She didn’t say anything for a moment more, trying to decide which of the zillion questions whirring in her head was the most important.
She sucked in a calming breath, then met Cort’s gaze directly.
He watched her with those sleepy, sexy eyes of his, and for a moment, she was lost.
God, what a cliché. What was her damned problem? She had just found out some of the strangest, most traumatic, and frankly most insane things she could imagine, and yet she still managed to find herself distracted by his gorgeous eyes.
Wait. He was a vampire. Didn’t vampires control people with their gazes? Hypnotized them or something? Was that what he’d been doing to her? Was he doing it now?
“Stop it!”
Cort looked around, clearly figuring she must be talking to someone else. When he realized no one else was around, aside from the bird, which stared at them with beady eyes while bobbing his head, Cort’s gaze locked with hers again.
Her insides leapt. He was doing something.
“Stop doing that with your eyes.”
“Doing what?”
“Making them look that way. Hypnotizing me, or whatever your kind does,” she said.
“What? I’m not doing anything. These are just my eyes.”
She opened her mouth to tell him that couldn’t possibly be true, that no regular gaze could affect her so, but before she could get the words out, the bartender returned with their drinks. They all, bird included, reached for their drinks, but before Katie or Cort could even get the glasses to their lips, someone shouted behind them.
“You two!”
Both of them turned to see who this man was yelling at.
A short, stocky man with chest hair curling out from the collar of his silky shirt barged toward them. And he was clearly not happy.
“I thought I told you two that I did not want you or that damned bird back in my bar,” the man yelled, his voice thick with a Cajun accent.
Cort immediately stood, towering over the other man, but that didn’t seem to intimidate the short guy.
“Listen, buddy, I’ve never even been in here . . .” Cort stopped. “Wait, we were here last night?”
“That’s what I said. And you will never be here again. Go.” The man gestured wildly toward the door, revealing sweat stains under his arms despite the cool weather. “And take that evil creature. Now.”
The parrot squawked loudly in seeming protest.
Cort still didn’t move, except to shoot the bird a warning look. The parrot returned its attention back to its drink, pecking at one of the ice cubes.
“Listen,” Cort said, his voice calm and even, “I’m sorry about whatever happened last night, but we honestly don’t remember it. Could you tell us what happened? Please.”
The man’s angry grimace didn’t ease at Cort’s remorseful apology. “My wife sure as hell won’t ever forget what happened.”
Just then, as if his words had conjured her, a woman, a very, very buxom woman with platinum blonde hair, appeared from behind the bar. Heavy gold jewelry adorned her ears, wrists, and cle**age.
“What are they doing back here?” she demanded in a voice that could only be described as grating. This was clearly the wife in question.
The garish woman stopped short and gave a sharp scream as she saw the parrot, which seemed oblivious to the reaction it was getting. It again poked at the ice cubes in its cocktail.
“We’re really sorry, ma’am,” Cort attempted again with an apology, but he got even less chance than he did with the husband.
“Get that thing out of here. Leave! Leave now!” she cried.
As if the bird understood, it stopped and turned toward the screeching woman. It began to waddle toward the couple in what Katie could swear was meant to be an intimidating swagger.
The woman squealed again and leapt behind her husband, her hands going protectively to her ample bosom.
“Trosclair, make them leave!”
The man pointed at the door again, and this time Katie caught a whiff of his armpits even though he wasn’t close to her. Sweaty old onions. That was definitely the odor.
She grimaced. Apparently vampires did have a heightened sense of smell. Ick.
“We will go,” Cort said, raising his hands in surrender. Whether because of their demands or because of the smell, Katie wasn’t sure.
“We just wanted to know what happened,” Cort said even as he reached for the bird.
The parrot attempted to peck Cort, clearly not pleased to be taken away from his drink, but it did hop onto his arm and crawl up the sleeve of his black shirt back to his shoulder.
“It’s not our job to remind drunks what they did,” the man known as Trosclair said, positioning himself so he could herd both Cort and Katie out of the bar.
They both headed toward the door with Trosclair and his wife following, still pressed to him.
Once they reached the street, the barkeeps stopped in the doorway.
“Don’t come back,” Trosclair repeated.
“We won’t,” Cort assured them. “But really, all we want to know is what happened.”
“Well, I’ll tell you this much, jokester,” Trosclair said in his thick accent. “You should be ashamed of teaching your pet to expose a woman’s breast like that.”
The wife nodded adamantly, her hands still clutching her already half-exposed chest.
With those final words, both Trosclair and his wife disappeared back into the darkness of the bar.
“Jokester?” Cort said with a confused frown as if that label was the weirdest part of what just happened.
Katie stared at him for a moment, then actually found herself laughing, this time a genuine laugh rather than her earlier ones tinged with hysteria.
“I just hope it was the bird he was calling your pet and not me,” she said.
Cort smiled, too. Damn, he was so gorgeous.
Katie’s smile slipped and again her eyes glanced to the wedding band on her left hand.
He caught her action, his own smile fading. “I guess we should just head to the wedding chapel and see what we can find out there.”
Katie nodded. She still had lots of questions, but maybe it was best to find out about the rings first.
They started walking down the cracked, stained sidewalk.
After a few moments, Katie said, “So who do you think was more traumatized by exposing that woman’s br**sts, the woman or the parrot?”
Cort’s surprised laugh warmed Katie.
“I think that one might be a draw.”
“Jack and Coke,” the parrot cawed. “Jack and Coke.”