible. His right eye would soon be black and his lip seeped blood from a cut but I knew he would heal fast. If the marks didn’t vanish by morning, they would be gone when we woke tomorrow night.

“I’m fine,” he grinned. “It’s nothing that won’t heal on its own. Come on and we’ll thank the people for their help. I didn’t need it but they thought I did so it was nice of them.” We met the Hawks, Wesley and Sharon, outside in the parking lot. He looked almost as hammered as Will but he grinned as we approached. “Thank you,” Will told them, letting his voice soften into his natural brogue, something he seldom did around strangers. “I appreciate the help.” “No problem,” Wesley replied. “We’ve managed to get into a few scrapes since we got to Lawton ourselves. Are you staying here?” Will shook his head. “We’re searching for my brother and we’ve a long way to go.” The Hawks exchanged a glance. “We’re looking for our daughter. Do you think he’s here in Lawton?” Will looked at me, my cue to answer. “No, but we have some leads farther west.” “Our daughter is here,” Sharon spoke up. “We just haven’t found her yet.” “We will.” Wesley spoke with confidence. After another round of thanks and pleasantries, we went our way, they went theirs but I liked them, for whatever reason. As we climbed back into the car, Will echoed that thought. “They’re good people,” he said. “I wish them well finding their girl. Do you want some food now, Cara? I’m hungry.” “I’m starving.” We ended up at a Waffle House, eating Texas cheese steak with their signature hash browns. By the time we finished, morning loomed too close to press onward so we booked a nearby motel and settled in for the day. In that last hour before dawn, I put ice on Will’s eye and fussed over it although he laughed at me. “It will be fine in no time,” he said. “I know but I like taking care of you. It’s fun when I’m not afraid you’re dying.” That sobered and silenced us both for a few moments. Before we lay down, we planned our route for the next night. We could make Albuquerque in less than eight hours so that would be

our plan. The first Seamus Brennan I had on my list lived in Las Vegas and I told Will that. “We can go there on the way to California, then,” he said after a moment of thought. “We can be there in a couple of days. After Albuquerque, we’ll go to Kingman, Arizona and stay the day. After we get up, it’s just a couple of hours to Vegas so we’ll have plenty of time to search for him.” Although his battered face showed no emotion, I could hear the hope in his voice. To temper it, I said, “We may not find him the first time we look.” “Aye, I know.” Will peered out around the edge of the drape. “It’s nearly dawn so let’s go to bed.” I unbuttoned his shirt and slid it from him but stopped when I saw the ugly bruises on his ribs. I touched one with a feather light finger and he winced. “That must be painful. Will, are you sure you’re all right?” He nodded. “It hurts now but it will heal while I rest. Don’t worry, Cara.” I wanted to make love but now I felt afraid it might cause him pain. “I’ll try not to.” I did, though, right up until that all encompassing darkness of rest swallowed me and submerged me. One thing about being a vampire, though, is that most of the time nothing interferes with that needed rest. I knew that it could, in the extreme, but small things did not penetrate through the barrier or intrude. When I woke, I touched Will’s face and smiled. The black eye, the split lip, the bruises had vanished and when I touched his side, the skin was unmarred. He awakened at my touch, his eyes warming like sweet buns in an oven and when he smiled, he said, “Touch me some more, mo anam cara.” So I did and for once, I controlled our lovemaking. I set the pace and kept the speed, I made it soft and gentle. As Will lay still, I used my hands, fingertips most of all, to evoke sensation from his skin, his nipples, and his sex. I played him like the piano I once had, a small spinet that I learned the basics of music upon and the tune I made, he liked. After our tender lovemaking, we got up, went to grab something to eat at the nearby Waffle House and headed for New Mexico in sync, as one.

As we trekked across the wide open plains, traveling across the panhandle of my native Texas, I thought about our trip so far. It had not been so very different than the truck runs we often made except we were more limited. In the truck, we could travel until just before daybreak but in the car, we had to think ahead because we might be somewhere without lodging if we didn’t pay attention. I enjoyed it, though, but I felt eager to move on to Las Vegas, then California. At Tucumcari we stopped at a diner for another meal. Despite the early morning hour, almost every table, stool, and booth in the place filled with customers. We took the last booth and ordered coffee while we looked over the menus. So much variety made my appetite dwindle rather than increase but we settled on breakfast – bacon, eggs, potatoes and biscuits for me and steak for Will. His steak and eggs looked more appealing than my meal when it arrived but it tasted good and so we ate, making small talk about the trip so far. Our conversation shifted toward his brother and I scribbled a few notes on a clean napkin. Next time I thought I would bring the laptop inside with me. “Do you remember when his birthday was?” I asked. Will snorted. “I don’t. No one celebrated them like people do now. I think it might have been in the spring but I’m not sure. That may have been Aidan. Why?” “If he still uses the same one, it could help narrow down which Seamus Brennan could be your brother,” I said. “He may not, though. When is your birthday, Will? I just realized that I don’t know.” That felt funny. I loved this amazing, unique man and had no clue when he celebrated this birthday. He didn’t know mine, either, so at least we were square on that. “I was born on the 18th of July,” he told me. “When were you born?” Thank God I had not missed his birthday yet or he mine. I don’t know why it mattered, really, but it did. “April 27.” His smile spread across his face like warm butter on a gooey cinnamon roll, just as sweet. “Good. When it’s my birthday, you can make me a cake. I’ve never had a cake for my birthday and I might like it.”

I slid my foot over beneath the table and let it rub against his leg. “I’ll let Mama bake you a cake. Hers is probably better than mine anyway.” Will laughed; we finished our meal and hit the road. If we hadn’t we might have had to stay the night there in Tucumcari. One more touch and it would have been a sure thing. Two days, one night later, after a motel off I-40 in Albuquerque and another in Kingman, we headed for Las Vegas up Highway 93. We would travel past and over Hoover Dam but in the dark, we wouldn’t see much if anything. After a meal in some diner with a Route 66 theme, we set off. I felt somehow like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz embarking on that quest to find the Wizard. The country we traveled looked as barren as I imagined the moon must be, rocky and lonely, not lush and lovely like the Land of Oz. We had no scarecrow or Tin Man or lion to guide or amuse us along the way but that was okay, we had each other. No matter what direction you enter from, Vegas looms out of the desert like the Emerald City. I could see the neon looming ahead for miles before we rolled into town and the vivid colors light up the night sky with such a festive mood that I felt happy. Maybe we would find Seamus here; if not, we would have fun. I could feel it, like little effervescent bubbles in my soul. On my one other Vegas trip, my college roommate and I headed out over a long weekend, spent most of it driving, and stayed at a chain motel off the strip. We were barely old enough to be legal in the casinos but we hopped from one to another over one memorable night. That had been six years ago and as we rolled down the Strip, I could see that it might as well have been a lifetime. In Vegas, six months is enough to change the scenery; six years is like an eternity. “Where are we going to stay?” I asked, peering through the ever present throngs of tourists on foot and the heavy traffic. I saw the classic Caesar’s Palace, the Excalibur, New York, New York rising out of the background. Anyone of them would be fine with me. “We’ll stay at the Venetian,” Will said, naming one of if not THE swankiest hotel and casino of them all. “I thought you didn’t like fancy,”

“I don’t, not particularly,” he replied with a grin. “But they have in suite dining 24 hours a day, darlin’, which comes in handy. I can put up with a little grandness for that.” When I walked into our suite, which ranked among the smallest that the all suite hotel offered, I decided that I could too. I wouldn’t want much more upscale, though. The roomy suite featured a king-sized bed and a sunken living room two steps below the bedroom and bath. A sectional gold couch made a perfect L-shaped retreat and a dining table for two sat before a beautiful arched window that looked out over the busy Strip. There was also a desk and one of the two huge televisions that were part of the décor. I peeked into the bathroom to see the tub, glass shower, and twin vanities with a smile. “I could get used to this, Will,” I said with a little laugh. Although I liked it fine, I teased because I preferred things simple. Our house back in Memphis might be more than a little ornate but it didn’t reek with luxury like this place. “I just don’t think I want to.” “Good.” He flopped down on the fancy couch. “Now tell me where this Seamus Brennan might be found so we can go see if he’s my brother or not.” I reached for the notebook where I detailed all the Seamus Brennans found so far and opened it with a nervous flutter in my stomach. Within the next few hours, we would either find his missing sibling or mark one of the names from the list. Either way it would be progress of a sort.

Chapter Six Although I billed myself as a singer long ago, I had a few other jobs to earn my living along the way. That first summer after I decided I endured enough college I found a job selling coupon books for a radio station in one of the little towns between Rusk and Dallas. It ranked just above a scam because for $29.95, all the buyer got was a paper book with coupons for things like a free bowling game or a dozen free donuts when you bought a dozen, and a couple of buy one, get one free meals at area greasy spoon restaurants. We picked up the phone countless times during our shifts to call the unsuspecting potential customers and I hated it. I didn’t like phoning blind numbers, never knowing in advance if I would wake someone’s baby that just went down for a nap, interrupt a night worker’s day sleep, bother someone who was sick, barge into the middle of a favorite soap opera or disrupt the best sex ever. Because of that, I didn’t last long at the job and I developed a healthy, strong dislike of cold calling for any reason. The tight feeling carried over into my early auditions and each time I step onto a new stage, I get it too. I’m not shy but I hate cold calling, startling strangers for the first time. As I told Will what few details I knew about this Las Vegas Seamus who might or might not be his brother, I felt that old anxiety rising inside, like the wind in advance of a storm. “He works at a big medical center here,” I told Will as he sprawled out on the long sofa. “What does he do there?” he asked, his face poker playing bland. “He’s a night pharmacy tech. That’s one reason, besides his name, that I thought he might be the one we want.” “Aye, he would have to work only at night if it is,” Will said, sounding very pragmatic. I noticed, however, that the beverage he sipped had a base of his favorite John Jameson’s, a sure indication that his nerves jangled. “Let’s go out and see, then.” I glanced up at an ornate clock that graced one wall. “It’s just eleven thirty. Do you want to eat first?”

He sat up straight and drained his glass. “I would rather see it through first, mo anam cara and then either be happy or not.” I rose and walked over to him so that I could take the glass from his hand. I placed it on one of the expensive little occasional tables in the suite and put my hand beneath his chin. “Promise me you won’t be upset if this isn’t your brother,” I said as I stared into those blues eyes and almost drowned in their depths. “It would be some kind of miracle if we found him on the first try.” Will slipped his face out of my grasp and pulled me onto his lap. “It will be some class of miracle if we find him at all, woman. I know that very well.” I relaxed against the arm he cradled me with and looked up, wanting him. I inhaled his very masculine scent, one peculiar to him that affected me like an enchantment. That tempting aroma was somehow quintessential Will Brennan and it worked like an aphrodisiac. I let my right hand stray into his hair, enjoying the feel of his curls against my hand and the sensation of his cool skin beneath my sensitive fingertips. A fine vibration went through Will at my touch and I thought that maybe he wouldn’t be in such a rush to go out now. The night stretched out before us, young and long. We had time so I promised myself that we would take it. Even as my right hand stroked his curls and slipped around to caress the nape of his neck, I let my other hand stray downward to the crotch of his black jeans. I squeezed with a gentle motion and felt his cock respond. Will made a small sound, not quite a grunt, not really a groan and with a soft shine in his eyes, he pulled me tighter against his chest to kiss me. I could taste the full bodied barley whiskey on his lips, pleasant and warm in contrast to his natural coolness. His lips danced across my mouth with graceful precision and I followed his lead, kissing him back with the same slow build-up. I felt pleasure begin at my mouth and travel outward, down through my body creating soft waves of sweetness that reached my inner core. Although he began with measured pace, I thought he probably had drunk enough whiskey that he would soon forget any pretence at restraint. My body quickened at the thought and I wanted him hot, hurried, and needy. As I strained closer to him, my body arching like a cat as I sought to ignite a fire that would consume us both, Will

shifted from his quiet lovemaking into wildness. His mouth no longer danced but attacked with force, kissed with such power that I felt my lips bruise beneath his and gloried in it. As he used my lips with skill and urgency, he undid my blouse with one hand and shucked it off. The thin bra I wore followed and when I felt his fingers working the zipper of my jeans, I thought for a moment I might come now, way too soon. I wanted that release but I also need the pleasure to last so I steeled myself to hold on, to resist. He undid the pants and pulled them down with such force that I thought he might rip them. In the same spirit, I undid the pearl snaps of his western shirt with enough speed that one ripped free of the cloth and pinged to the carpet with a small sound. Through his rising excitement, I heard him chuckle and then he applied himself to the present task. As he moved his mouth from my lips to the tender spot at the base of my throat, I rubbed both hands over his chest. His nipples hardened at my touch and I kneaded them with powerful strokes. I loved when he did it to me and it seemed to please him too judging by the shudder that shook his frame. Will put his mouth over my nipple and suckled until I writhed with delight. Then he used his teeth, the sharp fangs to bite with such delicate strokes that he did not break the skin but sent spirals of pleasure through me that rocked me to my core. He changed sides and did the same to the other nipple until I thought I would faint. The physical bliss expanded around me until I could think of nothing but the coming climax. He owned me and he used me. I felt helpless, unable to pleasure him because the joyful hymn that my body sang wiped everything else away but what I felt. He took me with a powerful thrust that made me cry out with delight and then I shuddered my way to a climax that staggered all my senses. He fused my mind and body together with his in a union so profound that it left me speechless afterward, unable to do anything but lie still in his arms. He had made love to me in his lap, in his embrace and I reveled in it. He cuddled me close afterward and I burrowed against him, content and boneless. We remained that way for what felt like all night but could not have been long because when we did stir, less than an hour had passed.

In unspoken accord we showered, together, and put on clean clothing before we ventured out into nighttime Las Vegas, that brilliant rainbow of artificial light and pseudo magic on our mission to find Seamus Brennan, the brother he had not seen for more than two hundred years.

Chapter Seven Although Will knew his way around Vegas, away from the Strip and the night life, he relied on the directions I wrote down from the internet to find the medical center. When we located it, it loomed large like a fortress or miniature city in the city, one of the biggest hospitals I had ever seen. Even at the late hour, it buzzed with activity like a hive of bees and as we approached, I got that familiar old twist in my midsection that hospitals always give me. As we entered, all I could smell was some sweet air freshener but I still cringed, expecting that traditional stench that combined rubbing alcohol with some disinfectant, blood, sweat, and old urine into a hospital rank smell I hated. Little hospitals tend to have it more than the mega sized medical centers but I hate it and always will. Beside me, with my hand tucked into his, I felt Will’s tension. “Don’t you like hospitals either?” I whispered, feeling that I had to keep my voice down even though we were nowhere near any of the patients. “I don’t much,” he said, head turned back to answer. “They always seem like a place for the sick and dying.” “Well, they are.” I thought that was obvious. “Aye, I know that,” he said with a faint hint of exasperation. “They remind me of pest houses and places where pestilence thrived. I was born after the great Famine but my ma talked of such place and I have a horror of them. Even when they look clean and well-lit, I still hate them.” “I do, too.” “Then let’s do this and either find my brother or not so we can go somewhere else.” We had to ask where for the pharmacy and although we were assured that it had closed some hours earlier, we insisted on directions. When we found it, the window for sales was shuttered but we waited. “What do we do now?” Will asked. The way his fingers fidgeted, I could tell he wanted a cigarillo. I felt nervous, too. “I guess we knock on the door and ask,” I said, my palms moist. “I don’t know any other way to do it.”

We exchanged a long glance and then Will stepped around to the door that led back into the pharmacy itself, one marked ‘private’. He rapped at it hard and within moments, a harried looking woman in a white lab coat opened the door with a frustrated face. “We’re closed,” she snapped and turned to go but Will spoke. Like everyone and everything else, she paused, charmed in spite of herself by his mesmerizing voice. “I’m sorry to trouble you so late and all,” he began in a voice that would melt ice at the heart of a glacier. “But I’ve come a long way in search of my brother. His name is Seamus Brennan and I understand you have a technician by that name.” “We do,” she said, hands fluttering up to smooth down her flyaway hair. “Wait just a moment and I’ll call him up here.” Each second that we waited stretched into what felt like hours, each one as slow and torturous as a dripping faucet. I linked my arm through Will’s for moral support and he stood straight as a yardstick, still as the western sky before a breaking storm. When a man approached, he stiffened and long before he reached us, Will looked at me and shook his head. He didn’t have to – I could already guess that the balding, forty-something short, round man wasn’t his brother. “Hi, I’m Seamus Brennan,” the man said. He looked puzzled and I could understand why; two strangers appeared out of the night, one of them dressed all in black and asked for him by name. Even by Las Vegas standards, it had to feel a little strange. After a pause, Will stretched out his hand to shake, “My name is Will Brennan. I’m trying to find my younger brother, Seamus. We parted company a few years back but I’m afraid we’ve made a mistake.” This Seamus Brennan’s face relaxed. I don’t know if he thought we were bill collectors, enforcers for a gambling mobster, or just two weirdoes, but now that he knew our purpose he had nothing to fear from us. “Oh.” Relief shimmered across his face. “That’s no problem. It’s sure not me. I was an only child but I hope you find your brother.” “Aye,” Will said, in a tone dry enough to make me thirsty. “I hope so too.”

With speed, we trailed our way back to the entrance and outside where the cool night air felt like a blessing. “I’m sorry, Will,” I said as we reached the car. He had not said a word since leaving the pharmacy. “Aye, I am a bit myself but I didn’t let myself hope much.” He slid behind the wheel and reached for a smoke. As he lit it, I could see his profile framed against one of the parking lot vapor lights, as chiseled and beautiful as a classic statue. Although he kept his tone mild, I thought that he had hoped more than he wanted to admit. I scooted across the seat beside him and put my hand on his thigh. “Honey, we will find him. I really didn’t think we would do it first time out.” I wanted to offer both comfort and hope. “What do you want to do now?” “Let’s go gamble.” I loved gaming with Will. I felt a smile stretch over my lips and said, “Sure.” We gambled up and down the Strip in casinos both huge and tiny with stakes ranging from a few dollars to thousands. Despite any lingering disappointment that we had not located his brother on the first attempt, Will’s magic mojo brought him win after win until his pockets and my purse bulged with cash. He let me spend some of it but as usual, I lost almost all of it. After several hours, conscious that the ever-present eye in the sky must be watching Will by now, we called it a night and headed back to our suite at The Venetian. In-suite dining provided us with a small feast; shrimp cocktail for two, a delicious Tuscan salad, rib eye steaks cooked to tender perfection, and a red Pinot noir wine. We ate with hunger and with appreciation for the fine cuisine. Most of all, we ate basking in each other’s company, making small talk and some serious talk as well. We lingered over the table until the early hours, the period when morning begins to beckon in the east and our kind must think about retiring before the sun rises. “Are we leaving tonight?” I asked. “No, darling, we’ll stay for another before we go to California.” Will said, rising. I felt a frown wrinkle my face. “Why? I don’t think you should gamble again. I imagine you’re under scrutiny now.”

He laughed and grinned at me, that certain smile that makes something inside me soften and ache for him. “I’ve won enough but I have something else in mind. It’s a surprise, Cara, one I think you’ll like.” He hooked me with that faster than a spinner with a skirt behind can catch a bass. “Okay. There is something else I would like, though, Will.” He arched an eyebrow. “Is there then?” I stole his word and used it, “Aye.” I stood up and faced him, body tingling with anticipation. He bent to kiss me; his lips molded to mine like an artist’s hands using clay. With similar skill, he made that flesh shape to his kiss and awakened the yearning need never far from the surface. With infinite tenderness and rising heat, he kissed me into passion, let it grow and expand until it became a living force that filled my personal universe with such immense size that it must release. His fingers formed everything he touched into a sensual masterpiece and when he brought every sense, physical, mental, and emotional into a simmering boil, he freed me at the same time I gave him his release. He brought me home and came with me, restoring the balance between us, erasing any lingering hurt that the man we met was not his brother, and all was well with the world once more. The words of Shakespeare’s that Will whispered echoed my thoughts, from what I thought was Romeo and Juliet, “Come what sorrow can, it cannot countervail the exchange of joy.” I savored that truth as we retired, in one accord and with all the love that ever lived within us both, tempered with joy. **** In that pest house, in that place of sickness and death, he thought he might swoon with wanting, not the physical desire he knew all too well, but with hope. Twelve months ago, Will would have never hoped for anything but his woman restored that hope to him, with joy and with love. He had forgotten, though, how hope deferred could hurt until the man who went by the same name as his brother met them. He remembered well enough how his brother, nay how all his brothers looked, and in the first moment, he knew this was not his kinsman. Although he tried hard not to expect to find Seamus so

easily, he had still hoped. He tried to hide his disappointment from Cara but she knew, just as she sensed his every emotion and thought. It had just been during that haunted, terrible Sallie period that he tried to block her from his consciousness and he missed her constant presence within when he had. Their search stretched before them long and possibly fruitless but for that slight chance, that mere possibility, he ached to pursue the quest. He must just try not to allow himself such expectations. If he expected nothing, then maybe he could find the happiness he sought. In the meantime, he had his Cara, his soul mate and love.

Chapter Eight Although winter in Texas doesn’t usually get as cold or have as much snow as the far Northern states like Montana or Minnesota, there are enough gray days to drive you to distraction if you let it. Besides being very fond of singing that old song, You Are My Sunshine to evoke warmer days, my Granny Riley liked to do what she called “sun bathe” in the winter. Halfway up her narrow staircase a diamond shaped window let the morning sun stream in because it faced east. She would led me to that spot and we would sit on a stair, butt to butt, and let that warm golden light wash over us with pure happiness. I always had that same comforting feeling when I felt the summer sunshine beat down on all but the very hottest days. Something about the sun bursting out of the clouds after a long gray stretch of days or a rainstorm always perked up something inside of me. I gave up that particular pleasure when I became a vampire and although I don’t regret my choice, I sometimes think about sunshine. I don’t say anything about it to Will because he knows and probably, even after hundreds of years, feels the same. When we roused up that next evening, I remembered that he planned a surprise for me so that eager twitching anticipation gave me little champagne thrills. I dressed with speed and so did he. “Come on, mo anam cara,” he said. “I don’t you to miss this and it doesn’t last all night.” “What are we doing?” I asked, “Are we dining?” “No, we’re going shopping.” I halted and tugged at his hand in mine. “Did you say shopping? You hate shopping.” Will chuckled. “Aye, that’s true but I’ll like this and so will you.” Since the Venetian and all its many perks remained brand new to me I had no idea what to expect until we reached the Grand Canal shops. As we entered the Indoor Canals, I noticed that the quality of light shifted to a brighter hue and Will nudged me, pointing up. When I looked that direction, I gasped with wonder because I gazed at a bright blue, sunny sky with a few drifting clouds. I realized it could

not be real or we would be suffering but it looked so genuine that I wanted to cry. “Oh, Will,” I snuffled. “It’s like being outside in the sunshine.” He cradled me with one arm. “Aye, it is. I thought you would like it. I can’t give you the real sun but I can share this with you. Let’s make the most of it - it’s only open until eleven tonight.” So for the first time ever, we strolled arm in arm through pseudo sunlight, loving every golden kissed moment even if it no more than illusion. We rode the very real gondolas along the canals, much cleaner than I have heard the ones in Venice are, just for fun. We did shop, a little, and we stopped to eat a brief meal but most of the time, we walked up and down. Never before had I seen Will by anything resembling daylight and to me, he resonated just as much male beauty and sexy appeal as he did by night. He caught plenty of passing glances and more than a few stares but to be fair, I did too. His pallor stood out, ghost white pale, but not so much as to seem weird. If anything, the curious might think he must be recovering from some accident or illness, which in truth, he was. Being pale, though, had nothing to do with that - it was his natural complexion. Against the shimmer of his black hair and those marvelous blue eyes, his skin shone like pearls. I lifted my left hand to touch his cheek and the faux sunlight sparkled off my diamond rings like lovely, eldritch fire. He covered my hand with his own and we stood, facing each other, there in the cobblestoned lane. “I like your surprise,” I said, my voice just above a whisper. “But I love you, Will Brennan.” “Do you then?” he asked as if there were really any question. “The fact that you do matters more to me than anything ever has or ever did. I love you, too, mo anam cara.” He kissed me there, oblivious to anyone who passed, ignoring the shoppers and the gondola boats and everything but me. His love filled me with a heady, complete joy despite the occasional hardships like doing without sunlight but the perks more than made up for anything lost. I think he would have taken me there, without caring, if I let him but they would have booted us out so I made the grown-up choice to wait. As we walked, Will shared his thoughts with me.

“I like the way that the sunshine dapples your hair with light,” he said, running an appreciative hand through my hair. “It’s pretty. I have to indulge in a bit of fantasy and think this is how it would be if we were not creatures of the night. We would be a couple who could walk in the sun without fearing it. It would be nice, aye?” “It would,” I said, as unexpected tears tightened my throat. “But if we were normal people, we would have just a lifetime and not forever together. I like forever and I traded sunlight for it so I could be with you.” “You did,” he admitted. “Do you ever regret it, Cara?” I could answer that with complete honesty. “Never and I won’t. If I have you, Will, then night is more than enough.” I said it and meant it with fake sunshine shining from a painted sky. “Good,” His voice deepened with a combination of satisfaction and emotion. “I don’t think that it is for many like us.” He spoke of other vampires with such simple ease that I shuddered. After our extreme experience with Sallie Hawkins, so far the only other vamp I met in the flesh, I couldn’t help but be wary about others like us. Although I felt eager to find Seamus, I balked at the thought of other blood-sucking creatures because I remembered Will’s discussion of how all vampires were not the same. “Are there others here?” I asked, as some of my calm happiness at the sunshine drained away. Will nodded. “Aye, in Las Vegas there always are some. It’s one place where something happens twenty-four hours a day. In many of the casinos and other venues, it’s hard to tell if it’s day or night so it’s a place to come.” It made sense but I hadn’t considered it until now. “I knew you had been here before.” “I have.” he said. “I never enjoyed it so much until you are with me but I’ve been here, sometimes on a truck run, sometimes just to come.” Once again, the idea of his long past held up in comparison to my relatively short existence pricked me like a sharp pin. “You never said anything about it being a vampire hot spot.” He picked up on my hurt feelings and wrapped me in his arms again. “There was no reason to do so, mo anam cara.”

I thought differently but I didn’t want to fight or fuss with him. “Are there other vampires here now? How can you tell?” Will drew me to a bench and we sat down. “Watch the people, Cara and see if you can tell me.” I observed but with the kind of diverse crowd that Vegas draws I could not tell the Goths from real vampires or the simply strange from the undead. After fifteen minutes I sighed and gave up. “I can’t. Tell me, Will.” He pointed out a woman in her mid-thirties, pretty in a porcelain doll way, with ivory skin and hair so blonde it looked platinum. “She’s one. I’ve seen her here on and off for years. I don’t recall her name but we’ve talked once or twice.” I stared at her and after he pointed it out, I could see some of the tell tale signs. She had the pale skin but she also had the witch walk, the animal prowl and the charisma that went along with it. “Okay. Who else is one?” By the time we left, a short time before the Grand Canal closed for the night, Will indicated a half-dozen other vampires. Some, like him, wore all black but others appeared ordinary until you looked hard and close. I realized that if they could pass beneath the bright, artificial light that maybe we did too. By then, I could spot most of them too – they moved lithe as cats in a room full of clumsy dogs. Until then, there were those odd moments when I thought people, real human people, must peg us for what we were but now I realized that they probably did not. “Do they recognize what we are?” I asked Will as we exited the Grand Canal and went outside into the Nevada night. “Aye, most of them do.” He paused to light a cigarillo. “They won’t try to chat though unless we seem willing. It’s kind of an unwritten code. Because vampires do come here, though, is one reason I thought maybe Seamus would be here. I don’t know it for fact but I would guess there must be some who live here for the same reason that they come to play.” By then we were out on the Strip, moving among the crowds of tourists who walked up and down through the neon lights. I liked the place but it wasn’t anything I would want on a permanent basis. “I wouldn’t want to live here.” “Neither do I.” Will said, with a pull on his smoke. “Let’s go eat something larger. I’m starving.”

We ended up at the America restaurant at New York, New York where a huge map of the United States dominated one end of the place. Instead of steak, we ate old-fashioned pot roast with mashed potatoes, gravy, and vegetable. It tasted good but Will, now spoiled by Mama’s home cooking, vowed hers outranked them and I had to agree. After that, we wandered over to Nine Fine Irishmen, a bar, where we drank until they got ready to close down the place. We still had at least two hours until dawn so when I felt that nagging little feeling in my stomach, I knew it wasn’t indigestion but need. I glanced at Will and he nodded. Finding donors seemed easy but we soon learned that cutting a stray off from the herd could be harder than I thought it would be. We ended up crawling several of the casinos until in the dim, smoky setting; we each found a likely person and took our fill from them. Afterward, by the time we walked back to the Venetian, the eastern sky no longer held the full darkness of night so we picked up our pace so we could reach our suite before dawn. I pulled the drapes against the coming day, noting that sometime during the night, the maids must have been in to straighten and supply the suite. Will poured us each a glass of a dark, sweet red wine and we sipped it. When our glasses stood empty, he came to me and in slow measure; he removed my garments, one by one. Against my skin, his hands moved with the light grace of a ballet dancer and with the softness of fluffy clouds in a rich blue sky. I gloried in his touch, so sweet and yet sensual and it kindled my desire. I unsnapped his shirt and pulled it from his broad shoulders, tossing it to the floor with careless abandon. He wore nothing beneath it so my fingers unzipped his jeans, tugged them down to reveal nothing but Will Brennan. He stroked my skin with that same gossamer touch and I felt the prickling delight spread across my skin until I ached with almost unbearable pleasure. I wanted to give him the same so I knelt before him and took his manhood into my mouth. As I suckled him like a Popsicle on a summer’s day, I let my tongue tease his cock. I felt him grow both longer and harder as I used my mouth to rouse his passion, his pleasure becoming my pleasure too. His hands grasped gentle into my hair as he held me steady as I mouthed him. When I felt the first fine tremor shoot through his body, I released him. Will scooped me into his arms and carried me the few

steps to the bed. He put me down and then he covered me with his body, entering me at the same time. I jumped at entry, my body rising upward to meet his, greedy and needy at the same time. As he pumped his power, his essence into me, I strained against him, giving him the friction he needed to hit that full stride of ultimate pleasure. His hoarse outcry of triumph resonated through me even as my own moan joined it as we made music together, joined as one. Still connected, we settled into a tangled mess of covers before separating so that we could rest, in harmony and filled with the overwhelming power of love. As I drifted out of consciousness, I let one hand stray so that it touched him because I needed that physical confirmation of his presence while I endured the dreamless day. With the combined blessings of faux sunshine and genuine lovemaking, I felt very good and happy as dawn devoured the night and I went to my rest.

Chapter 'ine I could navigate my way around most big cities. The infamous roundabouts in Nashville never fazed me much although I had friends who would go around and around the circle like it was a merry-go-round or something, unsure just how or when to exit. I could drive and drive well in just about any major metro area you could name but when I trekked out to LA on my single California dreaming trip, I freaked out when I got to the edge of the city. Everyone I knew tried to tell but I didn’t grasp it until I saw it for myself. As I rolled in out of the desert, I came to a place where several major roads funneled into one. When I saw those multiple – like ten or more lanes for each side of the divided highway – roads converge, I thought I might just suffer my first panic attack. To get a grip on my nerves and to get some bearing, I rolled my beat-up International Scout pickup to a stop on the shoulder and stared. Somewhere along the way from Texas I lost my maps and so I had to wing it to find my way. After a few moments of silence, a little desperate prayer, and some soul-searching to find enough courage to do it, I pulled out into traffic and drove with the rest of the vehicles into the snarled mess they call freeway traffic out there. I kept up but the speed I had to maintain but it terrified me. This time, I rode shotgun in a vintage, mint condition black 1959 Cadillac Sedan De Ville with Will Brennan at the wheel. Since my Will proved to be one of the best drivers I ever rode beside, with nerves of steel and total control, I had no fear when we winged our way into the greater LA area at a high rate of speed. After the twohour trek across the dark desert from Las Vegas, we entered LA before midnight. I had no fear riding with Will and the only thing that surprised me was how much traffic still raced at that time. “Do you know how to get to Hollywood from here?” I asked, cozy against Will with the familiar strains of Johnny Horton’s rockabilly on the stereo. Will liked my hometown hero’s music just fine and told me that he’d even seen Johnny – whose family around Rusk called Gale – on stage performing at The Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport. “Aye, woman, I do.” he said, “We’ll go find someplace to stay and then you can take me out on your Hollywood Boulevard and the Sunset Strip.”

I laughed. With his overwhelming sense of smoldering sensual appeal and lithe grace, Will might attract a crowd who could mistake him for the current hot leading man. Of course, if what he kept telling me was true, I just might be pegged as a movie star myself. I had no ambitions to act but the idea that someone might mistake me for a screen idol flattered. We checked into a chain hotel not far from Hollywood Boulevard, a Best Western framed by tall palms. Prices must be affordable by Hollywood standards but they had a whirlpool suite vacant and we took it. After we dumped our gear into the basic but attractive room, plain after the opulence at the Venetian, we headed out to Hollywood Boulevard. Every famous street or venue has a personality; this did too. I walked these streets alone once before but with Will at my side, I felt taller, sexier, and cooler in a very awesome way. Crowds of tourists, some the quintessential travelers in their Bermuda shorts and loud Hawaiian shirts, filled the sidewalks even though for most, it must be the middle of the night. Back home in their small towns or suburban neighborhoods, they would have been tucked into bed hours earlier but here, they wanted a bite of the Hollywood apple so they walked. We moved among them and I heard a few excited whispers. Will, dressed all in black, cut a swath all his own and since I’d donned both sunglasses and my new denim jacket, bought in a Vegas boutique with Will’s winnings, I looked sharp. Since the jacket boasted white leather fringe trim, it looked somehow both Western and eclectic, trippy enough for LA and I loved it. So we caught the stares and the comments. If Will even noticed, he offered no comment and I wondered just how many crowded streets in what exotic places he wandered in his time. Because of Sallie Hawkins, I seldom liked to think about his English years but now, curious, I imagined him in a street setting like I’d seen in Oliver Twist, that old 1960’s musical. “Have you always worn black or is that a newer thing?” I asked, the question popping out of my thoughts like a jack-in-the box. Any other man I’d known would have thought it both strange and frivolous to ask like that but he didn’t. “I had a huge black cloak when I was a highwayman,” Will answered, with some nostalgia judging by the faraway smile that flirted with his lips. “I swooped down on travelers like some giant

black bird. That’s where it began. Over time, I added other black garments and long before Johnny Cash became known as ‘the man in black’, I already was one. I thought black suited my night existence.” “It does,” I said. “And it suits you too. You look good in black, very handsome, very sexy.” He liked the compliment. “Do I?” “You know you do.” Will laughed a genuine laugh that broadened his mouth and echoed over the heads of the tourists like music. “Aye, I suppose that I do. I knew it the night that I met you, leannán.” Unless something unexpected happened to me, I figured that I would feel the same sweet melting within when I thought about that first encounter for all eternity. “So did I.” I linked my arm through his and by then, we were at the Chinese Theater. I slowed to a crawl so we could read the famous names on the Walk of Fame. I chattered away about each one, tossing out little trivia tidbits and Will humored me, pretending interest when I knew he really didn’t care. We followed a pair of tourists from far away back to their parked car on a quiet side street, and took a blood donation without any difficulty at all. After that, we popped in and out of some of the cheesy little souvenir shops. I sent some postcards home to my family, one to Malachi too. We laughed over the cheap junk sold in the shops, virtually the same in all of them and I bought a T-shirt for my sister who collects funky tees from everywhere. “I’m hungry,” he announced as we exited one more tourist trap shop. “Let’s find somewhere to get a hamburger.” “Sounds good,” I said as we walked on. I could smell the enticing aroma coming from Juicy Hamburgers so we went inside for a burger. We waited, with little patience, in the crowded and small dining area but when we got our food, it tasted good enough to make the wait worthwhile. Midway through the meal while seated a table so small that our knees touched beneath it, Will stopped, burger in hand, with a faraway stare. I paused in mid-natter. “Will?” My chest tightened for a moment because his distraction reminded me too much of the way he acted when he first felt Sallie

Hawkins’ negative presence reaching into his consciousness but he didn’t look scared, sick, or afraid, just dreamy. “Aye, Cara?” “What is it?” I asked, “You look like you saw a ghost or something.” Will grinned, his expression restoring his face to normal as the faraway look faded. “That’s close enough,” he said, wonderment touching his voice. “I got a flicker, just a faint little flash of Seamus. I could feel him. ‘Twas the first time, ever and so it felt strange. Good but odd.” His delight flared like summer lightning, brilliant and quick, between us and I smiled. No matter what he said to the contrary, I knew how very much he wanted to find his brother. “I’m glad, Will. What was it like? I mean did you see him or just feel him? He wolfed down the last third of his burger in a huge bite and swallowed before he replied, “It’s a bit of both. I felt him and I recognize his personality which gives me hope that he’s not changed beyond all recognition but I saw him too, just a glimmer.” “Could you tell where he was?” If he saw anything to narrow down the location, it might save us days or weeks or even months of searching. “He was onstage,” Will told me. “I think he was singing.” “Really?” That intrigued me, a singer myself. “Do you think it was out here, in LA or California someplace?” He shook his head. “No, somehow I don’t. I could be wrong but he felt distant.” I sighed; I hoped for somewhere nearby or at least within the state. It was, however, a start and he seemed happy enough about the experience. “I guess there weren’t any clues to where it could be.” “No, it was just a small stage in a small theater.” That could be anywhere, I thought, in any auditorium or theater any place from New York to some tiny town. “Well, I have that list of places to narrow it down,” I said with cautious hope. “We can find him, honey. Maybe you’ll get more flashes with better clues.” “Aye, that would be good if I do. Do you think it’s strange I should feel him? I never did before.”

I pondered that as I chewed another bite of burger. “No, it’s not really. Will, until not long ago, you had no idea he was alive so you wouldn’t have noticed it even if you did. You would have just figured you were thinking about him.” He nodded. “That makes some sense.” “Mama always says if she thinks about somebody, she’ll probably hear from them and she usually does. It’s like she somehow calls them and they respond without ever realizing it. Maybe it’s like that with Seamus. You’re thinking of him now, a lot, and so it reached him, somehow. He thinks that you’re dead so if anything, he thinks it’s just memory but it’s more than that. He just doesn’t know yet.” “You make it all make sense,” he said, with a smile. “If you’re finished, we can go whenever you’re ready.” I swallowed the last bit of meat and their fabulous buns. “I’m ready now.” Back out on the famous Boulevard, the crowds thinned out as morning approached. By the time we left Juicy Hamburgers, the place was about to close and after we walked the blocks back to our hotel, dawn seemed imminent but it was hard to tell what was an actual glow in the east, what might just be the many lights of LA reflected against the clouds. I knew he thought about his brother and so did I, wondering just when and where we might find Seamus. We walked hand in hand in the pre-dawn milk light, pensive but in accord. Once we reached our suite, however, Will’s priorities shifted. “Love is begun by time,” he quoted from Hamlet, “and time qualifies the spark and fire of it.” I cited him back lyrics from the Pointer Sisters, an old 70’s tune that I liked, one I’d quoted from before because it so fit how Will could make me feel. “Then burn me with fire,” I said. Will seared me with that look of his that consumes and commands at the same time. His lips sought mine as if he thirsted and they offered water. He drank of me and I sipped from the cup of his mouth, a vessel that held heated passion that affected me like the finest wine. As we kissed, I loved the way that heat crept over me with slow tread, heavy and yet soft like the warmth of a hot Texas afternoon. As I yielded to it, I felt my nipples harden even as my

other parts softened, moist and ready for what would come. His hands and mine intertwined to pull my shirt off. It flew into a corner, unwanted and I stood before him, bare as the day I got born. He toyed with me, played with me the way a kitten will entertain himself with a stray string or musical ball. Will removed his mouth from mine, leaving my lips aching for more, and dropped to the tender skin of my throat. I quivered with pleasure as his mouth ignited flames that flickered from one place to another as he kissed, then nibbled with just enough force that I could feel his teeth. The sharp edges teased my flesh until ecstasy ran through my veins with the same kind of heat that enough whiskey brings to my blood, warm and so sweet. To give back that kind of pleasure, I snapped open his shirt and ran my hands over his chest. Beneath my fingers, I felt his nipples stiffen into twin rocks and bent my mouth to one so that I could tempt him with my tongue. I stroked his vulnerable nipple with my tongue and it made him wilder. With bold hands, he grasped me around the waist and lifted me to the bed, letting me fall back onto the comforter. He snaked my jeans off with one swift motion and then he went to his knees. From that position he leaned into the cleft between my legs. Without thinking about it, crazy with need and riding a rush of passion, I spread them wider for him and he put his mouth down on my inner lips, still tasting and gnawing but with such delicacy that each bite felt no more substantial than a butterfly’s brush as it passed. When I could bear no more, when my mind emptied of all sensible thought and I became a creature of physical feeling, he reared up, proud and beautiful as a thoroughbred stallion. Will entered me with hungry power, seeking as well as giving. He filled me and I heaved my body toward him, straining as much as any wild mare in heat. We impacted, collided, and joined with a terrific force that shook me, body and soul, to my foundations. I shrieked with the might of it, shouted my joy, and yelled wit appreciation for the finale. Will cried out too, a hoarse guttural burst of wordless delight but when he gathered himself, collected his wits, he said, “When you do dance, I wish you a wave of the sea that you might ever do nothing but that.” What we did was a dance, an ancient mating ritual, I mused as I lay beside him, weak with contentment. “Say it and we will,” I whispered, “We can do nothing but that and I’ll never get tired of it.”

Will laughed, a light easy sound that touched my ears like caresses, and I scooted so that I could languish in the circle of his arms. “I’ve given you sunshine,” he whispered as I began to slip out of consciousness, “tomorrow it will be the sea.” ***** When he could call himself a man, not an undead creature of the night, he pleasured himself with women whenever he could. Even as a highwayman, he possessed some of that sensual appeal that attracted ladies, some poor and others high born. Will Brennan loved them all, a little, and he knew how to pleasure them although no one ever taught him. He learned by doing and his skill increased over the years. That ability brought him into Sallie Hawkins bed but it delivered his downfall when he became a vampire. Still, he sometimes sought women, needed the soft comfort of a warm body in the long nights. A few donors became lovers as well but he took care not to let any of them touch his heart. His dalliances were physical ones, only, and for a very long time he did not even allow himself to dream of a companion who could be lover and love, his heart’s blood and his body’s delight. The few girls he thought he loved before he left Ireland, the ones he dandled behind stonewalls and on the shores of Lough Neagh after dark were long forgotten. He might remember their dear natural smell of fresh air, sunshine, and skin or the feel of their lips on his but not their names or faces. None of them mattered; no woman did until Cara. With her he did things he could only dream about before. If he ravished her, she plundered him in return. Their lovemaking came sweet and it came with fever; he savored both. She owned his heart, possessed his body, and lived within his soul. As man, as vampire, he never dreamed of such a woman or a love with this power. The few Shakespeare quotes tossed at other women were no more than pearls before swine, a few words to please and tease. For Cara, he searched his brain to pluck the best gems from memory, the beautiful words he studied in those lonely decades. He offered them to her with all he had and she accepted them. Even when he first met her and wanted her, Will never imagined that they would find this amazing thing or that he would love her with his body often with such beauty.

He hoped it would last forever, this thing between them, this rare and valued bond. He thought that it would and smiled.

Chapter Ten Rusk, TX is just far enough north of the Gulf of Mexico that beaches are a novelty and the chance to go down to the ocean comes on rare occasions. I don’t remember my first trips to the beach but when I was about thirteen, we made the long haul down to the coast. We headed for Sea Rim State Park not far from Port Arthur. Although it’s a pretty beach if the weather is fine – which it wasn’t – you have to wind through refineries and inhale that stench to get there. Even so, despite thunderstorms just off shore that headed inland with speed, I fell in love with the open beauty of the sea on that day. I’ve never spent much time on beaches, my visits so few that I can count them on my fingers and still have a few left over but I love the ocean. So when we left the bright lights and crowded sidewalks of Hollywood behind us to head for the coast, I felt as excited as that little thirteen-year-old girl heading down to the beach for the first time she could remember. Will navigated through all the traffic and made his way over to Pacific Coast Highway One, probably the most famous highway in America. We headed away from the sprawling urbanscape toward Malibu with the ocean to our left. I craned my neck trying to catch glimpses of the water, more than a little difficult at night and at the speeds he drove. Malibu, although a favorite playground for the rich, famous, and wannabees, doesn’t really look posh or fancy. It is, though, and so when Will turned into a motel, I fussed. “This will cost a fortune,” I said. Will gazed back at me, steady, with those blue eyes. “I have the money, mo anam cara,” “I know you do, but –.” “Cara, this happens to be one of the least expensive places in Malibu but it’s clean enough and decent.” Will caught my chin in his hand and turned me to look at him. “We’ll get a room here so when morning comes, we won’t have far to go. Wait here and I’ll go pay for the room.” I drummed my fingers, impatient, while he vanished into the office. Somewhere beyond the motel, a plain, old-fashioned unit that appeared to have dropped out of the 1960’s onto the beach, I could hear the surf roar. I didn’t know where we were going but I hoped

that it might have something to do with a beach. Tonight, for once, I didn’t want a dark bar, even if it offered a romantic view of the ocean or some fancy restaurant like Gladstone’s 4 Fish. “Do you want to see the room before we go on?” Will asked when he came out, dangling a key from a plastic tab from his fingers. He kept his face bland but I could see the corners of his lips twitch with a grin that wanted to emerge. “No, I don’t.” I said, sounding like a bratty child. “What are we doing to do?” The grin popped out and bloomed like a rose. “You’ll see, my impatient love, you’ll see.” As we left Malibu behind, the road darkened and narrowed. Houses crammed together tight between the private beaches and the highway but soon, spaces appeared between them. I could see the wide expanse of water and my excitement quickened. If I remembered right, there were several state parks with beachfront access near here. Some offered camping, others didn’t but I also recalled that some closed at dark. If so, we were too late. Without even tapping his brakes, Will wheeled into one of the state parks. I had no idea if it was Point Dume, Robert Myers Memorial, or Point Mugu and it didn’t matter because after he slowed enough to roll that Caddy to a halt, I could see the ocean spreading out before me. He cut the lights and turned to me with that mischievous little smile he wore when he made magic for me. “Well, woman, what do you think?” he asked. “I like,” I said. “I like it a lot.” “Then come on, let’s get out and go down to the beach.” I hesitated for just a split second. “Can we? I mean, is the park closed or anything?” He laughed, low and dry. “I don’t know and I don’t really care. Let’s go.” After that, I didn’t care either. I took off my shoes and rolled up my jeans almost to my knees. Will moved across the sand with his usual grace, unhampered by its softness to take my hand. In his other hand he carried a small wicker basket, some kind of picnic pack and I looked at it with a raised eyebrow. “It’s part of the surprise,” he said. “Come,mo ghra.” We walked away from the highway, leaving the parking area far behind us, and onto the beach. Above us, the February sky

sparkled with ten thousand stars, each one radiant and bright. A fullbellied moon rose in the east, promising to bathe us in its rich, silvery light if we remained here long enough. The wind that wafted ashore rippled across the water and ruffled my hair, cooler than Will’s fingers. Anyone else, meaning someone human, would probably have shivered but it felt refreshing to me, clear and clean and good. My bare toes squished in the damp sand and I liked the feel of it, not icy but still cold. We went right down to the edge of the water where the waves sluiced up onto the beach, gentle for now. I stood, staring at the infinite ocean as it swept out to the farthest horizon, as far west as I could see, spread out north to south as well. The night sky stretched above me, just as endless and vast. I felt so small and yet not insignificant at all but empowered. If I needed a visual to define eternal, to paint a picture of what an everlasting love that I shared with Will, then there could be none better than this moment. I stared; eyes open wide and made a mental image, a brain snapshot to last forever, something to keep and remember always. I wanted to sweep all of it into my arms, to embrace the ceaseless space, the immeasurable beauty, and the ageless wonder of the sea, the sky by night. I have no idea how long I stood there as the waves washed up around my feet, silent and yet filled with more emotion than I could ever select words to express but Will stood beside me, just as quiet, my hand clasped in his. We were part of this and we remained one. When I turned to him, eyes brimming with joyful tears, heart overflowing with love, he faced me and with his own eyes shimmering with moisture, he spoke words now familiar to me because he used them before. Now, however, the beautiful poetry resonated with even more meaning for us both, “And yet I wish but for the thing I have, my bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have for both are infinite.” The immensity of his love overwhelmed me, the power more enormous than anything, greater than any man made wonder. The scope of it stretched beneath the timeless stars, the wonder of it expanded through whatever heart I possessed, and brimmed over to flood my soul. What I had with Will Brennan, I thought, was worth all I gave up to claim it and whatever I might face at the end of time; I could because of this love.

The truth of that sang in my soul, a greater, stronger song that any I ever attempted to sing before. I wished I knew as much poetry as he did, Shakespeare or otherwise, but instead, the words that came into my mouth came, as usual, from a song. Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman did a song that I loved back in the late 1970’s, vintage but with lyrics I loved so I sang some of them to Will now, “Our love is alive and so it begins, foolishly laying our hearts on the table, stumbling in, our love is a flame, burning within.” He opened his arms to me, as broad and open as the vast panorama of water, wind, and sky spread out around us and I walked into them. I came home into his embrace and all the emotion, strong and potent, welled up in me and exploded so that I wept in his arms. I sobbed not with sadness but with immeasurable joy, rich feelings too volatile to contain. He wept, too, for I felt the rain of his tears, the tremors of his body against mine. After we spent our emotions, poured them into one another, we sat down on the sand, wrapped together and listened to the wondrous night music of God. After a long time, secure in our contented silence, he kissed me, soothing and so sweet that I almost wept again. Will brushed the remaining tears from my face with a gentle finger. “I take it you liked my surprise,” he said, voice soft beneath the pounding thunder of the waves. “Oh, yeah,” My voice, hoarse from tears, came out in a croak but I didn’t care and knew he would not either. “What’s in the basket?” “Oh, this and that,” Will told me with such careful nonchalance that I knew the contents would be amazing. “Some wines, some cheeses, and such.” The such included smoked salmon, gourmet crackers, olives imported from France, chocolate covered cherries, brie, and much more along with two lovely wine glasses. So we sat on the beach as the moon climbed high into the sky, bathing us with amazing silver light, drinking fine vintage wine as we snacked. Every moment tasted as savory as the gourmet finger food and contentment made me purr within like a satisfied cat. I dreamed of some intimate romantic moments when I suggested our getaway but this exceeded any expectation I might have imagined; this felt like perfection. Moonlight glittered across my rings and I held out my hand, admiring them for their beauty but what mattered most to me was not

the diamonds but the meaning. Will can be a romantic man and we shared many sweet moments but this night stood out, a once in a lifetime magic interlude that neither one of us could ever forget. There would be many more beautiful spaces in our existence but this one would remain unique to us both. “Where did you get the basket?” I asked, mouth sated with delicate flavors. “I ordered it with my phone and had it delivered to the room,” Will said, pouring more wine, a rich red Merlot from Napa Valley into our glasses. “Where was I?” “I believe you were in the shower,” he said, sipping wine. “You’re sneaky,” I said, meaning it as a compliment and his grin rewarded me. “Aye, I can be but you love me just the same.” “I do.” We ate and drank, sometimes talking, kissing at other moments until almost morning. With regret, I packed up our leavings and we trailed back to the car, hand in hand, with the sea fresh in every sense we possessed. I wondered why we did not make love on the beach but when we got back to the motel, sand sifted out of our clothing, our skins, and the basket. I decided then it was good that we didn’t or we would have been sand itching for days if not longer. After a shower to wash away the grains of sand, we came together, tempting dawn mere moments away with the scrumptious slow pace of connoisseurs as we tasted each other. Despite impending sunrise, we did not hurry but kissed with deliberate measure. His lips caressed and fondled mine until I thought I might burst with wanting but I teased back, my mouth idling over his without speed, just force. We faced each other, lying on our sides, on the uncomfortable bed. One finger stroke at a time, Will made his way down my flesh, never in a hurry, always dawdling. He fingered each nipple until it perked up, his touch so feather light that it felt like a breath of air. I touched him too, my hands running along the lines of his chest, the shape of his side and the broadness of his back, loving the feel of his skin beneath my fingertips. I marveled at the beauty of his flesh, the feel of it beneath my touch and the way it looked. We stroked, petted,

and otherwise teased until we both quivered with the need for release so I rolled over onto my back. Will straddled me and when I opened my legs into a y-shape, he dived between them. I cried out at impact, a sound that probably made it through the thin motel walls but I didn’t care. He entered me with such amazing force, so much power that I knew he penetrated not just my willing warmth but down to my core, body and soul. Pleasure poled through me, fierce and sweeter than the finest champagne. His face diffused his delight, darkened with joy and he shouted too, a hoarse and wonderful outcry that rang out with unbridled release. Thank God that the windows faced west, not east because afterward, I felt far too boneless to raise and shut the blinds. I could see, though, from where I lay in a weak heap on the bed that the darkness yielded to the coming day. Outside, it was no longer black but the shadowed gray of morning so we rolled into a comfortable position and went out. I woke to the sound of the surf outside and could feel the cool breeze filtering between the blinds. Will must have closed them and opened the windows behind them. I could smell that salt tang of the ocean and it roused me. Will stirred too and in moments, we picked up where we ended the night before but the slow burn we shared vanished in the heat of passion. This time, everything happened fast, with such speed it became a blur of touching, tasting, tongues, and my twat, first aching with need and then bursting into pleasure that reminded me of the bright colors of a child’s kaleidoscope. Swirls of pure physical thrill swept over me in wild patterns that I reached out to gather in. This time, I came laughing and so did Will. “I think it’s raining,” he said, without moving. “I’m glad we went to the beach last night.” I listened and could hear the distinct pitter-patter of a shower outside. “We could just stay in bed all night,” I said, running one finger down the curve of his cheek. “Aye but we won’t, no matter how tempting it might seem,” Will replied. “I don’t fancy staying here that long. It’s a small room and I’m missing our home.”

I loved that he said “our”, not “his”; even though it was our joint home, it had been his for much longer. I missed the place, large and comfortable, too, and told him that, adding, “At least when we’re out in the truck, we sleep in the same bed each day.” “We do,” he agreed and then, practical, said, “We need to get up, though. Where do you plan to go from here?” “I’ll have to get out my laptop, my notebook, and the map. I thought we would make out some kind of plan or else we’ll be running all over the place, willy-nilly.” He nodded. “We don’t want to do that. Can you sort it all out while I clean up?” “I can.” Will kissed me and crawled out of bed. “Good, mo anam cara,” he said with a grin that made me want to pull him back down among the scattered covers. Instead, I got up, made some really terrible coffee in the tiny pot provided in the room, and got out my research tools. I had all the notes needed but now I had to put them into some kind of order so that we could begin the real road trip, the search for Seamus Brennan. That task proved to me more complicated than it sounds because I had to sort through all of them and the locations, then put together some kind of coherent trip to check them out. By the time Will emerged from the shower I felt more confused than competent. I must have looked as frazzled as I felt because he sat down across from me at the postage stamp sized table provided and said, “I take it that you’re not quite ready to go yet.” “No, I’m not,” I said with a huge sigh. “If we can take another hour or so, I think I can have at least the first week or so ready.” “Darlin’, we can take all the time you need,” Will said, with a kind glance in my direction. “I know you’re doing all of this for my sake so I can be patient enough. If you don’t mind, though, I’ll go fuel the car and do motor staples while you finish.” That meant check the oil, fluid levels, and air in the tires, all necessary things so I nodded. “Sure. I’ll try to be finished when you come back for me.” He pushed back his chair, squeezed around the table, and kissed me, sweet and lingering. “You will be, I’m sure. I’ll be back soon, mo anam cara.”

Whenever we are apart, even for a short time, I feel it. It’s hard to describe but I feel the same way that I imagine I might if I went out and realized that I left some vital part of myself at home, my feet or a hand. But I knew that Will wasn’t going far and so I forced my attention toward making an itinerary for our trip. By the time he returned, filling the room and my heart with his presence, I had enough to get started. “So where are we off to now?” Will asked me, sweeping me out of the chair and into his arms for a kiss. “We’ll start at San Diego,” I told him, touching him as I spoke. “It’s the closest. After that we’ll head to Arizona and then to south Texas.” “San Diego,” he mused. “And what does the Seamus Brennan you’ve found there do for a living?” “He works at some Irish pub in the Gas Lamp Quarter,” I said. I had never been there but I’d heard about that Gas Lamp Quarter, the old Victorian downtown converted into an entertainment district. “As far as I can tell, he tends bar and sings a little.” He quirked one eyebrow with interest. “Would there be a small stage?” “There might be. I really don’t know yet.” Will nodded. “It’s not far to San Diego so we have time to get something to eat if you want, Cara.” After our moonlight beach adventure and our intense lovemaking, I felt starved. “I do.” “Then let’s pack and go,” he said. And we did, with record speed.

Chapter Eleven Growing up in the Piney Woods of East Texas, our idea of fish revolved around bass, crappie, and catfish caught from local streams or ponds. We lived just far enough inland that seafood wasn’t really fresh most of the time and until I got out in the wider world around from Rusk, Jacksonville, and Palestine, I thought Long John Silver’s must be the tops for chain served seafood. When I discovered there was a much broader selection of fish that had not been fried to a crunchy crisp and served with salty fries, I thought I died and went to heaven. But I’m still enough of a Texas girl to love good steak with my seafood. We rolled out of Malibu and down the coast. At McCormick and Schmick’s at El Segundo Will stopped for dinner. For a girl who once thought Red Lobster meant fancy, I graduated up from that but I still thought McCormick and Schmick’s, while still a chain, beat Red Lobster any day of any week. We dined on filet mignon steaks paired with shrimp scampi and it tasted succulent, delicious to my hungry tummy. Although the ambiance was nice enough, we didn’t linger after our meal but hit the road so we could reach San Diego well before dawn. Once there, we checked into one of the many hotels, all multistoried towers, near the Gas Lamp District. With a few hours left until morning, we headed back out for a stroll through the area, checking it out and trying to see if we could find the Irish themed pub where Seamus Brennan worked. Although late enough that the crowds thinned, we enjoyed our walk around the picturesque district and we found the pub. It was closed but the lights were on and people remained inside. “Do you want to try to go in anyway?” I asked Will who stared at the place like a hungry kid in an ice cream shop. He hesitated and then shook his head. “No, we can wait until tomorrow. If it should be my brother, he has a short time till dawn just like we do and I think I’d rather cling to the hope it might be him for a bit longer.” His voice sounded so wistful that I asked, “Are you sure?” “Oh, aye, I’m certain,” he said. “Let’s start back to the hotel for now.”

Something about the way he said it made my alarm bells ring. Ever since the Sallie incident, I tended to be oversensitive and worry more when I really had no reason to be that way. He stretched his open hand to me and I took it so we could walk back, holding hands but after a few steps, Will stopped in mid-step. He paused for a few seconds and then leaned against the wall of the nearest building, eyes shut. “Will?” My voice came out sharper than I intended but he scared me. He stood up straight and opened his blue eyes. “Don’t fret, mo anam cara, I’m fine.” Relief almost buckled my knees. “Are you? What happened?” His smile brightened his face. “I felt Seamus again, clear but far away. I hope that I’m wrong but I don’t think that we’ll find him here.” “That’s all?” I asked, incredulous and more than a little irritated. “You scared me, Will.” “I’m sorry, darlin’,” he said. “I didn’t mean to but it happened. At least I know he’s out there somewhere and safe.” His pleasure calmed me down. “What did you see this time?” “Seamus in a dressing room, I think, or maybe an office,” Will told me. “I could hear applause somewhere.” I squeezed his hand tighter and stroked his hair back from his face. “I’m glad. Are you all right, though?” “Aye, it’s not like with Sallie. When it comes, it just takes me by surprise but there’s no bad vibes to it at all. Let’s go back to the room before the sun rises.” He said he felt fine and I believed him but the unexpected flashes of his long lost brother rattled him more than he wanted to admit. Back in our hotel room, high on the 7th floor above the Gas Lamp Quarter, he dug a bottle of John Jameson’s out of his luggage and poured us both a drink before we retired. The smooth whisky whispered across my tongue like silk and through my veins like sweet, smoky fire. That made me want Will but he stood before the window, distracted and lost in thought. I wouldn’t compete with his brother’s ghost because until we found young Seamus, if we ever did, that’s all his brother could be. We were both tired and so we laid down to rest, together.

Although he drifted into unconsciousness first, I could feel the restless tension thrumming in him like steel belted radial tires on the highway. I ached to find his brother so that Will could release this burden, let it go like a balloon drifting high into a sunny sky but I was fast learning that undead life remained life. You just never know what may happen or come at you; all you can do is deal with what does. That next night, we headed straight for the pub. With my radar tuned into Will’s emotions, I knew he didn’t think we would find his brother here but he wanted to enjoy the experience. Like most Americanized Irish pubs, this one featured dark woodwork, Shepherd’s pie and fish and chips on the menu, Jameson’s and Bailey’s and Bushmills, with plenty of Guinness all around. Smoke hung heavy in the air, too, and I could hear the combined chatter of many voices, laughing and talking. In the background I caught the unmistakable sound of the Clancy Brothers singing about their homeland, their rougher voices mingling with the sweeter tones of Tommy Makem. Will caught my hand and squeezed it. I realized that the current song happened to be Roddy Mc Corley, about a long-ago hanging in his hometown. “Maybe it’s a good omen,” I quipped but he shook his head, more serious than me. “I doubt it. Let’s go order a drink and see if the lad’s here.” We headed for the bar but a quick scan of all those at work behind it yielded no one who looked anything like Will. I realized that their resemblance might have changed over the centuries so after he ordered us each Jameson’s neat, I pasted on my best pretty smile to ask, “Would Seamus Brennan be working tonight?” Mona – or so her nametag said – shot me a quizzical look but after a brief pause, she nodded. “He’s the one down at the far end, the young man.” Will and I swiveled our eyes in that direction. We pegged him immediately. He looked almost too young to drink, let along tend bar but his Celtic red hair said he wasn’t our Seamus. Before we could knock back our drinks, Mona summoned him and he came, looking nervous. “Could I help you with something?” he asked.

“Aye, you might,” Will said before I could speak. “Are you Seamus Brennan?” “I am, sir,” Seamus of the red hair answered. “I don’t believe I know you.” “You don’t.” Will snapped off the words short. “I’m Will Brennan, looking for my brother who has the same name. Where in Ireland did you come from?” This Seamus smiled. “I come from County Antrim. It’s in the north and…” Will interrupted. “I know that well; I come from there myself. What town?” “Like our Roddy Mc Corley in the song, I come from Toome.” I felt Will stiffen, his muscles tensing into stone so I put my hand on his arm for support and maybe comfort. “I come from there as well.” Will’s voice dropped into almost a whisper. “It was a very long time ago. We might be distant kin.” The red head bobbed in agreement and I noticed that his eyes were almost as blue as Will’s. That sent a chill through me and I shuddered. Whoever he was, he was not Will’s brother but he must be out of the same gene pool, long since diluted over the centuries. “We might, sir but I’d not be one to know much about my family tree. For that, you’d have to ask my grandda and he’s still in Ireland. All I do know is that my name and the names William or Liam repeat in our bunch.” “Oh, do they?” Will sounded far more casual than he must be inside. “Aye, they say it’s a tradition for two brothers who left home a very long time ago and were never heard from again. You did say your name was Will, short for William or Liam?” “I did,” Will replied, “It’s likely enough that somewhere we may share some family. It’s been good to meet you, lad.” He extended his hand and they shook. Seamus Brennan, some nephew nine generations or more removed, returned to his duties and my Will drained his glass in one long swallow. Then he rapped for another. After that, he turned to me and without words; I knew we were done here. We wouldn’t be staying for Irish food, genuine or faux, so I followed Will toward the door and outside into the crisp night air.

Once outside, we moved down the sidewalk until we were away from some of the crowds and he took me in his arms, giving me the embrace he needed. I hugged him and he held me for some moments, oblivious to any curious eyes. “That felt strange,” he said when he released me. “It wasn’t my Seamus but he’s got to be a great, great, great, more than I can count grandson to one of my other brothers. I never thought about their descendants before.” Before I could think what to say that wouldn’t sound trite or trivial, he went on, “They remembered us, then, and kept our names. That’s something.” “I think it’s very nice, Will. You both were gone but not forgotten.” He nodded, then swallowed hard. “We must have broken their hearts and they thought us both dead when we were vampires instead. It’s been such a long time ago that I almost forgot but now all this with Seamus makes me remember all too well what I lost.” Whiskey made him maudlin, sometimes, and I knew he felt the alcohol as well as emotion. “Don’t go there, Will or you’ll be sad. Think about what you gained.” That made him smile. “Aye, I have you mo anam cara, and I wouldn’t trade you for anything or anyone. Let’s go find something to eat and then I want to let you count the ways.” “What?” “It’s from that poem by Elizabeth Barratt Browning, how do I love you, let me count the ways,” Will said. “I intend to love you and you can count the ways.” Anticipation stirred like the warm ashes of a fire and I grinned back at him. “I would like that.” We found a twenty-four hour restaurant, bar, and grill rolled into one. We both ordered New York strip sandwiches served with onion rings and horseradish sauce but once the food – which was delicious – vanished, we returned to the hotel room. He wanted to make love, to share the carnal pleasures we both delighted in so often but he also wanted to forget his pain. Will didn’t want to think about the disappointment that we had not yet found Seamus or mourn the family he lost, all dead hundreds of years

ago or ponder the descendent we found tending bar. It was an emotion not unlike that old fuck-death thing that made people who just suffered a death or a loss or brushed too close to their own demise go wild with passion. So we came together in a celebration of life as we knew it, dark and eternal. Nothing happened slowly; it all came together in a wild frenzy. We shed our clothing like skins, dropping the garments where they fell and grabbing each other as if we had a time limit. My hands caressed his skin, moving over his arms to his torso and down his abs to fondle and stroke his magnificent manhood. He touched me with power, with passion, his often light caresses absent as he manhandled me almost hard enough to bruise but I gloried in it. Like him, I needed force, not fondness and he gave it to me. When I dropped to my knees so that I could take him into my mouth, his fingers clawed my hair and held my head in place so that I could not quit. I didn’t want to stop but his need spurred my own as I tasted, then tongued him into fullness. He pulled me up, a little gentler this time, and kissed me for the first time since we began. His mouth ravaged mine, sweeping away any inhibitions or notion of sweet kisses in and all out assault that claimed both me and my lips for his. With hunger that bordered on starvation, he devoured my mouth and I fed him, taking what I needed even as I gave. His tongue plunged into my mouth and met mine so we frenched, mimicking the sexual act even as it sent pleasure pouring through us like slow maple syrup over hotcakes. The fires grew in me, flared from those embers at first into flames that blazed out of control, hot and huge. My fingernails tore at his back with my need, urging him to take me without care, to use me. Will responded by clutching me in his arms so tight that I thought I might explode and then put me on the bed, covering me with his body. Without any additional foreplay, he drove into me with the powerful surge I wanted and I arched up to meet it. We connected, two into one, and I felt the rush of physical pleasure begin to grow into a huge wave that when it came, carried us both into first nirvana and then oblivion. Beautiful, sweet little thrills rocked through me after the major burst of delight and he remained inside me until they ebbed away. He looked into my eyes, intense and complete. “Did you count?” he whispered.

“No, I forgot.” Will grinned and kissed me, this time with the tenderness lacking before, the gentleness that now I craved. “Good.” I lay in his arms as he settled down for the day, following him into that dark void without any thought but love, no feeling but contentment. **** When he tuned into Seamus, it reminded him of picking up a distant radio broadcast from halfway across the country, faint but recognizable. Although it did not bowl him over the way that Sallie’s intrusion had, Will Brennan felt the impact. This did not make him ill but it reverberated through him, not unpleasant but noticeable. Now that he expected it, he thought he could handle it much better and not worry his woman. What essence of his brother gleaned from the odd visions, the stray moments of connection made him think that the reunion would happen and that when it did, he would have no need to fear Seamus had gone cruel or too dark. He felt a glimmer of his brother’s nature and it seemed, for all practical purpose, to be not unlike what he remembered. Meeting the other Seamus Brennan, blood of his blood, pleased and rattled him at the same time. That unexpected moment stunned him and after he adjusted to the reality, he liked it. He appreciated the sentiment that kept his name and that of his brother alive for so long but he mourned the loss of those who cared. Beyond all else, however, Will knew one thing – that without Cara, none of this would have been possible or happened. Cara and life were one, if his undead existence remained life. He thought it did, if only after a fashion.

Chapter Twelve Although it always looked so pretty in the pages of Arizona Highways, I never could be very fond of the desert southwest. Somehow I always missed the season when everything blooms with color or it’s too hot or there is a drought on or it was raining but I never appreciated the beauty of the region. The closest that I might come would be admiring the background in some old Western, shot in the classic Monument Valley. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the Piney Woods of East Texas but for me to call it beautiful, a place has to have at least a few trees somewhere. We left California after meeting Will’s great, grandnephew a dozen or more times removed, heading for the next stop on our search, Tucson. The next Seamus on the list should be a dealer at the Casino Del Sol but with a good six hours or more to reach Tucson; we didn’t figure we would make it there the first night. Travel gets tricky when you can’t face the morning sun and without the truck’s sleeper compartment, we had to be bunked in somewhere before daybreak. That began several days driving through the southwest at night, speeding over lonely highways and listening to the music Will kept playing. Neither of us felt impressed to stop to look at the scenery, most of which we couldn’t see in the dark anyway so we rolled on except for the occasional pit stop or meal. Cafés, steakhouses, Wal-Mart Super Centers, convenience stores and truck stops became our stops, one merging into another with awful similarity. We grabbed a quick burger in some little restaurant in Yuma, heading on toward Tucson to beat the dawn. By the time we hit the Triple T truck stop, a vintage truck terminal that Will said he knew well, morning was chasing our heels but he filled up the car before we headed off to the nearest motel. When we rose again, we headed for the Casino and tracked down Mr. Brennan. Despite the very Irish sound of the name, this one turned out to be a six foot tall Apache with a braid hanging the length of his back. Will didn’t even both to question him further; there was no point and he put Tucson in the rearview mirror with speed, motoring onto toward El Paso. Until we reached New Orleans a few days later, each night blended into the next with mundane routine that I didn’t like. Neither

did Will. We ate quick meals, slept in cheap but usually clean motel rooms, and narrowed down my list one Seamus Brennan at a time. That black Cadillac zoomed across Arizona into New Mexico and finally back into Texas. We found donors in old El Paso city and then made another long haul from there to San Antonio. I always get a shock when I go past the Alamo, now crowded up jowl to cheek with every kind of modern business. It just doesn’t look right and I wonder why they couldn’t have bought up some of the surrounding acres long ago. I griped about it aloud to Will and he nodded, “Aye, they should have but they didn’t.” I half expected him to tell me he’d been there but no, thank God, that wasn’t the case. We ruled out the Seamus Brennan who worked graveyard shift in a local convenience store and after a much needed day’s rest, moved on off to Beaumont. For the first time in our search, I had a home address but not an occupation for our lad but I figured if he shared many tastes with his older brother, my Will, we might find him down on Crockett Street. It’s like a country music, boot kicking version of a miniature Beale Street tempered with just enough Latin influence to make it somehow pure Texas. After the best steak we had in days we headed out to prowl the short stretch of street where the action happened and wandered into a few of the clubs in case Seamus performed there. We came up with nada so we meandered away from the bright lights to a quiet residential street. I felt more than a little hesitant about knocking on someone’s door in the wee morning hours but Will said if he could see a light, we would knock. If not, we would figure out something else. That made sense because if this one should prove to be the right Seamus he would up all night like us. When we pulled up in front of the small, older ranch house on a suburban street, I saw the living room lights shining before we stopped. Hope flared up that maybe our trek was winding down made my step more than a little bouncy as we climbed the few steps to the door. Will pressed the doorbell and deep within the house, we heard a dog begin to bark. Someone hushed it in pure Texas tones and my hope notched down more than a little. When the door opened, I half expected to be looking at a shotgun barrel pointed our way but the old man who stood there wasn’t armed.

“What do you want?” He barked the question in a voice hoarsened by decades of heavy smoking, easy to guess because of the unfiltered Lucky Strike burning between his stained fingers. “I’m looking for Seamus Brennan,” Will replied in his most polite tone. “Would you be him?” “Who the hell wants to know?” I smothered a giggle; this was a real old school Texan and I had to admire his style even though I could see it frustrated Will. “My name is Will Brennan,” he said, after a pause that could have spanned the Grand Canyon. “I’m looking for my brother Seamus Brennan but I can see that you’re not him. I apologize for having disturbed you, sir, and we’ll take our leave.” “Wait just a minute.” From the sound of that gravelly voice I thought for a moment he might pull a pistol or something but Will never moved, still as a lawn ornament in the darkness. “Aye?” His voice was no more than a sigh in the night. “I’m Seamus Brennan but it’s damn obvious I couldn’t be your brother; I’m too old,” Mr. Brennan said with a cough. “You didn’t disturb me, though. I don’t sleep nights, haven’t in thirty years. I hope you find your brother, young man.” “Thank you,” Will said, and meant it. After that, we had little to do in Beaumont but find a hotel so we did at one of the chains where the generic room offered shelter and a chance to slow down. After multiple nights on the road, I felt so tired that I just wanted to curl up with Will in the big king-sized bed that dominated the room. “Come here, woman,” Will said when I told him that. “I want the same.” So we snuggled together, naked beneath the sheets that smelled of laundry soap and bleach, at first just content to be together. His arms provided the haven I needed, yielding up a sense of home and comfort but after a little while, I felt more than contentment and so did Will. I cupped my hand around his stiffening member and stroked it. It grew against my hand and he murmured with pleasure. “O my love! My wife!” Will spoke the age-old words with new feeling and touched me deep within. “Death that hath sucked the honey of thy breath hath no power yet upon thy beauty. Thou art not

conquered, beauty’s ensign yet is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks and death’s pale flag is not advanced.” Romeo’s words might sound morbid to a mortal woman but when you’re pretty well undead, they become sweet. As he quoted, his hands caressed the curve of my cheek, then trailed lazy down my skin and moved, I sang the first stanza of another old song I liked, Slow Hand by either the Pointer Sisters or Conway depending on your style. I ended with part of the refrain, “I want a man with a slow hand; I want a lover with an easy touch…” “Do you wish that, mo anam cara?” “I do, Will,” I whispered back as the heat rose between us until I thought I could see the vapor of it in the air. “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” he answered me, laughter in his voice, “so would you like to ride? My lips curved up in a smile and drawled, “I’m a Texas girl. You don’t even have to ask.” With that he rolled onto his back and pulled me with him so that I lay on top of him. Will’s strong hands lifted me so that I could mount him and I did, letting him slip inside me until we fit, snug and tight. We linked hands and I rocked, each movement sending intense ripples of sensual delight through us both. I could feel the motion in his body through my own, intense and extreme. I pitched with more force and the sensation increased until I gave over to it, forgetting time and place, everything but who lay beneath me, who I pleasured and loved with all I could give. Each thrust of my hips brought us closer to that climax and I worked for it. Will fondled my breasts with his hands, easy and slow with maddening strokes. At the very last, he locked his arms about me, my hair falling over his hands and we came with shuddering glory, shouting out in unison wordless cries of pleasure. In that second, he penetrated as far into me as anyone could go and when we rode back down on gentle waves of delight, I lay on his chest, my head against his shoulder, his hand stroking my hair. Satisfaction sated me and made me drowsy but I basked in his simple caresses listening as he rambled about love, half in English, half in Irish. I didn’t have to know the language to understand and when he finished, just before I faded to black, I managed to whisper,

“I love you more than anything, Will Brennan, and always will.” We didn’t rouse until well after dark and we woke hungry for both food and blood. If we wanted to make New Orleans tonight, we had little leisure time, so we nabbed donors in the parking area, then grabbed a quick supper on the fly. Rain started to come down just outside Beaumont and we rolled through Port Arthur then out of Texas into Louisiana. I thought about my family snug up home in Rusk and even thought about suggesting we go off schedule to visit but I didn’t. Will would have if I asked and I knew it but finding Seamus felt like a priority. Rain dogged us as we made it through Lake Charles and Lafayette. Ahead, the road loomed dark and wet but inside the car, I felt cozy, tucked in next to Will. We listened to some of his Irish music as we hydroplaned over the highway, splashing through puddles. He sang, always indicating his mood was very good so I figured he liked the different approach to our lovemaking. I-10 rode like a rough country back lane but Will said it always felt that way. I needed to get out and stretch my legs so when he saw a Love’s Country travel plaza loom up in the night, he pulled in. We went to the restroom, ate a sandwich and filled up the gas tank before we pulled out again. “Will we make New Orleans before morning?” I asked. “Aye, we should,” Will told me. “If not, we’ll find a place to stay somewhere. It’s just for the day, isn’t it?” “Yes.” The Big Easy had Brennans galore but no Seamus so it was no more than a stopping point before we hit the Mobile area. “Then we’ll have no trouble.” But we did. The first few hotels we tried were booked and we learned that there were multiple conventions and baby beauty pageants in town. By the time that we checked into a cheap budget motel, the eastern sky shifted from dark toward the light that portends dawn. We straggled into that low budget room with a bag of take out burgers from the nearest fast food place, ate, and collapsed onto the bed that slanted enough that our feet ended up higher than our heads. Our plan was to leave at dark, on to Mobile but the best-laid plans of mice, men, and even vampires sometimes go awry. When I stirred, I didn’t know where I was for a moment and then I remembered. Although it was a no-smoking room, I inhaled

the aroma of a recent cigarillo and when I stretched my hand across the bed to find him, I touched nothing, just what I expected. I blinked my eyes open wider in the small, dim room and through a gap in the curtain I knew it was dusk but not full dark. “Will?” “I’m here.” His voice came from the single chair in the room. “You can rest awhile longer if you want.” He sounded calm and well but I still sat straight up. “Is it Seamus?” “Aye, it’s my brother. I feel him stronger here than anywhere. I almost believe that I could reach out and touch him and I do think that I might be able to track him like a bloodhound. If I didn’t want to leave you without a word, I would have gone.” Thank God he didn’t, I thought, I would have gone crazy with worry. “I’ll get dressed and we can go out.” “Thank you, leannán,” he said and added a few lines from the other Will, We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” Ten minutes, a quick shower, a comb passed through my hair, and boots on my feet made me ready to roll. I had no idea where exactly we were heading but we were off. I’m not familiar with New Orleans much but after a few minutes, I realized we weren’t going anywhere near the French Quarter, the one section I had visited. Although I didn’t ask aloud, Will picked up my thoughts and told me, “We’re going to the Irish Channel neighborhood. I don’t know why but it seems like a place he might be if he’s here at all.” I didn’t recognize the neighborhood but I accepted Will’s decision. “Have you been there before?” “Oh, aye, a long time ago,” Will said. “I spent a wee bit of time here once. Besides, it sits on higher ground and Katrina didn’t destroy it. Despite the name, there aren’t many Irish left.” We drove through the dark streets as rain pattered on the roof and splashed the windshield but I saw nothing that looked like a place a young Irishman might spend his time, not unless he lived here. After an hour, Will shook his head. “We’re not in the right place but I still sense him. Let’s go to the French Quarter and see there.” My senses quickened at that; the Quarter could be my kind of place even on a damp February evening and I figured we could at

least get a decent meal. We managed that, even ate some Cajun food on Bourbon Street that tasted very good but halfway through dinner, Will sighed. “What is it?” He shook his head. “I don’t begin to understand any of this but I feel him, but he’s not as close. I swear earlier I thought I could find him, touch him even. Now it’s like the tide going out, he’s moving away from me. He still isn’t that far but he’s farther than before. It’s like playing cat and mouse.” I would have laughed at that example but his sad face warned me off so instead I put my hand over his for comfort. “As long as you feel him, sooner or later we will find him. Let’s eat and then we’ll go make love on that crazy bed at the motel.” After a moment’s reflection in which his blue eyes looked as bereft as a blizzard covered pond, he nodded. “Aye, we’ll do that then.” And we did but I couldn’t help but feel like a ghost – that of Seamus Brennan, the lad and not the man – haunted us, his presence tangible and yet elusive.

Chapter Thirteen Mobile, Alabama has never been very familiar to me. My one experience had been spring break that first year of college and all I really remembered was riding some ferry from Dauphin Island to the mainland, eating cold boiled peanuts downtown (nasty), and having some of the best shrimp I ever put into my mouth at a tiny little restaurant in some shopping center. I remembered that one of the main highways goes through a tunnel under the bay and emerges in the vicinity of the USS Alabama. As we rolled into town, Will navigated through the unfamiliar streets like the professional driver that he is and I stared out the windows into the dark. This time, the Seamus that we hunted didn’t live within the boundaries of the big city, Mobile in this case, but in a place not too far away called Bay Minette. Since we arrived long before midnight, we had time to grab a decent dinner and nail donors before heading to the nearby small town. “It’s not too likely that this will be my brother,” Will commented as he kindled his cigarillo and puffed to get it lit. “Small towns aren’t the best places for someone undead to hide.” “Why not?” He laughed. “Well, in most burgs everything closes early, by ten if not before. There might be a convenience store or two open, maybe an all night restaurant but everyone else goes to bed so someone who wanders by night stands out. It’s harder to get fresh donors, too. If he’s here, I would guess he probably heads into Mobile when he’s hungry or needs entertainment.” That all made sense and in the long run proved right. Seamus Brennan of Bay Minette proved to be all of sixteen and about to get off work at the local Popeye’s. He also happened to be black. “I’m sorry,” I told Will as we settled into a basic room at one of the local motels, a small brick place on the business loop of the highway. “I’m not doing a very good job at finding prospects, am I?” “You’ve done fine, Cara,” he said as he pulled off his boots. “It’s like hunting for eggs when the hens roost and lay where they will. Sometimes you find them easy and other times, you have to search. What we’re doing is difficult and well we both know that.”

His kind words salved my feelings of inadequacy but didn’t put us any closer to finding his brother. “I guess we do.” Like always he picked up on my frustration and my restless feeling that I had not done enough. “Come here and forget about my brother for now.” He unfolded his arms so that he could hold me and I went into his arms, willing for the contentment they offered. I thought that he would kiss me or begin to stroke my body but he just held me, calm and comforting for a few minutes. He released me and said, “Go sit down in the chair with your back to me, leannán,” I shot him a quizzical glance but I did what he asked, wondering if he wanted to play some new game. I waited, anticipation tingling through me and when he put his hands on my shoulder, gentle yet solid, I smiled. “Close your eyes,” he whispered so I did. I felt his hands lift to stroke my hair and pull it all so that it dangled down my back. Then I felt the unmistakable thrust of a hairbrush pull through my locks. Although I loved having my hair brushed, I didn’t think I had ever confided that to Will and until now, he never demonstrated any inclination to do it. His sweet pampering relaxed me and I settled into the rhythm of the brush sweeping through my hair with a sigh of pure delight. It might seem like the most ordinary act in the world but if your man is doing the honors, it can also be very sensual. By the time he had my hair smooth, I felt unwound, my body boneless as a catfish fillet and my skin expected something more, an erotic explosion that I felt certain would come. Will put down my hair brush and I turned to face him with a smile. “That’s better now, isn’t it, darlin’?” “Yeah, it’s wonderful. Thank you, Will.” He put a finger over my lips to shush me. “Don’t tell me thanks, mo anam cara, show me instead.” I liked that so I did, with slow heat. I put my mouth to his with the quiet faith of a prayer that will be answered and let my lips linger, radiating heat like a warm mug on a cold morning. I slid my tongue between his lips and played until he kissed me with wanton abandon, all tenderness absent as he took what he wanted. His appetite increased mine and we let our greedy want set a fast pace. We moved from kisses to bites that nibbled down our necks and when

Will found my breasts; he cupped them in his hands like a pair of apples. Then he bent down, kissed the nipples until they perked up tall and he suckled each one in turn, sending exquisite thrills through me. As he did that, I let my hands roam until they held his cock and I stroked it, squeezing as I caressed until he too burned with an erotic fever. Our bodies touched, by chance and with purpose as we fondled our way down to the vital parts. He tossed me onto the bed where I bounced but before I could spring very high, he covered me with his naked self and then pierced my cleft with such might I felt like he used a sword, not his stick. I moaned with pleasure and thrust upward to meet his repeated entrances, each one building the anticipation higher until when I thought I could bear no more, as I begged him for release, he entered me and remained, his penis throbbing with pent-up need. I tightened my walls around him and we burst into that perfect collision together, as one and with such beautiful wonder that I cried out, my voice drowned in his. We had hours yet until morning came but we lay intertwined together and talked, too lethargic to rise and with no place to go. We were both tired, too, the weeks on the road wearing on us physically as well as emotionally. As I struggled to find a comfortable spot on the rump sprung, well used mattress, I said, “I wish we were at home in our own bed.” His quick laugh came like a breath in the dark. “Aye, I wish that too. We’ve been on the road for more than two weeks.” That totaled longer than the truck runs I had made with him but I had to wonder. “Don’t you ever go out on the truck that long?” “I have,” he said after a moment’s thought, “but it’s different because I have the same bed each night and I can park whenever morning’s near. I’m like a turtle with his own shell with the truck but I’m starting to feel like a gypsy. Where do you plan to go from here, love?” From memory, I said, “I thought we would go up to Atlanta and then over to Savannah on the coast, then up into the Carolinas, into Virginia, and over to Washington D.C. After that, I thought we would mosey back toward Knoxville and into Tennessee. If we

haven’t found Seamus by then, then we would go out again after a few days at home.” “That’s another week or more.” “Yeah, it is.” Will quieted for a moment and I could almost hear the motion as the wheels of thought turned within. “Will you be mad at me if we do it different?” We lay facing each other and I raised one lazy hand to stroke his cheek. “No, I won’t. What do you want to do instead?” He tickled the length of my leg with one toe. “I thought we would go to Atlanta tomorrow, just as you planned. After that, though it might be better if we went back into Tennessee to go home. We can check out any Seamus Brennans you find on the way but I feel like he’s not east of here but maybe west.” His quiet assessment touched something inside me with awe. I was almost used to knowing most of his thoughts and having him read me like a favorite novel. During the terrible period with Sallie, I accepted that she could sometimes enter my mind. Even so, Will’s link with his brother seemed somehow both terrible and marvelous. “Do you still feel him then?” “Oh, aye, but it’s very faint and faraway. If I let my mind drift toward the east, I feel nothing at all but if I wander west in my thoughts, I get a few flickers.” “Then we’ll go west, honey,” I said. “I want you to find him very much, you know.” “I know,” Will replied, “And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stone, and good in everything.” “Do I help you see something good in everything?” I asked, tears welling up in my eyes. “You do, mo anam cara, you do,” he said. “And although we miss our home and our soft bed, there’s been good in this trip, hasn’t there?” I reflected on all the wonderful moments, the fake sunshine in Vegas, our lovely night on the beach, and more. “Oh, yes, Will, good and even some of the best.” “Then it’s worth all the small rooms, the lumpy mattresses, and the hours on the road.” “It is.”

He said nothing for a few minutes and then said, “Are you hungry, Cara?” My stomach growled like a cat in heat and he laughed. “I’m starving,” I said, although it didn’t need to be spoken. “Let’s go get something to eat.” We prowled the dark streets of the little town and ended up at Wal-Mart with prepackaged deli sandwiches, roast beef and Swiss cheese on long hoagie buns. We took those and some wine, a sweet Moscato, back to the motel and ate. From then until the first streaks of dawn touched the eastern sky with pink, I got out my laptop and planned a new route, one that would take us home sooner and maybe find Seamus quicker. We curled together like spoons in a silverware drawer until we rested and when we roused, we picked up the Interstate north of town to roll back toward Mobile, then onward north toward Atlanta. Like most other Americans, I heard about Atlanta all my life but I knew very little about the city and had never been there. Most of my knowledge about Atlanta came from Gone With The Wind, one of my favorite books both as a teen and an adult. I knew – or thought I did – all about Peachtree Road where Scarlett O’Hara’s Aunt Pittypat lived, about Five Points, and how Civil War high society operated. When I told Will that, he laughed. “Atlanta’s changed a bit since then,” he said with a smile. “I doubt it was ever quite as rosy as the author made it seem even in wartime. Peachtree Road is a busy thoroughfare today and Atlanta is just another big city with all the traffic, crime, and such.” “Why don’t you just take away all the romance?” I griped, teasing him. So he would know that, I put my hand on his leg. “We have the romance, not Atlanta,” he said as he put his hand over mine. “So you think this might be a place where we might find my brother?” “Well, I did,” I said. “But that was before you started tuning into him. Do you feel anything?” Will nodded. “I do, a bit, but it’s all far away and jumbled.” Disappointment knifed through me. If he didn’t pick up on Seamus, then it was all but impossible that the one I pegged in an Atlanta suburb was his brother. “So you don’t think we’ll find him here.”

“I don’t,” he said, his voice calm. “But I do believe that we will catch up to him, Cara, and that wouldn’t have ever happened without your help.” I really wasn’t sure how much help I had been but I didn’t want my mood to sink any lower so I switched subjects. “So where will we go here?” “Kenny’s Alley,” Will said, without hesitation. “It’s part of Underground Atlanta, the part where the clubs and bars are at. It’s not Beale Street, darlin’, but it’ll do for some diversion and it stays open until 4am.” “I could use a little diversion,” I said and meant it. We traveled hard and fast, with some play but most of our trip had been devoted to the serious business of finding Seamus Brennan. Some of my fatigue and almost all of my boredom faded away faster than a rainbow and I looked forward to reaching Atlanta. We checked into a hotel not far from the famous Underground Atlanta. The name lied because everything wasn’t really underground although some of it was below street level. It all came about, I recalled reading, after the installation of some ductwork raised the level of the street enough that businesses abandoned the lower regions. After some decades, it reopened as Underground Atlanta. One of my cousins who visited a few years ago raved about it but maybe she saw it through the eyes of a Texas hick because when we set out on foot, Will warned me. “It’s not the best area of town these days,” he said as he clasped my hand. “There are a lot of homeless people around and the crime rates are higher than they should be so stick close to me, do you hear?” “I do,” I said, a little resentful that he thought I couldn’t take care of myself. “I’m not afraid, though. Will, I’ve sung in worse places.” “I’m sure that you have, mo anam cara, but you weren’t my wife then.” “And I handled Sallie.” “This is different and well you know it.” “What could happen that I couldn’t heal from by tomorrow night?” I asked, more than a little cheeky.” Will didn’t laugh. “Your body will heal but I would rather you not be robbed, raped, or otherwise injured. I don’t want you hurt, even for the short time it takes to heal, not in any way.”

I squeezed his hand tighter. Put that way, I understood because I felt the same way about him. When he got into that fight back in Lawton, I worried even knowing he would be better within hours. “I’ll stick close, then, Will. I promise.” We visited a few shops before finding our way to Kenny’s Alley but I saw little action and less that I would want to buy. In the alley – a real enough one – we found a place where we could enjoy a few drinks and have a meal so we did. We drank White Russians – Kahlua coffee liquor mixed with vodka and cream served over ice, a change of pace. It certainly wasn’t the local flavor but I liked the taste but after two, Will didn’t and switched over to Irish whiskey. We danced for the first time in ages, slow and intimate and I adored the way I felt in his arms, sailing across the floor with graceful energy. We stayed almost until four before we headed back to the motel to beat dawn. As we cut through the dark streets, still populated with a few other hardy souls, two guys stepped out of the shadows and blocked our path. I tensed up and Will put his arm around me, pulling me closer into the shelter of his body. “Get out of the way,” he barked in a voice that demanded obedience. “We’ll go, sir, just as soon as the pretty lady hands me the rocks she’s wearing,” The first of the two would-be desperados said, voice slurred enough it made him hard to understand. He’d drunk far more than we had. I glanced down at my left hand where the rings Will bought me sparkled and put it out of sight. “I won’t do that!” “Cara,” Will hissed at me. “Let me take care of it.” “I won’t give up my rings to these idiots.” “I don’t intend for you to,” he said. He raised his voice and his tone emerged rough. “She’ll give you nothing and neither will I so get out of the fucking way.” “Take them, Shot!” One of the thieves shouted and they lunged at us in unison, stumbling over their own feet. It might have been funny but just as I saw the street lights reflect from my diamond rings, I saw them glimmer on the hunting knife that the one who spoke held in his hand. “Will, be careful,” I whispered but he never heard me. Before I could repeat it, he released me and moved toward them with the

steady speed of an Army tank. He hit the first square in the face, breaking his nose in a shower of blood and mucus. Then he lifted the other and tossed him a good ten feet down the alley but quick as he was, the one called Shot slashed him with his knife. I heard Will’s harsh cry and saw the blade slam into his side. I forgot about my own safety as I ran over to him but the one with a broken nose tried to trip me. I paused long enough to kick him; hard enough to put him out and reached Will. As I got there, I heard the running footsteps of the two idiots who tried to rob us, apparently not as tough as they thought they were after all. Compared to what either Will or I could do, they got off lucky but I dismissed thoughts of them and turned to my husband. “You’re hurt!” My voice came out as a wail. He pulled the knife from his left side and winced, tossing it to the ground. “Aye, I am at the moment.” I pulled aside the torn cloth in an effort to see how bad the slice might be and made a face when I saw the cut flesh. Not much blood seeped out but I knew that’s because we don’t have much to start with and what we have doesn’t flow but it looked wicked as well as painful. Will pressed a hand over it and his face contorted. “He jests at scars that never felt a wound.” His quote reassured me. I knew he wouldn’t die from the cut and that it would heal – or get a good start on it – by tomorrow night but my concern remained. “Let’s go back to the room and I’ll see what I can do for that. Can you walk?” “Aye, of course I bloody well can,” he snapped, “It just hurts like hell.” He glared at me for about three seconds and then his expression softened. “I’m sorry, Cara,” he said in a much gentler voice. “It does hurt but I shouldn’t take it out on you. Don’t fret, I’ll be just fine soon enough.” “I know you will,” I crooned. “But for now, you’re hurt and I’m going to take care of you.” “I know,” he said, sounding both certain and smug. “I’m counting on it.” So we made it back to the hotel and I washed it out with whiskey, which made him groan. I admired him, though, because I

imagine I would have screamed and then, once I finished, we made very slow, easy love. After that, we slept, or what passes as sleep for us. ***** His side throbbed but he could bear it. By nightfall, it would be healed or close enough. He thanked God that he took the blade, not Cara and when he remembered how he warned her; he wanted to either turn his anger inward or laugh. These days, his mood remained light enough that he chose the laughter. So many long nights on the road wearied him. He might be thirty years of age for all eternity but there were times when he felt the full two hundred and odd years he existed. Sometimes he felt young, still, but others he felt like the old, ancient man he was in reality. This pain reminded Will of when he got shot as a highwayman, so long ago but he recalled the fever that followed, the weeks of weakness, the recovery and he shuddered, glad to escape that fate this time. All he wanted now was to go home for a few precious days with his woman and then to find Seamus. He had no doubt that his brother lurked out there somewhere, just beyond the edges and that they would find him. The question of when tormented him but time, after all, was something he possessed in great quantity. This road trip, this almost honeymoon had been something to savor but it was time to go home, to rest and to get a firmer grasp on his brother’s location. He shifted position and pain radiated through his side. A moan escaped his lips but Cara, almost out herself, touched him, murmured sweet words and he settled back. Her love eased his physical pain; with it he could bear it until it passed.

Chapter Fourteen When I was a little girl, I spent one entire summer thinking that I wanted to be a nurse and I took care of my dolls with patient fervor. Those poor dolls suffered through tummy aches, headaches, wounds, and other injuries but they all recovered thanks to my loving care. I changed my career aspirations when I spent some time at the hospital when one of my cousins stepped on a copperhead out in a thicket and ended up in the ICU for three days. That made me realize I wasn’t cut out to be a nurse and I never thought about anything medical as a career again. Now, in the months I had known Will Brennan and been married to him, I found myself reprising that role. What surprised me most was that I liked taking care of him, as long as his ailments remained minor and non-life threatening. If he had been a petulant person or a sissy who whined complaints all the time, it might have been different but he kept silent most of the time and downplayed his hurts. When we got up that next night in Atlanta, I checked his side first thing. Although I could still see where the knife slashed his flesh, the wound no longer gaped. A good two weeks’ worth of healing happened while we rested and it appeared to be clean, free of any infection. When I pressed it, however, he winced and I asked, “Does it hurt?” “It’s a bit sore,” Will said. “But it will do. Do you want to go home tonight, mo anam cara?” I smiled at that, “I would love to go home. Can we?” He put on a clean, undamaged shirt and grinned. “It’s a good eight hours, not counting any stops we make but I think we can if that’s what you want.” “It is.” I took over snapping his shirt for him so that I could run my hands over his chest. “Don’t you want it too?” “Aye, of course I do,” Will said. “I miss the place. I imagine Malachi will be glad to see us too. But before we get too far, I need blood and I imagine you do too.” I did but I wanted home more. Still, I knew the necessity and so I agreed that we would hunt for donors before we ate or hit the highway toward home. When we got there, I wanted to enjoy the

comforts and not suffer from either a bellyache or have a need to stop. We headed back toward Underground Atlanta and Kenny’s alley. Although it was early in the evening, there were enough stragglers to choose from. We cut two of them from the herd and led them down a darker alley so that we could feed. We were in and out within minutes; leaving the two hapless donors none the wiser about what happened. Then we stopped for a quick dinner and when we came out of the restaurant, big, thick snowflakes drifted down as if some angel spilled the laundry soap. I held out my hand in wonder and said, “Look, Will, it’s snowing!” He grinned like a little boy bent on mischief. “I can see that.” “It’s pretty,” I told him and he nodded. “Aye, it’s lovely but it will slow down our travel a bit.” Eight hours anytime is a long time to sit in the car, feet in one position but the same hours traveling over a snow covered road last forever - something I’m beginning to know something about. The snow came down harder and faster once we got out of the greater Atlanta area. I could feel the occasional slide of the big car against the slick pavement and watched more than one vehicle fish tail ahead of us. Within minutes, the curtain of white fell so thick that I couldn’t see more than a foot or so beyond the headlights. “Can you see?” I peered through the windshield into the gloom and swirling snow. “I can but not much,” Will said, his tone as level and calm as if it were a bright sunny day. “Is the road slippery?” “Aye, it is just a wee bit. I’ve driven over much worse, mo anam cara and we’re safe. Don’t forget that we vampires are hard to kill; it would take more than a car crash to do the job.” “Oh, I’m not worried,” I wasn’t; I trusted Will and his driving skill but I longed to get home and sleep in our own bed. Snow meant maybe we wouldn’t make it. “Good, leannán,” he told me, reaching one hand between my legs to stroke me there. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep. I have dreams of what I want to do with you before I sleep and there’s no reason why I can’t do both at home.”

As I fantasized about just what he might wish to do, I thought up some poetry to quote that fit, not Shakespeare but the all American, New England poet Robert Frost, “I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.” Will smiled at me, eyes leaving the room so that he could turn that high powered expression on me, melting me and inspiring me to imagine the possibilities. “You’ll keep them, woman, never fear.” Despite the snow and the increasingly treacherous road conditions, Will kept that Cadillac rolling through the night, his speed constant and we put the miles behind us, one at a time. We paused on the fringes of Nashville just long enough to refuel and for a bathroom break, then pressed onward. By the time we hit Jackson, the snow came down so thick that I had no doubt the weather folks called this one a real March blizzard. Few other vehicles remained on the highways but we kept on through the night. We hit Memphis with less than half an hour to spare before sunrise and navigated the snow-filled streets until we wound into the hills to our home. Will whipped down the long drive and parked at a slant before the house. We stepped out into a white fairyland, an enchanted world where snow coated everything and made it somehow magic. Although I could feel the cold that seeped into everything, it didn’t bother me and on cue I began singing, Walking In A Winter Wonderland. “I’m happy tonight,” I trilled and Will smiled. “You look it,” he said and then, despite the frigid temperatures and the snow everywhere, he kissed me. His lips, often chill, felt warmer than the air and I responded to them like a compass pointing north, true. That kiss fired me within and I gave him back what he offered, tempered with love. Sweet desire stirred inside and since neither of us wore coats, I massaged first his shoulders, then his torso with my hands. He caught me with his arms and pinned me in place, kissing me until I could not even think a rational thought. By then I didn’t care if we froze to death in the snow, unlikely in any event, and would have let him put me down on my back in the snow so we could do the deed if he wanted. Being far more practical and romantic than that, Will swept me into his arms and carried me into the house, his mouth still engulfing mine. We trailed snow into the front entry hall and neither cared. He toted me up the stairs, reminding me of Rhett Butler doing

the same with Scarlett and because that was always a favorite scene, rank with sensuality, my hidden secret pockets softened and became wet in anticipation. I trailed my hand down to feel his rock hardness and smiled, as eager as he to shed the clothing so we could come together. Our big bedroom loomed large after so many nights spent in small spaces but all I cared about was that huge bed, waiting for us. Will put me down onto it and stripped away his clothing. I lay, passive and still, so that he would take my clothing away and he did, with deft hands that moved with smooth speed. In seconds my skin prickled with anticipation, bare to the air in the cool room that smelled, despite our long absence, of my perfume and our musk. With little time remaining until the sun broke over the eastern horizon and turned every snowflake into a sparkle, Will took me with precise swiftness. This time he didn’t let his hands linger over my flesh or tempt or tease or use his tongue. Instead, he thrust into my open channel and filled it. Such intense pleasure made me whimper with it but I retained enough control to tighten my inner walls so that they squeezed him in caresses that made him growl like a hungry wolf wanting more. Those sounds inspired me to push with all my might against him so that he dove deeper into me. Each movement he made created ripples that moved outward with exquisite pleasures that made me feel so very good. I could feel the same shudders working through him and it was not until we finished, climbed that summit and claimed it in a wild burst of ultimate fulfillment that I remembered his wounded side. Although I lay boneless and spineless, I summoned up enough energy to snake my hand over his side. Beneath my fingers, the skin felt unbroken and smooth. He knew my thoughts and said, “It hardly hurts at all, now. Go easy, though. My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss,” “That should have been my line,” I said, with a tiny giggle and bent my lips to kiss his wound with soft lips. Will pulled me back up so that I lay beside him, facing him. “Kiss me here.”

He pointed to his mouth and so I did, with such smoky desire that we would have probably loved again but he paused, a slight tremor shaking his body. “What is it?” I asked just before the same shakiness overwhelmed me and I knew. “It’s day, isn’t it?” I felt the start of a headache beating against my brain as he nodded. “Aye, you made me forget all about that.” “Me, too,” I murmured, burrowing into the covers so that I could rest and the headache would vanish. “We’ll finish this tonight, mo anam cara,” he said, his voice muted so that it sounded like rich velvet. “Okay,” That deep blackness, that total loss of consciousness covered me like a cloud moving across the sun but before I sank into it, I heard Will say one more thing, “Cara, I feel him a little closer now, not near but not as far.” I wanted to answer but instead I floated into nothing but when I woke, I remembered. Will wasn’t in bed beside me when I roused so I crawled out of bed with reluctance, wishing to go for another round of beautiful lovemaking, and found some clothing to put on. Sometime, someone carried our luggage up and it sat, smirking to be unpacked so I stuck my tongue out at it. With bare feet I pattered down the hallway seeking Will and found him in his office. Smoke from his latest cigarillo floated in the air in pretty patterns and the aroma hung so heavy that I knew he must have smoked many. He sat at the computer, intent on whatever he did, and he never heard my footsteps. I laid my hands upon his shoulders and although he did not jump, I surprised him. “Cara,” he said and made just the simple sound of my voice sound like the sweetest endearment. “You slept later.” “Did I?” I had no idea what the time might be but when I looked down at the monitor, I saw that I did. “I guess I was glad to be back in our own bed. What are you doing?” He turned his face to me, eyes serious and intent, as blue as a winter sky.

“I’m just piddling around, waiting for you,” he said. “I emailed your mother and told her about our trip and even about Seamus. Then I tried to look for a few more clues about my brother.” I sat down on the knee he patted in offer and put my arm around his shoulders. “Did you find any?” “Aye, I found a few.” He worked his hand under my shirt and fondled my breasts. “What?” “I found a Seamus Brennan in St. Louis who runs a tiny little tavern on some side street,” he said, distracted by what his hand did. “He seems to be of the right age, maybe, and another in Springfield, Missouri who is a fireman. He goes by James but his real name is Seamus or so it says online. Then there is one more in Branson and he runs a small theater where he sings Irish songs. Oh, and I located one more in Kansas City who is a police officer.” He did well, I thought, better than me and I said so. Will shrugged his shoulders. “I did nothing but search his name with the state name. I told you last night he felt closer and I woke this night with the thought of Missouri in my mind so I hoped it might mean something.” “Maybe it does,” I said with cautious hope. I wanted him to track down his long lost sibling almost as much as he did, so that he would have his brother and so that we would have closure. I wanted back the life we had before Sallie interrupted it with her bitter vendetta. “You slept so long I almost worried,” he said, but with a twinkle in his eyes that said he didn’t. “Malachi brought in the baggage and told me how glad he was to see us home. What would you like to do now that we’re here, darlin’?” “I just want to be with you,” I nuzzled him and ran my fingers through his hair. “I’m hungry, though.” “So am I,” he admitted. “I believe there should be some fine steaks just waiting to be cooked downstairs, some good wine to be drunk in the moon room, and then there’s always the bed.” “I like it all,” I said. “In just that order.” After so many restaurant meals, I delighted in fussing around in my own kitchen, cooking the steaks just the way Will liked. We ate with gusto, food tasting better at home, and talked.

“Your mother wants us to bring Seamus when we visit,” Will said, savoring his next to last bite of steak. “She seems sure that we’ll find him.” “We will,” I said. “You know, she’s always had a touch of the sight so if she believes it, don’t doubt it.” “I don’t,” Will returned, blunt and honest, “once I started feeling him, I knew that we would. I want to see him again very much but I’m nervous too. I don’t know if I’m the same man he’ll remember or not. I may have changed in more than two centuries.” “Any changes you’ve made are for the better,” I said. “After all, you’re not a highwayman or criminal now so you’re safe from the hangman’s noose. Even when you were, I can’t imagine that you were really very terrible, Will. I know you like my own soul and you’re good even if you robbed people for a living.” “Go raibh maith agat, mo anam cara,” he replied. “I want to think that you’re right but will he? And will he be as I remember or not?” “We won’t know until we find him,” I answered as I cleared the table. “Let me get the dishes and we’ll go the moon room.” He caught my wrist and held it. “The dishes can wait; let’s go drink some wine.” After a moment, I nodded. “Let’s do.” And we did, a sweet red Moscato that I savored as we looked out through the glass walls to the winter wonderland outside, surrounded by green plants and growing things that reminded me of the coming spring. By then I hoped that Seamus would be found.

Chapter Fifteen My Granny Riley’s house was another home for me. Up until her death, no matter where I had been or how far or how long, I could come back, walk inside and I was home. Everything remained in the familiar spots where it belonged and I loved the unchanging haven I found there. When we returned home after more than two weeks on the road, traveling over more than half of the country in search of Seamus Brennan, I felt just the same. I adored our rambling house, comfortable despite the size and homey even though it looked like a castle from the outside. I settled back into our snug life like a tired foot slipping into a favorite slipper after a hard day. So did Will; although he thrived on the road, whether we traveled by truck or car, I could see that he flourished here. After the first couple of nights back when we cocooned at home, we ventured out to some of our favorite spots down along Beale Street and to Fitz’s at Tunica. We revisited some of our memories by riding the trolley again in the moonlight but we stayed far away from Overton Park. Contentment weaved around us like a blanket but as each night passed; I could pick up on Will’s eagerness to go out again, to see if we might be successful this time. He said nothing because he wanted to please me, to give me all the down time that I might need but I knew he needed to find Seamus even more. I let almost three weeks pass before I approached him with the idea that we should hit the road again. “Do you want to go to Missouri yet?” I asked, as we ate Chicken Kiev one night, a change from our near constant steak. “We can leave tomorrow night if you want.” Will put down his fork and laid it across his plate where melted butter trailed away from the remaining chicken breast. “I would like it if you’ve rested enough, Cara. There’s no real hurry after hundreds of years.” “No but I’m ready to go if you are,” I told him. “You want to find him so I think that we should.” “Then we will,” he said with a full smile that softened his face and made me warm inside. “Do you care where we go first?” I didn’t and said so. He nodded and finished his chicken before he answered.

“We’ll start with St. Louis,” Will decided, “It’s the biggest and if he’s not there, then I’ll see how I feel. If my brother is truly in Missouri, I should be able to tune in on him and know where to go after that.” “It sounds like we have a plan.” So when dark came the next night, we loaded up the car again with our baggage and my laptop. I settled in next to Will and we set off on I-55 headed for the Lou, hopes high once more. When we came back home from our first foray, winter gripped everything in an icy grip and blanketed the world with one last March blizzard. Now, with April underway, trees burst into leaf and green things erupted from the ground with haste. I could smell that seductive, rich aroma of growing life and awakening dirt when we rolled the windows down and loved it. In Cape Girardeau, about halfway there, we stopped for a meal at one of the chain restaurants. It wasn’t really that late, less than three hours out from home and we had a surprisingly good steak. We lingered a few extra minutes afterward to walk along the banks of the Mississippi, running bank full after several spring rains. Although it’s a turbulent river, water always calms me and under normal conditions, it had the same effect on Will. Nothing felt ordinary, though, because as soon as we crossed into the Show-Me State, his nervous tension hit new levels. During our meal, he had drummed his fingers on the table, tapped his feet, and otherwise twitched - all things he did not normally do at all. As we strolled beside the river below the levee wall, colorful with murals, I said, “You’re wired, Will. Are you tuning into Seamus?” He paused in the act of firing a cigarillo and nodded. “Aye, I am. I feel him strong but I can’t quite get a direction. He’s here, though, in this state, I’m sure of it.” “You thought he was in New Orleans too,” I pointed out, “but we didn’t find him.” Will blew out smoke and stared at the choppy river waters. “We did not but I’m convinced he was there and then maybe he left. This is as strong as I’ve felt him, though, mo anam cara.” “You should be happy, not tense,” I said, locking my arm through his. He shot me a look, sharp as an arrow. “I am happy, Cara. It’s only that it has been a long time and I still don’t know how he

may react to his older brother, one he thought long dead, showing up. He may think I’m a pain in his arse.” I snuggled up against him, not because I felt cold although the wind off the river would have made a human girl shiver, so I could be closer to him. “If he’s all you’ve told me, Will, he’ll be as glad as you are.” He tossed his half-smoked butt into the water and pulled me into his arms. We stood there in a tight embrace for a few moments, more comforting to me than the water or anything else in this world. He kissed me, not a kiss to ignite passion but one that cherished me. “I hope so,” Will said, “If all the world believed in me like you do, I could have been king of it.” “If we had world enough and time,” I quoted, Robert Herrick, not Shakespeare but it evoked a smile from my Will. “Ah but we do, leannán,” he said. “We do.” We kissed again, this time slower and with more heat, enough to make me wish we were anywhere else. If we had privacy, I knew where this would lead but it wasn’t late enough for that and in a small town, I worried that the local law enforcement might catch us acting like two teenagers. Since I would hate to end up in jail, we broke it off. “We’ll start that again when we get to St. Louis,” Will said as we walked arms around each other to the car. “And we’ll finish this time.” “Good,” I said as we grinned at each other, climbing into his big car for the rest of the trip. “Have you ever been to St. Louis?” Will asked as we hit the outskirts of the city. I hadn’t. “Nope, I never had a reason to go. Have you?” “Aye, I have, dropping loads mostly. We’ll go down to Laclede’s Landing on the riverfront which I remember well before it was a popular spot to go. It’s one place that hasn’t changed that much. It still has the cobblestone streets and such.” “I hate it when you do that,” I said, griping but without venom. “What’s that?” “Tell me about places you went a long time ago, before I was even born.” Will laughed, his mirth musical and sweet. “Cara, that doesn’t

matter. I’m happier with you than I have ever been but I can’t erase the past, can I?” Damn, I hated when he made sense. “Well, no, I suppose not.” “I don’t talk about them to make you feel left out,” he told me, “I just mention it because it’s part of where I’ve been.” Now I felt like I’d been just a teeny bit mean for nothing. “I’ll remember. I do like to hear about your past, sometimes.” I scooted even closer across the seat, my hunger rising, not for food or blood but for him. As soon as I put my hand on his arm I could feel that he felt the same. “Let’s go get a hotel, darling,” he said. “We’ll take it from there.” We found a room at one of the hotels within walking distance of Laclede’s Landing, the Gateway Arch, Busch Stadium and other famous points of interest. From the window of the room I could look out over the city and even see some of the old district but exploring could wait – I had something else on my mind and so did Will. Some of the taut strain I could feel through his body vanished as he stripped his clothing and came to me, bare as the day he was born. Before he could lay a finger on me, I shucked mine too so that we came together naked. He sought release, not relaxation and so he came to me hard and ready, his cock roused with want. This time he lacked the suave finesse he often used, gone in his need for connection that would lead to ultimate consummation. He took my mouth like some conquering soldier; he owned it and commanded it, my lips willing to surrender to his attack. My mouth parted for his tongue to enter, to thrust with desire so that my own curled around his. I felt my lips bruise and swell, glorying in the sensation and even as we kissed, his hands moved over my bare skin, familiar and confident. Will tweaked my nipples, his fingers gentling as he coaxed their pink buds into bloom. When each hardened, he put his mouth to them in turn and suckled, just hard enough to make me whimper for more. He pressed hard against my legs where we stood and I took the hint, moving my own hands down to cup his manhood, to caress it and fondle it. Within my grasp, it lengthened and grew even harder so I teased it, raking my fingertips over it in a way sure to titillate and torment.

His gasp indicated it worked and he backed me up to the bed where I fell onto it with a soft bounce that made me giggle. Will loomed over me and then he descended into me, driving into my depths with his masculine might and I opened to him, spread my legs wide and welcomed him in. He feinted and parried as if he used a sword, not his cock to enter me. Each plunge took him deeper and brought magnificent response, sheer physical pleasure that resonated through me like a knife thrust. I wrapped my legs around his torso and he jabbed me hard, then, to the depths and remained, his body convulsing even as I began to quiver at that ultimate moment of superlative sensation, that red tide that washed away all memory and everything in a rapture of delight. Will grunted, making a very male sound that echoed his success and his prowess so I grabbed him by the shoulders to pull him down onto me. Then with my super human strength I still often forgot, I rolled him over so that we could lie face to face until we recovered enough stamina to go out. “Love give me strength! And strength shall help afford,” Will quoted when he could, tender now as he stroked the curve of my face and let his fingers filter through my hair with an easy hand. “I don’t think I have the strength to get up and go out, woman.” I laughed. “Don’t you want to go try to find Seamus? I thought you said he ran a bar or something.” “The one who lives here does,” Will said, tracing the line of my breast with a stray finger. “But it’s not my brother or I would know. In Cape Girardeau he felt much closer than here. We can go see Laclede’s Landing if you want but there is no need.” His voice came out, as even as a ruler drawn line, and I marked that he didn’t sound disappointed, just resigned. I picked up on the idea that he didn’t much want to go and that was fine with me. We had forever to come back to explore the old area if we wanted. “We don’t need to unless you want to,” I said, letting my hand rest against his chest. “I’m not hungry or thirsty or anything. So where do we go from here?” “South, I think,” he replied, distracted. “Maybe we’ll find him in Springfield and if not there, we’ll go to Branson. I don’t think it’s very far from Springfield.”

“It’s not,” I answered. “Now that we have the rest of the night to do what we want, what would you like to do?” He lifted an eyebrow as a devilish grin divided his face. “I think you well know what I have in mind, mo anam cara.” I knew very well. And so we did it. **** His brother haunted his waking thoughts and filled his few stray dreams. Now that he felt him, strong and nearer than before, Will thought he could not wait. At the same time, he savored the anticipation, fearing that the reality might not be as sweet as the dream. Sometimes he let himself imagine how the reunion might go, what he would say or do and how Seamus might respond. Once they shared a bond as deep and boundless as the sea. That must have motivated Seamus to come after him, to try to find him after he vanished without good-bye. He should have gone home; Will mused now, and told them he left for America. He wouldn’t have to say what he had become but leaving as he did now seemed cold. At the time, he did it because he could not face them, afraid they would see the new darkness in his soul. If he had, then maybe Seamus would never have met Sallie Hawkins. He and the rest of the Brennans could have been spared their grief at what they thought had been Will’s passing. Seamus could have lived a normal life with a wife and children. Maybe he resented that he hadn’t and perhaps he would blame Will, once he knew that he snuck away, never telling his family what he did. Even so, even if Seamus hated him or didn’t want to renew their relationship, Will needed to see him and soon, he now thought he would. If he had any hopes at all how it would be between them, he could quote the other Will for that, “We came into the world like brother and brother; and now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.” God willing, maybe they could.

Chapter Sixteen Long before all the music halls and theaters lined the Strip, back when people went there to fish Lake Taneycomo and for the solitude, my grandparents make an annual trek up to Branson. In their old black and white photographs I saw another world, an era when people stayed in cozy resort cabins with catchy names like “Live Well” and “Keep Cool”. In those faded pictures, I glimpsed what had been Branson once and read even more when I became engrossed in a vintage book, The Shepherd of the Hills. When my family headed up to Branson for a family reunion when I was about sixteen or so, I expected to find the sleepy little resort town I imagined. It wasn’t. Branson grew and morphed into a major vacation destination somewhere along the way. We went to a theme park filled with hillbilly cornpone and some fast rides called Silver Dollar City, to a couple of shows, and we rode antique World War II amphibious vehicles into Taneycomo. Last time I passed through, they had added retail outlets and upscale shopping, the last in a lakeside development called Branson Landing. When we left St. Louis we headed southwest on Interstate 44, a highway that Will said ran much of the same distance once covered by the famous Route 66. Although we had been traveling all over the country, the number of big trucks rocketing along this interstate seemed greater than anywhere else. Every one of them seemed to drive well over the posted 70 mile an hour speed limit so of course Will drove at eighty or better all the way. About halfway between the Lou and Springfield, we stopped at Rolla, a college town, for a steak at a local place. The full 16-ounce strip steaks tasted fine but afterward, Will rubbed his stomach. “I need a bit more,” he said with a wry grin. “I know just the place.” The place turned out to be an amazing half scale or less reproduction of Stonehenge on the campus of the University of Missouri. Since it remained in a permanent spot on campus, we could get out and walk around it. Although my own tummy began kicking up with a need for blood, I found it delightful despite my growing discomfort. “I wonder how much larger the real one is,” I remarked to Will.

“It’s a lot bigger than this,” he said and I knew then he had been there, sometime on Salisbury Plain. “Did you see it before or after you became a vampire?” I asked. “Oh, before, when I was still a highwayman. We spent the night there once, chased by constables who were afraid to go between the stones.” I shook my head. I could imagine it all too easy but before I could comment, he pointed to a pair of staggering students. “There, that’s our donors.” I followed his gaze. “What’s wrong with them?” He laughed. “They’re drunk, Cara. Colleges often give me a good chance to find drunken youth who will never remember what happened to them. Let’s go.” We trailed them back toward some dorms. They made it simple when they left the path for a shadowed patch of bushes where they urinated with great amusement until they turned around and we were there. In the dark and in their condition I knew they could not see our faces and we must have looked formidable. Before they could gather their wits, we pounced, drank, and departed. Around midnight we reached Springfield. Most of the wide streets were all but empty before us. Will slowed to a crawl as we traveled down Glenstone, one of the business routes through town and turned off the music. “What are we doing?” I asked although I had an idea. “I want to see if I can feel him here,” Will said. “I get him but I don’t think it’s in this town. It doesn’t feel that close.” Battlefield Mall, according to the sign at the main entrance, loomed out of the night like a mammoth fortress and the parking lots stretched into near infinity, all empty. Will pulled the Caddy into one of them and we sat, quiet as he tried to determine where his brother might be. He stepped out into the night, standing still as a statue beside the car, intent on his task. Without warning, he stuck his head back into the car and hissed, “There should be a folding map in the glove box. Get it out, Cara.” Just as I unfolded it, wondering why Will wanted it, mall security pulled up and asked what we were doing.

“We’re on our way to Branson,” Will told him, his voice smooth as a placid lake surface. “I think we might have lost our way so I stopped so my wife could look over the map.” “I can tell you the best way to get there,” the security officer said and did. After he vanished back into the night, I turned to Will. “Good save,” I said with a dry voice. “I would guess being a truck driver and all that you know every way to get to Branson.” “Aye, I do,” Will said. “But it’s very seldom that I take a load there. I’m not fond of the winding roads and sharp curves or the crowds.” Something in his voice hinted that he knew more and I picked up on it. “But you’ve been there before, haven’t you? It must have been a long time ago when it was still a small town.” He chuckled, “You know me too well, mo anam cara. I came there a few times back in the 1920’s but not to Branson. Rockaway Beach was a party town then. You could come on the train to Branson and then take a boat up the lake. A lot of city people came down back then.” “Were you a truck driver then?” “No, that came a bit later. Back then I lived in Chicago and kept order in a speakeasy.” That gave me immediate visions of the Roaring Twenties, images flavored by old movies like The Cotton Club or The Great Gatsby. I pictured Will in a 1920’s era suit with a fedora and that gave me chills, the good kind. “You must have cut a fine figure,” I said, dreamy-eyed and he laughed. “I suppose that I did. I came here with Mr. Brown, you know.” I didn’t. “Mr. Brown? Who was he, the guy who owned the joint?” “Aye, you might say that he did,” Will said, his voice merry, “Most people remember him now as Al Capone.” I whacked him on the shoulder and squeaked, “You knew Al Capone?” “I did,” Will said. “But it was a long time ago.” “It must have been exciting,”

He shook his head and stroked my cheek, his fingers lingering over the scar Sallie marked me with, “I’d rather have now than then. Let’s go see if we can find my brother.” Less than an hour later, somewhere after two o’clock in the morning we hit Branson. A few hours earlier Highway 76, known as The Strip, would have been bumper to bumper when the shows and attractions shut down for the night but at that hour, I counted no more than three other cars. Since the last time I visited the place, it seemed like that motels, tourist shops, restaurants, and other businesses had morphed up like toadstools after a hard rain. Most of them were closed for the night and I noticed that most of the motels, of which there were many, displayed lit “No Vacancy” signs. “I hope we can find someplace to stay before morning,” I said, more than a little nervous. “We’ll find something,” Will answered with total confidence, “I looked up a few places off the main road before we came. There is a Comfort Inn behind some big theater, The Villa Entertainment Theatre or some such. Have you seen it?” “No.” I peered out into the April night and then I glimpsed the sign, a gigantic neon lit wonder with the name blazoned in tall letters. “There it is!” I pointed a finger at it and then I paused, shaken and stunned like a bird that just flew into a clear plate glass window. “Will?” My voice croaked on the word and he slowed, turning to look at me with concern. “What is it, leannán?” Beneath the permanent sign, red letters ran non-stop with a message banner that said, “Tonight through Saturday – Benefit Concert For New Homeless Shelter, starring Elvis Jones, the Hillbilly Cat and his band of Felines, Daisy Darling, Seamus Brennan…” There were more names but there was just one that mattered. “That sign says there is a benefit concert here and it lists the performers,” I managed to say, “One of them is Seamus Brennan.” Will never hesitated and with his usual aplomb wheeled into the vast parking lot to watch the sign. Once he saw the name for himself, he sighed.

“We may have found him,” he said. “I’ve seen him in a theater, on stage. Jesus, Mary, and her husband Joseph, Cara, we might have found my wee brother at last.” Since I never heard him use that phrase before, I could tell he must be both excited and nervous. “I hope so, Will.” “Aye,” he said. “So do I. Let’s go see if we can find that hotel and get a room. Tomorrow night, we’ll go to the show and see.” Hope lit his eyes like a pair of candles during a power outage and I snuggled against him as we drove the two blocks to the hotel. “What will we do tonight?” Tenderness softened his face but heat lurked there too. “I should think we can find something, darlin’,” After checking in with a very sleepy-eyed desk clerk, we also found out we could buy tickets to the benefit show for the following night so we did. Then, we rode the elevator upstairs, our luggage in tow; we stumbled into the room, one with two beds, all that they had available. We tossed our gear onto one of them and in unison, without a word we turned to each other with gentle hunger and almost desperate need. Will undressed me with careful motions, each touch as light as butterflies brushing against my skin and so I took off his clothing, piece by piece with the same care. When we stood naked facing each other, he ran his hand down my cheek, over the scar Sallie left and then he picked up my wrist where another scar marked where I fed him to save him. He put his lips against it, reminding me of how he suckled the open cut there but he kissed this time, soft and sweet. “Mo anam cara, you cut yourself open to bleed for me here,” he said, his voice quiet as prayer time in church, “You’ve fought for me, killed for me, and took the chance that you might have died for me. You’ve nursed me when I didn’t feel well and you’ve loved me no matter what. You’ve never turned me down when I wanted you and you love me with your whole heart. You’ve trailed across the country to help me find my brother and never complained at all. Woman, I just want you to know how very much I love you.” Such words touched me, filled my being with emotions that threatened to drown me in their deepness and I raised my own hand to touch the scar that marred the side of his throat, the place where Sallie tried to drain him to death. “I know that you do, Will Brennan, and I

celebrate it every moment of my existence. What I am to you, you are to me and more.” “I hope so,” he told me, those blue eyes brimming with tears from his inner well, “You came into my life with your music and your love; you made me as whole again as a vampire can be, Cara. With love’s light wings did I o’er perch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out and what love can do that dares love attempt.” By now I knew Shakespeare when I heard it and such prose moved me farther. I gave him back lines written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning for her love, “I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life and if God chose, I shall but love thee better after death.” “That is now,” Will told me, his eyes never leaving my face even as he pulled me against me, holding me against him with the exaggerated care reserved for something infinitely precious and fragile. “It is now and forever.” With that sweet thought he put his mouth to mine, easy and smooth, to kiss me with a slow burn that crept over me with endless pleasure. As that delight spread and expanded, I cupped his butt cheeks with my hands and then let one wander to the front where I caressed him with the same languid love. Without haste, he nuzzled my lips and then moved his mouth to kiss each shoulder with respect, with admiration. He dropped lower to each breast and spread that physical rapture over an increasing area of my body. I let my hands move upward to scratch his back, something he enjoyed, letting my nails rip deeper than usual and then letting them play over the rest of him. I used fingertips, nails, hands, and every facet of each to titillate him, to pick and prod, to tease and torment. Just as he reached my mound, I turned my attention to his proud stick, erect and solid. My hand gripped it, cradled it and then constricted it just enough to bring him pleasure. He growled at me, his voice low and tender, “Easy, Cara, or I’ll come without you.” “Oh, no, you won’t,” I teased back, “You’ll wait for me.” Despite his hands that restrained me in place, I dropped to my knees and took him into my mouth, the full length crowding into the space. I drew hard on him, sweet and yet with just enough pressure so that he almost exploded into my mouth. He had just enough control to grasp me and raise me up, then turn me around so that he

entered me from the rear. I bucked with exquisite spasms as he filled me, the different approach thrilling me. I came with a rush of delight and such completeness that for a moment, the world vanished in a blinding brilliance. I could not see but I could still feel and everything exploded in a beautiful bliss. After I collapsed face forward onto the bed, so spent that I could not summon energy to whisper the simplest endearment as Will tossed himself on the other bed, the one where we would sleep in the same condition. I might have just lain there through the day but after a time when my mind drifted to happy places and I savored the lingering sensation he wrapped his arms about me and brought me to bed with him, this time to sleep. Before we slid into our daylight unconsciousness, I stroked his chest with my fingers and said, “I know that you love me, Will, and I liked your sweet words but why now?” Our eyes connected and communicated everything we shared in that single glance. “I think we’re about to find my long lost brother,” he said. “I never dreamed it could happen and without you, it wouldn’t have. My emotions are so strong now and I just wanted you to know how I feel.” “I do,” I whispered, “and I did but I never get tired of hearing it.” His smile stretched over the lower half of his face like bright sunshine after a heavy rain. “Good,” he said. “Will you sing me to sleep?” I wondered what song to sing and then I had it, the sound of it echoing in my head, a good song with Texas connections. Johnny Lee sang it and the movie Urban Cowboy made it famous. “I spent a lifetime looking for you,” I sang, the opening lines of Looking For Love. By the time I finished the song, Will reposed, dead to the world by all appearances and I followed him into that same oblivion.

Chapter Seventeen On days when I knew I had a gig that night, I always got nervous with that rumbly little feeling in your tummy and the kind of nervous jitters that made you pace the room or fiddle with anything you can pick up to play with. I used to drink too much coffee, which didn’t help at all, and sometimes I would have a stronger drink, which at times, did. When I got to the place where I would sing, however, all that nervous tension would just fall away from me and I became “the singer”. I got into the role and when the time came I could walk out onto the stage without being afraid, proud and sassy. I just always knew when it was show time I would do what I needed and be fine. When we got up that night, Will radiated nerves like a kerosene heater gives off nasty fumes. Tension tightened his muscles so much that I could see it in the way he sat or stood. When I rubbed my hands over his shoulders, they felt harder than rock and I massaged harder, trying to ease his anxiety. “It’s going to be fine, honey,” I told him, “Either way, it will be.” “He’s here,” Will said. “I have no doubt at all.” “Then relax.” “I can’t. What time is the show?” “It starts at 9pm,” I told him, glad it began later or we would have had trouble making the opening. Now that it was April, we were well into Daylight Savings Time and that messes with a vampire’s internal clock big time. It also requires that we get a later start to our night. “We have time. Do you want to get something to eat first?” He shook his head and rubbed his stomach with one hand. “I can’t now. My belly already hurts and I don’t think I need to feed. Or maybe I do. I don’t know. Stress can make me need blood when I don’t.” His rambling barely made sense but it wouldn’t help to point that out to him. I smoothed his hair with one hand. “Honey, you’re going to make yourself sick with all this worry. Try to calm down, please.” “Aye, I’ll do what I can.” He couldn’t though; when we drove the two or three short blocks up to the theater, he drummed his fingers against the steering wheel so much it irritated me. He said little, very unlike himself, and

he remained stiff, so taut that I worried he might ruin the joy of the moment if we came across his brother by being sick. Inside the theater, we crossed the ornate lobby and wound through the throngs of chattering people to find our seats. We settled into a pair of seats on the aisle about halfway to the stage where I sat and Will bounced one leg with restless energy. I put my hand over his and he shot me a small smile but it didn’t seem to have the soothing effect I wanted. As we waited for the charity fundraiser show to begin, I looked around and realized that most of the seats were full. Beside me, Will squirmed, nervous as a kid on the first day of school and when he put his hand over his abdomen I realized he still had belly trouble too. By now I figured he must be hungry – I was – but if he found a quick donor, it might help. “Do you need to go out before it starts?” I asked Will who nodded and made a face. “Aye, I think I’d better or I’ll never pay attention to the show. I hope we aren’t sitting through this for nothing.” “Me, too but I don’t think that we are,” I said. “Hurry back. I’ll keep your seat.” He didn’t come back by the time they dimmed the house lights and I worried a little. Will, certain that Seamus was here in this resort town somewhere, had been strung tighter than a compound bow in deer season. I’d never known him to be this anxious; his nerves jangled and so taut I sometimes feared he might break with the strain. When he didn’t return pronto, I worried that he got into trouble, maybe bit the wrong person or got into a fight like we did in Lawton. After the intro and the first act, some country comedy shtick that amused the audience but not me, Will had not returned and I couldn’t stand it any longer. I got up, stepped out in the aisle, and followed the carpet out to the lobby. The spacious, fancy room echoed with conversation and laughter, full despite the crowd inside the theater. I moved through the press of people with the quiet ease of a predator, eyes searching for my tall Irish vampire. At first, I didn’t see anyone who looked like him at all and then I saw him, standing alone in the throng at a window, staring out into the dark parking lot. I made my way over to him and put my hand on his arm. As soon as I touched him, I knew my mistake. Whoever he was, he wasn’t Will. I opened my mouth to make some polite apology but

shut it when he turned around and looked down at me. I could see how I thought it was Will – he resembled him very much but his nose was different, his face a little narrower. His hair, just as raven black as Will’s, hung longer but his face was so close a match to Will’s that this had to be Seamus. “Well, pretty lady,” he said in a voice with some of the same cadences as Will’s did, “Who are you and where did you come from?” I felt almost one hundred percent sure that this had to be my brother-in-law but I needed to make it official. With a smile, I said, “My name is Cara Brennan.” He grinned, heightening his resemblance to Will. “Isn’t that a coincidence? My name is –,” “Seamus Brennan,” I supplied. His grin faded away and he looked at me, perplexed. “I am, for my sins. But do I know you?” he asked. “I wouldn’t have thought I would forget such a pretty face.” It had to be now or never, I thought, so I just said it, “I know your brother.” He frowned and his eyes, a rich blue, iced over like a pond in a January blizzard. “I don’t think so, Miss Brennan. I have no brother.” “No?” I replied, “You had five back in Ireland, didn’t you? You are from Toome in County Antrim, aren’t you?” His natural pallor whitened as I spoke and something like fear crept into the edges of his eyes. “Who told you that?” “Am I wrong?” He said nothing for a moment, just staring at me with the dazed expression of someone who just walked into a wall, hard. “I can’t say that you are but no one knows that about me, no one at all.” “I do,” I said with a breezy cheek that I didn’t feel. I had found him, Will’s brother, and I wanted to cry with both joy and release after the long search. “How do you?” his voice issued from his mouth, paper-thin and no more than a whisper. “Do you have the Sight or are you a witch? I think I know well enough what you are, a creature like me but I could be wrong. I’ve been known to make the odd mistake on occasion. But you know what you could not and that makes a difference.”

“I’m neither. Will told me all about you,” I said, and watched the impact of that name on Seamus. Hope flared like a shooting star in his face and faded just as fast. His features hardened as he glared at me and said, “If you mean my brother Will, he’s long dead. What are you, woman, that you know these things?” If I didn’t get to the point soon, I would lose him so I plunged forward, “I’m Will Brennan’s wife. Your brother is no deader than you are.” Seamus took a step back, eyes wide as he stared at me, mind processing the impossible information that I tossed him. Silence stretched between us, heavy and thick as wool and then he said, “You must be crazy, Cara Brennan. What you’re telling me just isn’t possible.” He turned as if to leave and I caught his arm, held it. “It is because he and I are both what you are.” Seamus froze in mid-step. “How could that be?” I spat out two words, the name I hated, the woman that I killed. “Sallie Hawkins.” He turned around to face me and grasped my arms so hard that it hurt. “Is this true?” he demanded, his voice quiet no more and rougher than an unpaved country road. Around us, people turned to stare. “You know things that you couldn’t or shouldn’t. I thought you might be a witch but now you say you’re like me. I thought that but then I decided I must be mistaken. So if you are, now you say that my brother Will is one as well. Tell me, is this true?” “Seamus, it is. Will is here, somewhere. We’ve been searching for you everywhere.” I saw tears shimmering in his eyes but he did not blink them away. “I’ve been what I am for more than two hundred years,” he said, with some bitterness. “Did it take you so long?” I swallowed down a few tears of my own. “Will had no idea that Sallie made you one too until a few months ago when she told him so.” Horror contorted his face into a mask. “That bitch is here?”

“No,” I said with a calm I lacked within. “She’s gone. I killed her after she almost destroyed your brother. She taunted him with what she did to you though and if I hadn’t killed her, she planned to go after you next.” Seamus met my eyes and stared into them as if he could read me like the pages of a book. Maybe he could with the knack vampires have but after a few moments that felt like hours, he nodded. “I believe you. I want to see my brother. Where’s Will?” I shrugged my shoulders. “I came out to find him and found you instead but he’s here.” Just then, the crowds in the lobby parted as if Moses raised his staff to separate the Red Sea and Will Brennan, my beloved, moved through the open space. They stepped aside for him, as if he were a king. He made eye contact with me and I knew his bellyache had gone but that he remained tense. I smiled at him, sending a silent signal for him to look to my left. I watched as he did. He halted, mid-stride and stared. Color flared into his face and then ebbed away like an ocean tide, leaving him paler than ever. Tension drained away from him as he looked upon his brother for the first time in centuries, for first time as a vampire. Joy stripped away any semblance of a mask and Will’s face became naked, as open as I had ever seen. I chanced a look at Seamus; his expression appeared just as exposed as his brothers. In their matching features I observed a rush of emotions, joy, shock, amazement, and disbelief tempered with the faintest hint of sorrow for the other family members who would not have such a reunion. Will came forward and paused. “Thank you, mo anam cara,” he said and kissed me, a short, sweet buss before he turned his full attention toward his brother. Tears tracked down his cheeks with slow precision but his eyes glittered bright as a just lit lamp against the gloom of a dark night. Will stopped before Seamus and the brothers stared at each other with the befuddled look of sleepwalkers and the bright awakening of hope. Will reacted first. He extended his hand to touch his brother’s cheek and his fingers lingered there, feeling the way that a blind man might. His voice emerged ragged, choked with unreleased sobs. “Seamus,” he said. “Dearthair, mo dearthair.”

“Will?” Seamus asked, with the reedy sound of a little boy. “It’s truly you, isn’t it?” “Aye,” my Will managed to croak. “‘Tis me.” “I’ve thought ye dead for many years,” Seamus said, grief sharpening his voice. “I mourned you, brother, but you’re alive, you’re here.” “I’m as alive as I can be,” my husband said and quoted from Hamlet, “We few, we happy band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother. No matter that it’s tears not blood we are shedding, mo dearthair.” With that, he flung his arms wide open and like the little brother he had once been – and still was – Seamus walked into the circle of Will’s arms. Tears dribbled down my own cheeks but when Seamus put his head against his brother’s shoulder and wept, without restraint or embarrassment, I bawled like a baby calf parted from its mama. I couldn’t see much through the cascade of tears but when Will opened his arm to invite me into the hug, I went, crying as hard as either brother. Around us, people gaped and stared but then, as if they somehow realized this must be a very potent and private moment, they backed away. Both Brennan brothers gained control of their emotions in just about the same moment and Will smiled at me, “Cara, mo anam cara, my wife, may I introduce my fine young brother Seamus?” “We met before you came,” Seamus said, just as cheeky as Will. “But I’m pleased to meet you, dear sister.” We were still locked into a three-way hug so I kissed his cheek. “I’m glad that we found you, Seamus. We’ve been looking since January and we’ve been everywhere. I’m just glad we saw your name on the marquee outside or we might have missed you now.” “Aye, I’m part of the show,” Seamus said, with a shy grin so much like Will’s that it made my heart skip a beat or three. He paused and we all heard the crowd inside roar with laughter at some country comedy. His face changed as he added, “I’m on next, I think. Come on, come backstage with me. I can’t bear to let you out of my sight yet. I have to sing a song or two. After that I’m done tonight.” Will nodded, “So you are a singer, then?”

“Oh, aye, I am,” his brother said. “I’m too lazy to work a real job these days and I make a decent living from singing old Irish songs. Most of them though aren’t anywhere as old as I am.” We trailed him as he made tracks down a hallway and through a doorway into a far less fancy part of the theater. Seamus greeted almost everyone that we met, glad-handing and shaking hands worse than a politician during election season. In the wings, we waited with him and just before he went on, he said, “Will, come sing with me, like we all did at home. We can sing Maidrin Rua the way Mam did.” “I haven’t sung that tune about the little red fox in years,” Will protested. “Cara’s the singer, not me. Get her to sing with you.” Seamus turned to me with avid interest. “Do you sing then?” I opened my mouth to answer but Will spoke first, “Aye, she does. She was on her way to Nashville when she met me.” If I didn’t know better, I would have guessed by their banter that they last saw each other two weeks, not two centuries ago but I butted in before they made every decision for me. “I don’t know the fox song,” I said. “But I do know Roddy Mc Corley. I’ll sing if Will sings too.” “I don’t know,” he began to protest but his effort came too late. From the stage, we all hear the professional tones of the MC announce, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, let’s put those hands together to make a warm welcome for a fine Irish lad, Branson’s own Seamus Brennan. Now Seamus has a wee little theater downtown and he puts on a fine show with all those old Irish ballads you know and love. Come on out, Seamus!” Applause erupted and before either Will or I could decline, his brother grasped us by the hand and led us out onto the stage with him, one on either side. “Good evening,” he said, letting his remaining brogue thicken until he sounded like he just arrived from the Emerald Isle. “I’m here to sing but I have a surprise to share with you. My brother Will came to visit me with his lovely wife, Cara and they came a long way to be here. Cara is a singer like me and so the three of us are going to sing a little song you may have heard before,”

On cue and in complete harmony, the three of us launched into the plaintive song with the line, “O see the host of fleet foot men who speed with faces wan...” The crowd loved it, they clapped until their hands must have hurt and shouted for more. My repertoire of Irish ballads was small but the brothers, after exchanging a look that spoke volumes launched into a rousing, spirited round of a song, I’ll Tell My Ma. I learned from Seamus’ introduction that the children’s song had long been a street favorite in Derry and Belfast but I could do nothing more than clap in rhythm with the song. Will sang as well as his brother, together their voices rose with power and glory. Their delight, genuine and full-bodied, held the crowd in sway. A few sang along from the audience but when the song ended, they whistled, they yelled, they stamped their feet and the applause echoed like a long peal of thunder. Despite all that excitement, Seamus crushed Will against him in a bear hug and their tears flowed again like the Liffey to the sea, joy that could not be contained. Seamus declined an encore and we bowed as a trio together, and then we exited stage left. “I’m hungry, man,” Will told his brother, “Do you know where we can get a decent steak?” “Aye, I do,” Seamus said. “Let’s go, dearthair, let’s go.” With that, we pushed through the stagehands, passed the other performers, worked our way through the crowds out to the car and away, three of us together. **** Buíochas le Dia, Will thought when he set eyes on his brother. They found him and when he looked into Seamus’ eyes, almost as blue as his own, he knew that the lad changed little and that their bond remained, intact and strong. All the nervousness melted away and he should have known better than to be anxious. Seamus now, vampire that he was, remained that young lad who thought Will walked on water. He retained his unique personality and he seemed to have kept some semblance of good cheer but maybe that was because this night was a joyous one. He had his woman, his beloved Cara and it seemed that he might just have his brother, one of his own as well. That felt like a

miracle on the level of the loaves and fishes, Will thought, and maybe greater than that. After all the emptiness, the years of self-doubt, decades of denial, and too many nights hating what he became, he had more contentment that he could ever have imagined, even in life. What would happen after tonight he did not know but he knew that somehow, Seamus would be in his undead existence forever.

Chapter Eighteen Growing up down in Rusk the Riley family gathered just about every Fourth of July for a big family reunion. We might be at our house or at Granny’s but we would get together, spilling out into the yard and filling the indoors with our noise. Somebody would be sure to set up a barbecue pit and at least one of the women, usually my mom, would fry chickens until we had stacks. We always had potato salad, layered salads, all kinds of chips and snacks, and more desserts than could have been good for anyone. As good as the chocolate cake and homemade ice cream tasted, though, the best part was always getting together as a family. All the hugs and kisses and catching up meant more than a little Texas girl could find words to express but I liked the bonding, treasured the connections. Watching Will and his brother reconnect made me feel the same way. They were so alike, I thought, as I sat between them at a table in some Australian themed steakhouse Seamus suggested. As they talked to bridge a gap of several centuries, I noticed that they filled in one another’s gaps and finished the other’s sentence. Sometimes they said the same thing in unison. They might have been twins but they weren’t, of course, just brothers who found each other again. In a very different way I saw from that first night that their bond survived death and separation; it emerged as strong as the one between Will and me. “So where do you sing for your supper?” Will asked as he shucked an oyster from the shell as we waited for steaks. “I have my own place,” Seamus said, with a grin, “it is downtown, though, and it’s a small old place but it suits my needs. I call it “Brennan’s Irish Stage”. I do two shows a night there in the summer season, one sometimes in the rest of the year, sometimes none at all if I go traveling. You’ll have to come see it, both of you.” “I would like that very much,” Will told him, “Maybe you can let Cara sing there sometimes. She gets cranky if she’s not singing.” “Oh, aye, I’d love that. Your woman has a fine, sweet voice and if she would learn a few more Irish songs, she could draw in more crowds. I’m far from rich but I would like to be one day. Where do you live, Will?” “Memphis, when I’m there. I do the odd bit of travel myself.”

I slurped an oyster down and shuddered. I liked the taste but not the slimy, gritty feel of the thing. “He drives a big rig, Seamus, all over the country.” Seamus lit up at the idea. “So you’re a truck driver then? That’s good. I was afraid to ask in case you were still some class of highwayman. I know they don’t call it that now but I feared you might be up to your neck in criminal activity.” Will shook his head. “I gave that up a long time ago, decades anyway. How long have you been here, in Branson?” His brother paused to think. “Five, maybe six years I think. Before that I had a gig in New York City in a small pub. This is better.” Their talk of traveling reminded me of our recent visit to New Orleans when Will felt so certain he could sense his brother’s presence. So I asked, “Seamus, were you just down in Louisiana not long ago?” He paused and stared at me. “Aye, I was. Are you a witch too or just a vampire?” Will roared with laughter as I struggled to keep both my temper in check and my composure. “I’m no witch, just a vamp,” I said. “I asked because when we were there, Will thought sure he could sense your presence but then it was gone.” Seamus choked on an oyster so Will whacked him hard on the back. “I was there in late February for the end of Mardi Gras,” Seamus gasped when he could talk again. “What does she mean, you sensed me there?” “I could feel you out there,” Will said, “I know it sounds crazy but it’s true. Both of us felt Sallie the same way – only bad, not good but only I could pick up on you. I felt you strong in New Orleans but then you were gone.” “I came back here,” Seamus answered. “Is that how you finally tracked me down?” Will shrugged his shoulders, “Aye, part of it anyway.” Our steaks came, tender and very delicious so we ate them and afterward, Seamus invited us to his home. “I’ve a lot more to say,” he began as we walked out into the spring night. “And a restaurant, no matter how fine, is no place to

have some conversations. We have a lot to catch up on and things I want to know.” “Aye, I do too,” Will said. “Our things are at the hotel though.” “We’ll go get them and you can check out. Please stay with me, brother, while you’re here. It’s a new thing but I like it – having family come to visit.” “We will, Seamus, mo buachaill.” Will’s brother lived in a rather nice Berm home, an underground house tucked in the side of a rugged Ozark hill down a dirt lane that had enough bumps that we felt them even in Will’s Cadillac. When we got out, though, the panorama view stretched out across into a fantastic scene, bathed in silver moonlight. “It’s pretty!” Seamus cocked his head to ponder it. “Is it? I don’t pay much attention to the scenery. I live here because it’s out of the way so it’s not likely anyone will pop in for a daytime visit and with the house being underground, there’s no chance of any stray sunlight. Come on in.” We entered the place. I liked the simple floor plan – to the left of the entry door I saw a small laundry room and to the right a sparkling clean kitchen that looked like no one ever cooked as much as an egg in it. The living room stretched out both broad and long. From it, a short hallway led to a single bathroom, a huge master bedroom that I suspected might include another bath, and a guest room. “Home sweet home,” Seamus said with more than a touch of his brother’s sardonic wit. “Would you like a drink?” “Aye, I thought you might never ask,” Will said, smiling. “Would you have any John Jameson’s on hand?” “It’s the only whiskey that I’ll put in my mouth,” his brother answered, “I’ve wines, too, and other drink if you like.” “Whiskey will do us fine,” Will said. We sprawled on the long soft sofas in the living room and talked. I listened more than I spoke but that didn’t matter. “Tell me what happened here,” Seamus asked halfway through his first drink. He touched the scar on the side of Will’s throat. “It looks recent and nasty both.”

“Aye, it is,” Will said and drained his glass. “That’s where Sallie Hawkins did her damndest to kill me. She would have, if it wasn’t for my Cara. She pulled her off and then later she killed Sallie too.” “That’s what she told me. So, it’s true?” “It is. And she made you into what we are now?” “She did,” Will’s brother said, his voice short and flat. “She also told me that you were dead, hanged at Tyburn for your crime.” “I’m sorry for that, for both things. She was a wicked bitch; the only good she ever did was to tell me that you still existed.” “She didn’t do that to be nice,” I spoke up to clarify. “She did it to taunt Will before she killed him and she promised that once we were out of her way, she would go after you.” “I can believe that but why?” Will and I exchanged a long look, the kind of glance shared by long married couples or at least in our case, a very close, connected one. “She loved you, she said and you spurned her. As long as you were miserable and I suffered, she didn’t mind but when she realized I found happiness with Cara, she came after me.” Seamus’ surprise raised his eyebrows to his hairline. “She loved me? Why, the bitch was well old enough to be my mother. She was nothing to me, just a warm body in a cold night, something to console me in my grief.” “Aye, I know that. Did you ever go home again, after you became a vampire?” His brother shook his head. “I did, twice but it was terrible, Will. They didn’t know what I had become but I feared that they would. So I left, went to sea for a very long time and then to America. I wish I could have known you were somewhere in the world so I might have found you. It’s been lonely.” They sighed in unison, a very Irish sound and drank more whiskey. As the hours dwindled down toward morning, I drifted into a Jameson’s fog, not quite sleep but somnolent enough that I paid little attention to what they said. The sound of their combined voices went easy into my ears and when it was time to retire, Will lifted me into his arms. “You don’t have to do that,” I protested but I liked it.

“You’re half asleep now, leannán,” he said. “And maybe a little drunk, too.” “No, I’m not,” I protested but I could feel the warmth of the whiskey flowing through my veins, awakening a wildness and giving me a craving for something delicious. I didn’t want food or drink, just my darling man and so as he carried me I slid one hand around his neck and stretched my mouth up to his. “Good rest to both of you,” Seamus said with dry amusement. “It seems that it will be without doubt.” “Aye,” Will returned with a grin, “It will be.” Then he put his mouth over mine, wicked sweet as forbidden candy with the heat of a summer’s night and the tender skill of a familiar lover. His lips tickled mine into submission, reminding me of the subtle way that someone with good hands can noodle a fish right out of the water, catching them without line or hook or bait. Small shivers that anticipated the intense pleasure to come rippled down my back and I gave back that kiss with all my love, fueled with my desire. As the intensity grew between us, Will opened the guest bedroom door with one foot and once we entered he put me on my feet so that he could encircle me with both arms. Then he kissed me even harder, the force of his mouth against mine ripe with both promise and pressure. “Love is like a child that longs for everything it can come by,” Will paused long enough to whisper. “And I want to come by you, mo anam cara.” “I just want to come,” I teased, “so make me.” This time he quoted not Shakespeare but one of my favorite childhood movies, The Wizard of Oz, “All in good time, my pretty, all in good time.” With that, he undid my blouse as I stripped off my jeans. My fingers unsnapped his shirt with haste and I undid his fly, unzipping his pants with care because I could feel the growing bulge behind them. Once we were unclothed, I cupped his penis in my hand, admiring the hard power it held and caressing it with slow movements. Will made a small sound, one of pleasure and held my breasts one in each of his hands. Then he bent to kiss them, tender kisses but when he mouthed the nipples one by one, his gentleness

vanished and he suckled hard, nibbling until I thought that the wave of extreme pleasure that created might drown me in its depths. In return I raked his back with my fingernails, scratching hard as I moved them from bottom to top. Afterward, I fondled his rear, marveling at its tight, compact shape but I forgot to think as he ran his tongue in a line from between my breasts all the way down to my mound. My back arched in response and when he knelt down before me, I thought I might die. I know my legs wobbled as he used his tongue to venture inside my waiting woman spot, moving with such slow precision and tender strokes that I could not contain the little noises of pleasure that came from my mouth. I retained just enough sense to hope that Seamus couldn’t hear me and then gave over to sensation, to the wild delight that moved over me like uncontrolled wildfire. I massaged his nipples hard between my fingers, loving the moment when they became matching hard marbles but I teetered on the very brink of coming. As I struggled to wait for Will to join me, he realized how near I was so he maneuvered me to the bed so that I fell back onto it. Once there, he changed from mouth to cock as an instrument of both pleasure and torture. He entered with such easy, lethargic strokes that I thought I would scream from the relentless pleasure that spiraled through my lower parts. His control rocked me and roused me to somewhere just above delirium. I begged him out loud to go faster, to continue and when he decided the time felt right, he did. He stepped up his pace so that the tremendous pleasure climbed to new record heights and then he entered me, full and hard, so complete that I thought he must be a permanent part of my body now. We came together, both shouting wordless noise and clung together, our bodies straining against the other in complete fulfillment. As the waves of delight ebbed, we relaxed until we lay together, as one, still connected and so sated that I doubted that I could move if something happened so that I must. We shared that wordless, wonderful connection, hearts and souls in harmony one with the other. “I think it must be morning,” I whispered, at last, feeling the rise of the sun somewhere deep in my consciousness beyond everything else.

“It is not yet near day; it was the nightingale and not the lark that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear,” Will returned but I could see from the grin he wore even in the dim room that he knew better than that. “Believe me love, it was the nightingale.” “I’ll believe anything you want me to believe, forever,” I said, repositioning myself so that I lay within the circle of his arms. “I love you, Will Brennan.” “Aye and I love you, mo anam cara,” he responded and then, quoting the Bible he renewed every love vow he ever made to me, reaffirmed and strengthened them forever, “Whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge, thy people shall be my people and thy God, my God. Where thou diest will I die and there also will I be buried. The Lord do so to me and more also if ought but death part thee and me.” His words touched me so deep that I struggled to find words or even a song so with dawn fast approaching all I could say was, “We have forever, honey, together.” “Aye, we do.” And it was more than enough for the both of us.

Cara’s Afterward My Grandpa Riley could tie all kinds of knots, a skill I suppose he learned during his Navy service. He taught my daddy to be able to do the same, tie knots that lasted. Most of them were practical but I remember asking him to show me a love knot after I first read that poem, The Highwayman in which the landlord’s blackeyed daughter plaits a love knot into her long hair. I remember that a love knot is intricate but almost impossible to untie and with Will, I often think of that, those love knots, because it represents for me our love. That night that I met my Will, he was beautiful, so sexy and sweet and so very much a man even if he was – and is – undead. Beneath that though, what I could not yet see was that he suffered from old wounds, things that had never healed, hurts that still festered untended. Our love healed most of those and whatever darkness haunted his soul vanished in the power of that emotion, banished away by what we felt for one another. Each kiss healed him a little more and our lovemaking did wonders toward recovery. When I chose of my own free will to let him give me that third love tattoo, to become a creature of the night and join him for all eternity, he improved and I might have thought him healed if all that nasty business with Sallie Hawkins did not happen. In the aftermath of that, when Will almost died at her hands and she did die at mine, he became almost whole. There were scars, yes, but the wounds went away except for one of the deepest, the oldest – the loss of his own family and kin. Of them all, he mourned most the loss of his favorite brother Seamus and when he learned that Sallie, in her evil doing, made him a vampire as well, that old scab ripped away to leave that particular hurt bleeding once more. Although I hate words that become pop culture mantras, when we found his brother and they reunited, each as glad as the other, Will found closure with his long dead family. In Seamus, he had someone of his own kin and that other Seamus Brennan we found on our trip, the one that came from Toome as well, that gave them both knowledge that their family line continued. The use of their names

over the generations salved any hurts that they thought they were forgotten. The love between us, Will and me, is so intertwined that it is like a knot, tight and firm, a love knot. We stayed in Branson with Seamus for two weeks; some nights I sang at his theater too but when we left, it wasn’t long until he came to visit us in Memphis. We took him prowling on Beale Street and to Fitz’s where people who recognized us did a double take at another man who so looked like Will. When we went to visit my family in Texas, they embraced Seamus too and so we all remain one happy family. If I had one wish it would be that my folks could know the truth but I think it might destroy them so I lie like one of my mother’s many throw rugs. My husband, my beloved Will, is whole now and so am I. Eternity stretches before us, an unending future filled with the power of love and the promise of things yet to come. As long as I have Will at my side, I have no doubts and with Seamus at our backs, no fear. Will’s appreciation of Shakespeare has me quoting the Bard on occasion now and although I adore the loving poetry Will uses with me; I think that my favorite quote of all is from Hamlet, There are more things in heaven earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Because, of course, I know that there are.

The End

www.leeannsontheimermurphywriterauthor.blogspot.com Other Books by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy: Wolfe's Lady Love Tattoo (Love Covenant, #1) Love Scars (Love Covenant, #2)

Evernight Publishing www.evernightpublishing.com