All night long, he’d held her close and wondered. Not just about what had happened to her, but about why he was feeling all these feelings. Protective, possessive—emotions he liked much better on someone else.
He’d also talked to Jerry on his way in, but Jerry stuck to his story from last night. Jerry was a crappy liar. He always tucked his hands in his pockets when he was lying. Derrick knew that much from experience when Jerry’d been caught hunting the rabbits in the woods against Hector’s wishes.
But why would he lie? It was obvious from his conversation with Jerry this afternoon that he liked Martine, and Derrick was glad he did. Jerry was a good guy. But he’d seen something last night, and Derrick knew it.
What? What had happened that had Jerry so close-mouthed?
“So how’s that new lady friend of yours?” Morris queried, his bushy gray eyebrow raising.
The mention of Martine as his “lady friend” did something weird to his chest. Something he’d been battling as he’d held her all night long, and long after he’d left her this morning to sleep. And it made him uncomfortable—yet, at the same time, it made him something else he couldn’t define. “Her name is Martine.”
“Fine name. Hear she’s a cat. That true?”
“Yep. Meow,” he said on a chuckle. A beautiful, sensuous, amazing cat with secrets he wanted to know.
“You like her?” Morris asked gruffly, his gnarled hand cupping the beer mug.
“I do.”
There was that unwelcome shift in his chest again. He did. He liked her a lot. He liked everything about her. Making love to her had been unbelievable. Her scent drove him almost mindless, and it made him smile. But then he wiped the grin off his face. He didn’t smile after spending the night with any woman. Why was Martine different?
Morris tapped the bar top. “Good thing to have in a mate. Somebody you like. Eternity’s a long time, pal.”
Derrick laughed again, stacking some clean glasses. “Is that how you feel about Mrs. Polanski?”
“Nope. Hate her guts.”
“Oh, c’mon now, Morris. You know that’s not true. I saw the two of you over there in the corner at the fall dance, acting like a coupla teenagers.”
Morris’s eyes squinted at Derrick, the corners of them crinkling. “A man’s gotta get laid. He does what he must to ensure it.”
“You’re a scoundrel, Morris Polanski, and the next time I see the missus, I’m telling her you’re only in it for the sex,” Derrick joked, shaking an admonishing finger at him, knowing full well Morris was nuts about his wife and had been for well over two hundred years.
Morris cackled again, leaning forward to reach for the peanuts Derrick always kept in baskets. Peanuts he couldn’t eat, but would shell and toy with because he liked to remember what it was like to be human.
The bar door opened, letting in a shaft of light. “Incoming, Morris,” he warned, holding up a car windshield sunshade he kept handy for the vampires in town who managed to tolerate minimal sunlight on daytrips.
Morris ducked behind the shade until the door closed again and someone Derrick didn’t know sat down at the bar. A rarity for early December.
Cedar Glen was pretty busy with tourists during the late spring right up until the late fall, when townsfolk gave hayrides on the various farms. But when winter arrived, there wasn’t much that brought in new people.
Tall and lean, the guy dropped into a barstool and nodded at him. “Whiskey, neat.”
“You got it.” As he poured the drink, he couldn’t place what bothered him about this newcomer. He was perfectly normal, sandy brown hair, dark eyes, looked like he knew what a gym was used for, dressed like he worked in an office, but there was something…
Derrick sniffed the air. Jesus. Someone should warn him about his liberal use of cologne. He sniffed again with a subtle twitch of his nose. Was he human? No. He didn’t smell human—but he didn’t smell not human either. He smelled like he’d put on a lot of cologne in order to hide something. Strange.
Sliding a bowl of peanuts down to the newcomer, he attempted to make pleasantries the way he did with everyone who stepped over the threshold of his bar. “What brings you to Cedar Glen?” Derrick asked amicably, keeping his eyes on the glasses he was stacking.
He shrugged his shoulders beneath his beige trench coat, pulling out some bills from the pocket of his pressed trousers and throwing them on the bar. “Just passing through. Anywhere to stay the night here?”
“Not here in Cedar Glen, but the next town over has some nice hotels.”
The man eyed him over his tumbler, the amber liquid sloshing as he swirled it. “Good enough.” He took a long gulp, finished the whiskey and rose to leave, but stopped at the door before he opened it and said, “Get many strays here?”