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  She lifted a hand to her neck, her fingers probing the skin below her ear, relieved to feel nothing more than her own smooth skin.

  She took one last look around the room, turned off the light, and slid under the covers once more.

  “That settles it,” she murmured. “No more books about vampires before bedtime.”

  Ronan spent the next few weeks coaching Shannah. He gave her a list of all his books and a brief synopsis for each one.

  “I want you to read the books so you’ll be familiar with them,” he told her. “If you memorize the outlines for now, you’ll be able to respond intelligently if someone asks you what a particular book is about.”

  He gave her answers for every possible question he thought she might be asked, questions like how much research she did for each book, and did she visit the different locales she wrote about, and why she had decided to write romance novels in general and paranormal romances in particular, and wasn’t she afraid of giving her readers unrealistic expectations about love and happy endings.

  Tonight, they were sitting on the sofa in the front room, his books spread out between them. A fire burned in the hearth, adding a cheerful glow to the room.

  “Another question interviewers might ask you is, don’t you think that by writing romance novels, you’re feeding into a dangerous fantasy.”

  “Well, aren’t you?” Shannah asked.

  “Honestly? I don’t know. But you can’t say that. If they ask you that question, just say that if that’s the case, then you’re in good company, since many of the classics, from Cinderella to Jane Eyre, are basically romances with happy endings.”

  “That may be all well and good for your books,” she said glumly, “but there’s no such thing as a happy ending in real life. Everybody knows that.”

  He was inclined to agree with her, but didn’t say so.

  “I mean, look at the statistics. Three out of five marriages end in divorce.”

  “Have you ever been in love, Shannah?”

  “I thought I was once, but…” She shrugged as if it was of no importance. “It didn’t work out.”

  She had been hurt, though she didn’t say so. It saddened him to think that one so young should have been hurt so deeply.

  “Another thing they’ll ask you about is fan mail. I get quite a lot, although most of it comes as email these days.”

  “People actually write to you about your books?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Most of the letters were from women, of course, thanking him for giving them a brief respite from housework, or for helping them through a rough time in their lives, or for giving them a newfound love for reading. One letter he particularly cherished had come from a teenage girl who wrote that his books had saved her life. She had been contemplating suicide and whenever she felt that way, she went to her room and read his books. He also received mail from men from time to time, though most of them were inmates at various prisons and institutions.

  “Do you write back?” she asked.

  “Of course. Anyone who takes the time to sit down and write a letter deserves an answer.”

  “Could I read some of your fan mail?”

  “If you like. But not now.”

  “What about my life?” she asked. “I mean, your life. What should I say if they ask about your past?”

  “Tell them whatever you wish, as long as it’s either true or can’t be proven a lie. I’m sure someone will ask you how you started writing. My typical answer is that I started writing because I was bored with television.”

  “That’s easy enough.”

  “Another question you’re sure to be asked is how you do the research for your love scenes.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  “It’s a very popular question.”

  “So, what do I say? That I take notes while I make love?”

  He stared at her a moment, and then laughed. “That’s a far better answer than anything I’ve ever come up with.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “If you say it in jest, it might be answer enough,” he remarked, thinking he liked her more and more every day.

  Shannah sat up straight and stretched her back and shoulders. “I’m hungry.”

  His gaze darted to the pulse beating in her throat. He was hungry, too, he thought.

  Always hungry, whenever she was around.

  She cocked her head to the side and regarded him through curious eyes. “Why don’t you ever eat with me? I’m not that bad a cook, you know.”

  “I prefer to eat in private,” he said. “It’s a particular quirk of mine.”

  “That’s really weird.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “If you like to eat in private, how come there wasn’t any food in the kitchen when I got here?”

  Damn the girl, why did she have to ask so many questions that were best left unanswered, at least for now?

  “Weevils,” he said, thinking quickly. “They were into everything, so I threw it all out.”

  She looked at him, her expression skeptical. “Even the dishes and the pots and pans?”

  Bless the girl, she didn’t miss a trick! “Why don’t you go fix yourself something to eat?” he suggested. “I need to go out for a short time.”

  “You go out every night. Where do you go?”

  “Maybe some day I’ll tell you.”

  She made a face at him, then left the room.

  He stared after her. She was far too bright and asked far too many questions for his liking. If he was smart, he would send her on her way and forget about the book tour. Staying home wouldn’t hurt his career and he was certain he could mollify his editor and his agent. And if he couldn’t, well, he could always change his name and find a new publisher. The only thing was, he liked having Shannah around. She had bloomed in the last few weeks. Where she had once been frail and sickly looking, she was now the picture of vibrant good health. Her skin glowed, her hair was thick and lustrous, her eyes bright and clear. She was a beautiful young woman in the prime of her life.

  And he wanted her.

  Shannah stood at the stove, stirring a pan of chicken noodle soup, her mind filled with questions, all of them about her mysterious host. She wondered where he slept, since she slept in the only bed in the house, and where he kept his clothes. She never saw him during the day. He didn’t eat. She had noticed there were no mirrors in any of the rooms.

  The word vampire whispered, unbidden, through the back corridors of her mind.

  She dismissed it with a shake of her head. He had answered the door when the sun was still up. He couldn’t be a vampire if he was active during the day, even though he looked like one.

  She laughed out loud. Who knew what a vampire looked like? In books, they were often described as skeletal figures with hairy hands, long bony fingers, and glowing red eyes. In movies, they were often portrayed as funny and sexy, like George Hamilton, or handsome and sexy, like Frank Langella.

  Ronan was definitely handsome and sexy. Maybe he was a vampire.

  A vampire who wrote best-selling romance novels. Right.

  She poured the soup into a bowl, pulled a box of saltines out of the cupboard, and sat down at the table. For weeks now, she had been able to eat anything she wanted without getting sick to her stomach. She felt wonderful. The small mirror she carried in her purse told her she looked better than she ever had in her whole life. Her skin practically glowed. Her hair was thicker than before. Was this a sign that death was imminent? Her doctor had said she might enjoy a burst of good health before the end.

  Her doctor. She had an appointment with him tomorrow. She had been feeling so good the last few weeks, she had forgotten all about it until now; now she was tempted to skip it. If she was better, why bother going? And if she wasn’t? Why bother going when they couldn’t do anything to help her?

  She finished her soup, washed the dishes and put them away, then went into the living room. Ronan hadn’t returned, so she picked up the book she
had been reading. He really was a terrific writer. She had read three of his books so far and every one of them had been a keeper, a real page turner. She wondered where he got all his information about vampires, then shrugged. He had a computer. You could find anything you wanted to know on the Net. Plus he had hundreds of books. Some of them could be research books, she supposed, though she had never heard of vampire research books. But then, there were a lot of things she had never heard of.

  Settling back on the sofa, she opened the book and lost herself in another world.

  Ronan stood in the doorway, his gaze on the woman who was so engrossed in one of his books that she didn’t even realize he was in the room. It pleased him to think she was so caught up in a world that he had created that she wasn’t aware of her own surroundings. The thought made him smile. There was something deeply satisfying about knowing that others enjoyed his work. He had a dozen boxes filled with fan letters, as well as a number of files on his computer where he stored his email according to the year it had been received. But the fact that Shannah enjoyed his stories pleased him more than anything else.

  She really was lovely, he mused, and then frowned. It occurred to him that she was quite young, probably too young to have written as many Eva Black books as he had. If asked, she would have to lie about her age. These days, with collagen injections, Botox, skin peels and plastic surgery, it was hard to judge a woman’s true age. Of course, it wasn’t unheard of for an author to turn out more than one book a year. He wrote two books a year, sometimes three. One author he knew of, who was much more famous than he was, wrote six books a year, but she was a law unto herself. He often wondered how she found time to do anything else.

  Ronan took a step into the room. The movement caught Shannah’s attention and she glanced in his direction.

  He jerked his chin at the book in her lap. “Are you enjoying it?”

  “Yes, very much, although I have to admit I was surprised when you killed off the housekeeper.”

  He laughed softly. “Always keep the reader guessing,” he said, taking a place on the sofa. “If you kill off a major character, it keeps the reader wondering who else you might knock off before the end of the book.”

  “Ah. I’ll have to remember that in case it comes up,” she said, and then frowned. “There’s so much to memorize, I know I’ll never be able to remember it all.”

  “Sure you will.”

  “What if I forget something?”

  “Then just fake it.”

  “What if my mind goes blank? What if I freeze up during one of the radio interviews?”

  “Shannah, stop worrying. I wouldn’t have asked you to do this if I didn’t think you could handle it.”

  “But…”

  “If it proves to be too much for you, or you really can’t handle it, then we’ll just cancel the tour and come home.”

  “Just like that?” she asked, snapping her fingers.

  “Just like that.”

  “You’re awfully kind.”

  Ronan stared at her. Kind? He had been called a lot of things in five hundred years, but kind had not been one of them.

  His gaze moved over her, lingering on her lips. What would she do if he drew her into his arms and kissed her? Would she be shocked? Repelled? Or would she kiss him back?

  As a vampire, there wasn’t much he was afraid of, but he couldn’t stand the thought of being rejected by this girl-woman with her tantalizing humanity and warm blue eyes.

  “Ronan? Is something wrong?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know. You look sort of…forlorn.”

  “Not to worry, Shannah. I’m fine.”

  “Good.” She yawned behind her hand. “I think I’ll go to bed. Good night, Ronan.”

  “Good night, Shannah.”

  He sat there long after she had gone upstairs, bemused by his growing affection for her. Funny, he hadn’t realized how lonely he had been until she came into his life.

  His writing took up a great deal of his waking hours. He was hooked on the card game Spider, and occasionally played poker on the Internet. He enjoyed reading, both for pleasure and research. He spent one night a week answering his fan mail. From time to time, when he was bored, he surfed some of the online vampire role-playing rooms. He often wondered what the others would think if they knew he wasn’t playing a role.

  Only now did he realize how boring and mundane his existence had become. In the beginning, he had wandered the four corners of the earth. He had explored cities, both ancient and modern. He had educated himself, gained an appreciation for art, learned foreign languages. In spite of all that, it had taken a slip of a girl like Shannah to add a dash of excitement to his otherwise dreary existence.

  Later that night, when he was certain she was asleep, he went to her bedside. Biting into his wrist, he watched the dark red blood ooze from the shallow gash. He commanded her to swallow a few drops before the wound healed and then, sitting beside her, he spoke to her mind, telling her more about the books he had written, his writing habits, the names of his agent, his publishing house and his editor, and anything else that he could think of that she might need to know when they went on the road.

  He sat there until the sky grew rosy with the coming dawn, content to sit by her side and watch her sleep, to inhale the fragrance of her hair and skin, to listen to the slow, steady beat of her heart. To pretend that she was his, for now and for all time. He caressed her face, bent to brush a kiss across her lips.

  As the sun grew higher, he sought his lair, his senses still filled with the sweet scent of her skin, the warmth of her cheek beneath his hand. With a sigh, he sank into the darkness of oblivion.

  Chapter Seven

  In the morning, after a quick breakfast of toast, juice and coffee, Shannah drove to her doctor’s office. She had a standing weekly appointment, and she had missed the last three. She wasn’t sure why she had decided to keep this appointment. What could the doctor tell her that she didn’t already know?

  “I’ve been worried about you,” Doctor Harper said as he wrapped the blood pressure cuff around her arm. “I thought…well, no matter. You’re looking quite well today.”

  “I feel wonderful.”

  Nodding, he watched the gauge, then removed the cuff from her arm.

  “How is it?” she asked.

  “Normal.” He made a note on her chart. “I see you’ve even gained a little weight.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. How’s your appetite been?”

  “Better than usual. And I’ve been keeping everything down!”

  “Indeed? Any headaches? Dizziness? Nausea?”

  “No, no, and no.”

  He made more notes on her chart, listened to her heart and lungs, jotted more notes on her chart. “I want you to go down to the lab so they can take some blood.”

  “All right.” Needles, she thought. She hated them.

  Leaving the lab twenty minutes later, she went to Baskin-Robbins and treated herself to a double hot fudge sundae with extra whipped crème, and then she went window shopping. She made one stop at the drug store where she bought a makeup mirror, a candy bar, and a pack of gum.

  Walking back to her car, she thought again how amazing it was that she felt so well. She didn’t feel the least bit tired. Eating didn’t make her sick. She was sleeping better than ever. When she realized she was squinting, she put on her sunglasses, thinking how odd it was that the sun hurt her eyes when it never had before. Maybe it was just another symptom of her illness. She would have to ask the doctor about it next week.

  Back at Ronan’s house, she watched TV for a little while, then switched it off.

  Going out into the backyard, she pulled weeds from the garden until her back ached, noting that, once the weeds were gone, there was nothing left.

  Returning to the house, she filled a glass with ice and water and then, hoping she wasn’t violating Ronan’s trust in any way, she went into his office and booted u
p his computer.

  Unable to restrain her curiosity, she opened a file named Fan Mail—January 2008. She whistled softly. There were over a thousand emails. Sitting back in the chair, she began to read.

  Dear Miss Black—I love your books. I have them all and I’ve read each one of them over and over again. I don’t know how you do it, but you always draw me into the story from page one. Your characters are so real, especially your vampires. If I didn’t know it was impossible, I’d think you were a vampire yourself. Just kidding. I can’t wait for your next book.

  Your number one fan. Sandy.

  The letters were all basically the same, praising Eva Black for her wonderful books, asking for autographs or bookmarks or signed photos, or all three. Several were from would-be writers asking for advice on how to get published. A couple were from women who said they had this really great idea for a book and if Miss Black would just write it, they would be happy to split the royalties with her. Shannah had to laugh out loud at their temerity. Ronan would do all the work and they would split the royalties with him! A number of the emails were from readers asking for free books for themselves or donations for fundraisers, or for a loved one who was sick or in prison.

  Some of the readers thanked Eva profusely and sincerely, relating how her books had helped them get through a particularly rough time in their lives—the death of a parent or a child, a divorce, a serious illness. Shannah was moved by their gratitude. It must be humbling for an author to receive such letters, she thought, to know that your words had touched another’s life so deeply.

  One letter was from a woman who said she didn’t like Eva Black’s last book, and that her husband hadn’t liked it, either.

  Shannah laughed at that. It just proved that you couldn’t please all the people all the time.

  She was amazed to find that the letters came from both men and women, and that some of his readers were as young as twelve and some were in their eighties. Apparently romances appealed to a wide range of people, from schoolgirls to prison inmates.