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  Another phone call that had apparently lasted four minutes and fifteen seconds. That message she had to hear.

  3:33 PM QuickDraw—I. Hate. You. CALL ME!

  3:48 PM QuickDraw—Dude, she’s looking at me again. WTF!

  4:12 PM QuickDraw—Are you fucking kidding me? A storm, on top of it all. Is this why you’re not answering your phone? You knew and didn’t want to break it to me didn’t you? I swear to the gods above we are no longer friends. You are a dead man, Jason.

  4:14 PM QuickDraw—I mean, again. Ah, shit, it’s raining now…

  5:22 PM QuickDraw—SAVE ME!

  After that, nothing else.

  Vivian was laughing so hard she had to hold her sides. Holy crap, I’m dying here. “Oh God.” She was bent at the middle and gasping for air. Holy Christ, this is so funny. “Priceless.” She snickered. “And yes, Fia might be a vegetarian, but she can cook like crazy. That woman has some mad skills and for her to ban him from the kitchen, he had to have said something to rile her up.”

  Jason was grinning at her as he took the phone and let out a chuckle. “Oh, I’m sure he said something. I’d be interested to have her side of this story to go along with these. I can hear him saying all of this, too.” Snickering, he pressed a button and suddenly James’s voice filled the room.

  “Hi, you two, it’s James, but you probably figured that out from the caller ID, which you’re obviously ignoring. Just checking in to see if you have a time of arrival. Vivian, your sister is seriously weird. Call me.”

  Jason pushed another button. Again, James’s voice filled the room.

  “Why are you ignoring your phone, Jason? This isn’t like you, at all. I know you’ve got her all alone now, but really, your pal is serious trouble here. Sophia is a few bricks short of a full load. I need help, damn it.” Which was then followed by, “Sorry, Vivian. I didn’t mean to insinuate anything there. But even you have to admit she’s a little flaky around the edges. Call me back. Now, please.”

  Jason was laughing again, a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound a bit as he pulled up the next message.

  “By all that is holy. I swear to the gods, I’m going to tie her up and stuff her in a fucking closet! She’s off her fucking rocker, damn it. She banned me from the kitchen. Can you believe this shit? All I said I wanted was some water, and she told me to sit my ass down and stay out of her space. So, I asked if she’d get me a water, and then she just gave me this look and said that water isn’t what I really need.

  “Dude, I’m freaking the hell out up here. She keeps following me around and trying to touch me, humming, and giving me these weird, cross-eyed looks. Son of a bitch, here she comes again!” There was a bit of a scuffling sound, and they could hear Sophia saying something, but the words weren’t clear. James’s response was. “What the hell, woman? What did you just dump on me? Oh gods, ah, ah…” A loud sneeze came through the speaker, then another, and another. The call ended there.

  Jason looked worried now as he shot her a look. “She wouldn’t actually do anything to hurt him, would she?” he asked in concern.

  “Good heavens, no. Sophia couldn’t hurt anyone, trust me. Not with all the beatings she took as a child. She’s the way that she is because she survived hell. Our father, may he rot in hell, actually broke her back one time. No, she wouldn’t hurt him, but I guarantee he asked for something other than water. She only bans people when they’ve hurt her feelings somehow. I also don’t see her ever following someone around wanting to touch them. Fia isn’t a touchy feely person, at all.”

  “Okay, as long as you’re sure,” Jason said. “Let me call him and see what’s going on. Maybe you can talk to your sister and find out her side of things. I’d really like to know just what’s going on out there, especially if we’re stuck here for the night.” He put the cell to his ear. Then a heavy frown fell over his face. “James, it’s Jason. I just got your messages. Sorry, my phone was in the other room. Call me back when you get this. We know about the storm and will be out as early as we can manage.”

  Vivian frowned, too. “Okay, well, that’s weird. I wonder why he didn’t answer you.” She moved so that she was standing at Jason’s side, her hand in his. She watched him as he watched her. “Let’s go down and eat. Bring the phone with in case he calls. Sometimes the service goes down on the island.”

  Jason sighed as he pocketed the cell. “I sent him a text, too, just in case it manages to get through in the storm. Let me grab my wallet. And you should put on shoes. I think they take the whole no shirt, no shoes thing very seriously.”

  She looked down at her bare feet and laughed, then shook her head and looked around. “Right, I need to find them.” Earlier, she had gone through the same search for clothes and found them in the oddest of places. She giggled when Jason found one in a potted plant and the other behind the counter. “I guess I was in a hurry to get naked, huh?”

  “I seem to recall a bit of frantic need taking hold of us both. I can’t remember you getting rid of your shoes, though,” he said with a chuckle. He twitched then, his eyes going wide as he dug in his pocket. “No wonder I didn’t hear the phone. Damn thing’s on vibrate.” He answered, “Hello? Sophia, hi…” He stopped and looked to Vivian. Rolling his eyes, he held the cell out to her with a shrug.

  Vivian took it, grinning. “Hey, Fia. You okay?”

  “V, you have to save me,” her sister whispered, which had Vivian panicking. “He’s—dear God, he’s just asked the grocery checkout clerk to come out and visit him. How dare he?”

  “What are you talking about? Are you safe?”

  “I am, but I might not be held accountable for my actions if little miss blonde and plastic comes over, Viv. I mean it.”

  “He invited Shirley Johnson over? Isn’t she, like, just turned eighteen?” Viv looked at Jason with wide eyes. “She’s barely legal. I mean, like, what … a week?”

  “Three flipping days.” Vivian heard Sophia grinding her teeth together, then the tears in her voice. “I can’t do this, V. I would rather be out in the woods with the storm raging around me than stay here and let this happen. Your friend can have the house. I’ve finished the painting anyway. I love you. You know where to find me. After you’ve removed him from the island.”

  “Fia, don’t do this,” Vivian begged. “He just really likes women.”

  “Not with me around,” Sophia said cryptically. “The big baby wants his phone, because, evidently, he’s missing a booty call. His words, not mine.” She sniffed, which made Vivian frown harder.

  If I could, I’d go there right now and beat the shit out of James myself for making my baby sister cry. “Fia, don’t do this. We’ll be there first thing in the morning, I promise.”

  “Bye, V,” was all Sophia said before she gave a sob and the line disconnected.

  “What in the name of hell is going on? Sophia doesn’t cry. She doesn’t get offended. What the hell?” Vivian asked Jason, still holding the phone.

  “Damn it, I don’t know,” he answered. He took the cell from her when it vibrated. He scowled at it before pulling her into a hug, his hand rubbing up and down her back. “James says he’s got it all under control. He’ll update us soon. Fuck!” Jason tossed the phone onto the couch. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t think he’d do anything to make her cry or hurt her feelings, I swear I didn’t.”

  “I don’t get it. She doesn’t offend easily at all.” She sighed and shook her head. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow, I guess. He really won’t hurt her, right? I mean, he won’t tie her up or spank her or anything else like that?” Or really fuck a woman while my sister is there? But that question, she left unasked.

  “He’s probably messing with her. More than likely, she said something that he took the wrong way and it became a one-upmanship sort of thing. He’ll get her calmed down, and he’ll keep her safe. Even if she takes off into the woods, he’ll follow. He’s not going to let anything happen to her. As to your questions, no to all of them.
James doesn’t hurt women, never has, never will. He loves them too much. Damn this storm,” he muttered, hugging her closer.

  “Maybe he loves them just a bit too much? Maybe he’s so used to women falling naked into his bed that he doesn’t get why Fia isn’t doing the same?”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  He let out a ragged-sounding sigh. “We can’t do anything until the morning. I have to trust in James to keep her safe, and so do you, or we’ll both go crazy with worry. Let’s go under the assumption that he’s talking her down, calming her, and everything will be okay.”

  Vivian nodded and drew in a deep breath. Jason released her and went to the bedroom. He returned a moment later with his wallet, grabbing his phone before reaching for her hand. “Let’s go and eat. He’ll call as soon as he can.”

  “Okay.” Vivian looked up at Jason.

  He stopped and tugged her in close, wrapping his arm around her waist to hold her against his body. “I know I can’t control anyone else’s actions. But I really wish there was an off switch on James’s mouth from time to time.” Jason stared into her eyes and smiled. “I love you, Vivian. We’ll get through tonight, then go out there and watch over your sister ourselves. We’ll get James as far from her as we can, set him to track the evil ones after her group while we keep watch at the house.”

  “She said she was done with the painting, so we could just bring them back here. I think having them off the island would be a good thing, that way they don’t have such a smallish place to bump shoulders. Would he be okay, tracking on his own? He wouldn’t be hurt, would he?”

  “If he finds anything, he’ll call for backup. It’s standard procedure.” Jason pulled the door shut behind them and started walking toward the elevator but didn’t let her go, his arm holding her close to his side. “It’ll take him a while to track down these things, but he’ll have no issue doing it during daylight. They tend not to come out in the day unless it’s necessary. Usually to try to kill one of us, and then only in large groups. Unless they call in backup themselves, he’ll be good. He’ll also be careful. He knows better than most what can happen to a guardian when one of these things gets their mitts on us.”

  There was a story there, Vivian was sure. “What do you mean, he knows better than most?”

  Pressing the down button for the elevator, Jason made a face. “It was just after he was—well, for lack of a better term—resurrected. He was in the field with two other guardians, training with them, when they were attacked. The monsters stumbled on them. Best description he could give. He said that they all just sort of stared at one another, so the monsters definitely didn’t expect to find guardians there.

  “Then it all hit the fan. The monsters attacked, and the guardians defended, but one of the monsters got in a lucky hit and put a guardian on the ground. They know as we do that there’s only two ways to kill us—take our heads or destroy the medallion. Well, they shattered the guardian’s medallion, and he exploded, for all intents and purposes. He was about a thousand or so years old. Which means in real time his body was already ashes. So, when the medallion crumbled, his body caught up to real time, and poof, nothing but ash.

  “It scared James, bad. He and the other guardian managed to kill off the other monsters as they were gloating and get back to the Mountain. But he was shaken up for a month.”

  “Oh God, that’s terrible.” Vivian couldn’t wrap her mind around what Jason was saying. “That would be something that would stick with you. To watch someone just explode,” she said, putting her hand over his heart. He kissed her, then tugged her into the elevator that had finally arrived. There were others inside, so they stayed quiet for most of the ride down to the lobby, but not once did he let her go.

  Vivian simply held on to Jason. This was where she felt the most comfortable—in his arms. “I hope that Fia feeds him.” Complete topic change, she knew, but when her stomach growled, her thoughts shifted to James, who might be hungry. “She wouldn’t let him starve, but she might make him apologize.”

  “What I don’t get is why she’s so upset that he invited someone over. Not saying it’s right, in any way at all, especially since it’s not his house. The fact he did it in front of her, though, likely means she said something to irritate him, and he did it to get even. Which brings me back around to why she’s so upset about something like that.”

  He walked her off the elevator and to a quiet corner of the lobby, relatively speaking. Vivian chewed her lower lip for a moment, then sighed. “You know my father wasn’t a good man? At all. As he would beat Fia, he would say that it was only because he couldn’t get to me. Said that she was the poor substitute, and if she didn’t look so much like our mother, he would just outright kill her.”

  She knew she was explaining it all wrong and rubbed her temples. “When we were teens, there was a boy who was my age. I didn’t care for him, but Fia thought that he was just the next best thing to sliced bread. He asked her out and then when he came to our home, he locked himself in my bedroom. He told her that she was just a poor imitation, second best.” She sighed. “Anyway, she wears her heart on her sleeve, and she gets hurt easily because of it. She’s one of those people that what you see is what you get, literally. She doesn’t hold anything back, and she lives in the moment. What he calls ‘flitting around’ is simply her living. Trust me, after the crap we’ve been through, she has every right in the world to flit about, if she so pleases.”

  “Hey, sweetheart, I’m not judging your sister, or you, for that matter. No one has the perfect life. It’s what helps to shape us into the adults we’re meant to be. You both survived it, that’s what’s truly important in the grand scheme of things. I’m not going to make excuses, or come up with what ifs for James. It’s not my place. I trust him with my life, and yours, so I know that if he did wrong, he’ll make it right.

  “There’s nothing we can do from here, so try not to worry about it. As soon as he can, he’ll update us and hopefully it’ll all be all right, at least for tonight.”

  “We can hope so.” Vivian looked up at Jason and smiled. “If you say that he won’t hurt her, then I trust you. I also like James. Granted, I didn’t know him but for a moment, but I like to think I’m a decent judge of character.”

  “He’s a good man, but he’s temperamental on the best of days. Though I have a feeling she matches him well there. It’ll be fine. He won’t let her go out alone. He’ll protect her, and if he can manage it, he’ll even talk her back into the house and calm her.”

  “I hope so.” She sighed. “But like you said, there’s nothing we can do about it, so I’m not going to worry about it. I’m not going to worry about her, and I’m not going to worry about him. I’m going to spend this night focusing on us.”

  Jason lifted a hand and touched her cheek. “Tonight is ours, however we came about getting it. Let’s have our meal, gather up everything we’ll need, and then we’ll go to your house. I really want to see it. You can learn so much about a person by being in the space they call their own.”

  “I can’t wait to have you there. At least now I know why I bought a king-sized bed when I moved.” Vivian grinned. “Fia has one, too. She’s got all kinds of strange things in her room.” They shared a place, both preferring it that way. Neither wanted to be alone. “What about later?” she wanted to know. “What happens next? You obviously have a home somewhere.”

  He stilled and blinked. His eyes slowly went wide before he made a face. “Shit,” he muttered. Rubbing a hand over his head, he sighed. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I should have, I usually do, but shit. This time, I didn’t. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I guess it’s something we definitely need to talk about, because I won’t be able to stay here, and it’s not secure enough to leave you or Sophia behind.”

  “Well, crap.” Vivian took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. Then we’ll come with you.” She didn’t have anything to tie her here. She was a reporter for a newspaper that refused to do online publ
ications, so she knew that her time there was limited as it was. And she knew that Fia would be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Her sister was liquid like that. “Don’t stress, Jason. I promise that it’s totally going to be fine.”

  “Gods, I’m sorry, Vivian. I didn’t even think about the fact we’d have to go back to the Mountain after this.” He pulled her in for a tight hug. “I hate the fact I’m going to uproot you from all you’ve built here.”

  Vivian simply hugged him back. “Don’t worry about it. The only person that means anything to me here is my sister, and she’ll have to come with us, so I don’t care. All that matters are those that I love. Things are replaceable, but you aren’t, Fia’s not, and James isn’t, so don’t worry. It’ll be all good. Promise,” she assured him.

  “You say that now, but I have a feeling Sophia will be a bit trickier than you, unless James manages to make nice by tomorrow.” Holding her to his side, he started them across the lobby to the restaurant.

  “Well, let’s hope that he did, but even so.” She shrugged. “Sophia will still come with us. She has this odd idea that there’s someone out there waiting for her to come along. I can’t remember what she called him now, but she swears that he’s been waiting for her for a very long time. Before, I just figured it was her being fanciful or whatever.” She looked at him and grinned. “Now, however, I have a whole new respect for just how long you could have waited for someone to walk into your life.”

  “Sometimes you never find that person. Sometimes it takes a good long while, and then there are times when you find them early. I found you, that’s all that matters to me. Yes, it took a long time, but the wait was well worth it. You’re so much more than I could have ever hoped or dreamed up, Vivian.”

  “Good, because you’re stuck with me from now until forever.”

  Stopping at the hostess stand, he requested a table for two in a corner. Once they were seated, he took her hand in his and squeezed. “Even if we had the rest of time together, it wouldn’t be enough, Vivian. Nothing will ever be enough for me to enjoy all the moments we’ll have. But I will have to settle for whatever time we are blessed to share.”