“Maybe I just think fast.” Della smiled, hoping to lighten the conversation.
Holiday rolled her eyes as if she knew exactly what Della was up to. “This trait is part of being vampire, but it’s also part of your personality. You’ve got more raw gumption than anyone I’ve ever met. Gumption is to be admired. But I’m just afraid that if mishandled, it can do you more harm than good.”
Della nodded. “I’ll try to remember that.”
“Make sure you do,” Holiday said, and sighed. Then the fae sat up and placed a hand on her pregnant stomach.
Still wanting to change the conversation, Della asked, “Is the baby moving much?”
“All the time. I think it’s going to be impatient like its daddy. You want to feel it?”
Della hesitated. “You don’t mind?”
“Not at all.” She took Della’s hand and placed it on her stomach.
Della felt the movement. “Wow. I think your baby just kicked me. That’s so cool,” she said, meaning it. She couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to have a person growing inside of you. “Weird, but cool.” She grinned up at the camp leader. “And you’re freaking huge. You sure there’s not two of them in there?”
Holiday grimaced. “Freaking huge? Thanks.”
Della frowned. “Sorry, I just meant…”
“Don’t worry.” Holiday leaned in and bumped her shoulder. “I am freaking huge. And no, it’s not twins. But it appears my baby is going to be vampire dominant.”
“You had one of those X-ray things? Does that tell you the baby’s pattern?”
“A special sonogram can show it. But I asked not to be told. I want to be surprised.”
“Then how do you know for sure it will be vampire dominant?”
“Supernaturals very seldom carry babies to full term. But the gestational cycle for a vampire can really vary. Sometimes it can happen as quickly as four or five months.”
“Wow, so you could like have the baby really soon?”
“Yup.”
“Are you scared? Of having it?” Della had seen a birth on some freaky documentary once and it was pretty darn terrifying. It had showed everything. Like the baby coming out. It had made Della extra careful about birth control.
The fae glanced down at her belly. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous. But I’m more worried about the baby than myself.” She pulled her hair over her shoulder, her hand dropping to rest on her huge baby bump. Then she suddenly turned her head and looked behind her, then to the right. The quick movement reminded Della of Kylie when …
“What’s wrong?” Della asked.
“Nothing,” Holiday said, but her heart rate told Della it was a white lie.
“Is it the ghost?” Della pulled her knees closer to her chest.
Holiday fixed her green eyes on Della and her brow wrinkled. “Yes. How did you know?”
“Kylie said there was one hanging around. She thinks it might be vampire.”
Holiday nodded. “I think she’s right. It’s traveling at high speeds.”
Della also remembered Kylie suspecting that it might be her uncle. “Did you see it?”
“No.” Holiday continued to look left to right. “It’s moving so fast.” She shrugged. “Has it made contact with Kylie? Does she know what it wants?”
Della shook her head. “Not unless she’s seen it since this morning.”
“It’s odd,” Holiday said.
“What’s odd?”
“I don’t understand why it’s visiting both Kylie and me. Usually it only chooses one person to attach itself to. And it shouldn’t be hanging around if Kylie’s not here.”
Della recalled Kylie saying she thought the ghost was there for Della. A chill ran down her backbone. No way did she want any ghost getting attached to her.
Stiffening her spine, Della looked around and then asked, “Can you tell it to leave?”
“Ghosts don’t work that way.”
“Why did I know you were going to say that?” Probably because Kylie had already said it.
Holiday pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Yikes, I’m supposed to meet Perry at the office right now.”
Something about Holiday’s tone caught her attention. “Is something wrong with him?”
Holiday hesitated. “No. Not really.” “I’d better go.” She gave Della a stern look and pointed to the front door to the cabin. “You get some sleep and if I find you running around again, you’ll have Burnett to deal with next time.”
Holiday, belly huge, struggled to stand up. Della popped up and offered her a hand.
“Don’t make it look so easy,” Holiday mumbled, but she accepted Della’s hand.
Della watched Holiday waddle down the steps, her round belly leading the way. Della suddenly remembered. “Hey, what about the ghost?”
“I’m sure it’ll follow me,” Holiday said. “A ghost usually only hangs around people who can detect it.”
Della sure as heck hoped so. But as she walked inside the door, she could swear she felt a brush of cold air against her arm. Cold air as if someone flew past. As if a vampire flew past. She stopped and glanced around. No vampire, not even a blur of a really fast vampire.
But the feeling, the feeling she wasn’t alone, didn’t go away.
“Oh, crap,” she muttered.
A ghost usually only hangs around people who can detect it. Holiday’s words echoed in Della’s head. If she’d felt something, wasn’t that detecting it? Or had she imagined it? Right then, something vibrated against her hip. She nearly jumped out of her skin before she realized it was her phone. She must have accidentally put it on vibrate.
Glad for the interruption from her haunted thoughts, she snatched out her phone. Thinking and hoping it was Chan, she glanced at the number. It wasn’t Chan.
Chapter Ten
“Why didn’t you call me?” Steve asked first thing.
“I got caught up with a few things and was busy,” Della said, knowing it wasn’t the complete truth. The real reason she hadn’t called him was fear. Fear she’d end up spouting out something about the cute little doctor’s daughter who’d polluted the air with all kinds of pheromones when she’d shot him that toothpaste-ad smile.
Della couldn’t be jealous. Well, she shouldn’t be jealous. She had no hold on Steve. Had no right to insist he stay away from blond chicks with bigger boobs than she had and who wanted his body.
But telling herself that didn’t make the feeling go away. It only made it worse. Because she hadn’t really thought about the girl’s boobs until now.
“Too busy to call me?” he asked, sounding ticked.
“Sorry,” she offered, and went into her bedroom, shut the door, and fell on the bed. “I wanted to go back to the falls on the off chance I could still catch a scent of the person who knocked me in the head.”
“Dr. Whitman said for you to rest.”
She rolled her eyes. “Look, I’ve already been read the riot act by Holiday, I don’t need you adding to it.”
He huffed. “I’m not … I’m just worried. The doctor was looking over the paperwork I did on you after you left and he noticed your temperature was elevated. Remember I told you that you felt warm this morning. Anyway, he wanted to know if I’d asked if you were on your menstrual cycle. And I told him you’d said you were—but his concern just sort of worried me.”
Della reached up and touched her brow. Did she have a fever?
“I especially don’t like it that someone hit you on the head. Does Burnett have a clue who did this?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She almost told him about Chase’s scent being on the rock, but decided against it. Steve had already expressed dislike for the guy and she didn’t want to encourage it.
“Could it have anything to do with the case you helped Burnett with and the intruder at the falls that you caught a trace of?”
She frowned. “He mentioned it could be a possibility,” she said.
“Is the young couple who died involved in this case?”
The image flashed in her head. “How did you know?”
“I read about an accident in the paper. I know they sometimes cover up the deaths when it involves supernaturals, so I just assumed…” He paused. “Shit, I don’t like this. A murderer could be after you.”
“We don’t know it was him. And if he comes back again, he’ll be the one who needs a doctor.”
A pregnant pause lingered both on the line and in her bedroom. Della looked around. The door to the bedroom was open. Hadn’t she shut it?
“Did you actually see it?” Steve asked. “See them dead?”
She inhaled, her mind shifting away from the door to death. “Yeah.”
“Damn, I’m sorry, Della. I mean, it had to be tough.”
“It was, but it just makes me more determined that this is what I want to do. Catch bastards like that. Make them pay for what they did. Keep them from doing it again.”
“Yeah, but I don’t like thinking about you looking for sick bastards like that.”
I don’t like you hanging out with blondie, either. Silence came to the line. “I’m sorry.” The line went quiet again. She tried to think of something to say. So tell me about the doctor’s daughter and her thing for you. She spit the words off her tongue and went with something else. Something that didn’t sound so jealous. “So do you see all the patients who come in? Even the animals?”
“Yeah,” he said, as if knowing she’d taken a conversational U-turn.
“Do you enjoy it?” she asked. Enjoy being around the doctor’s daughter?
“Yeah. Dr. Whitman suggested I go to veterinarian school if I want to practice medicine for supernaturals. He said the few supernatural doctors he knows who went through regular medical school have a lot more trouble. And he said I could work for him while going to school. Besides, I like animals.”
She couldn’t help but wonder if the good doctor had his sights set on Steve for a son-in-law. “You don’t have to work as a vet. Supernatural doctors work at regular hospitals. I know because when I was turned I ran into a nurse and doctor.”
“Yeah, but how often do you think supernaturals come in to the emergency room? Which means I’d mostly be working on humans. I could open my own practice, but then it gets messy with insurance and all the regulations. Jessie said Dr. Whitman and his partner were talking about bringing in another partner in a few years, so when I graduate I wouldn’t even have to set up a clinic and find clients.”
“Who’s Jessie?” she asked, but she was afraid she already knew.
“Dr. Whitman’s daughter. I think you met her. The one with the big smile.”
Big smile? “I see,” Della said.
And she did see. Blond and big-smiling Jessie had her life all planned out. And Steve was part of it.
The question was if Della was ready to become the hiccup in the girl’s plans. Or better put, was Della ready to put her heart on the chopping block?
An hour later, almost four in the afternoon, Holiday’s “get some sleep” command was yet to be obeyed. However, not for lack of trying.
After getting off the phone with a certain shape-shifter, Della kept thinking about Jessie’s big boobs and bigger smile.
Covers up to her chin, she kept practicing smiling. She wasn’t sure she could smile as big as Jessie if someone paid her.
When she wasn’t thinking about that, she was contemplating the ghost. Boobs, smiles, and ghosts … the crazy thoughts didn’t mesh together. Add an occasional vision of last night’s real-life horror flick, accompanied with the need to get justice for the couple, and Della’s head was spinning and hurting. Right along with her heart.
She could even swear there was a chill in the room. She snuggled deeper into the covers and stared at the ceiling. A bug of some sort inched across the white plaster. Even the insect moved slow, as if it was cold.
When Kylie had a ghost show up, the room temperature dropped. Could it be that? Or was Della’s fever going up? She preferred the fever. A flu she could deal with, a ghost, not so much.
I also get the feeling you’re procrastinating. Holiday’s words whispered in her head.
The obituary was still folded and tucked in her jeans pocket.
Sitting up, she pulled it out. Her gaze caught on the door again. Hadn’t she closed it? She had. She could swear she had.
Looking around the room, ceiling to floor, she whispered, “Are you here? Is it you?”
“Who are you talking to?” a voice spoke at the door.
Startled, Della glared at Miranda and Kylie shoulder-to-shoulder standing in her door. “No one,” Della insisted, and she saw Kylie frown and glance up as if … as if looking for an unwanted visitor. “Is it here?” Della asked, not even caring they knew she was frightened.
“Is what here?” Miranda asked.
Kylie frowned. “It was, but it’s gone.”
“What’s gone?” Miranda snapped.
Kylie looked at Miranda. “A ghost.”
Miranda eyes widened. “You’ve got another ghost?”
Kylie shrugged. “I don’t think this one’s mine.”
Miranda’s mouth dropped open and she looked at Della. “You’ve got a ghost? You can’t have a ghost. You’re not a ghost whisperer.”