Stormy blinked slowly. "Because giving up is not an option, right, Max?"

"Of course it's not an option. Lou is mine." Max paced across the room in one direction, then turned and started back again. "He's meant for me. I'm certainly not going to let a little thing like his unwillingness to cooperate get in the way of that." She stood still and smiled then. "Now that I think about it, he basically ad mitted to wanting me, too. He said I had to stop because he was a normal red-blooded man, and that his body reacts to my flirting."

Stormy sighed. "I suppose he might really believe you aren't serious about him, and that would make him feel guilty for having feelings for you."

"Well, I'll get that out of the way first and proceed from there."

"Have you decided how you're going to get it out of the way?"

Max eyed the dresser drawer. "I suppose the teddy's out of the question?"

"I think if you show up in his bedroom wearing that teddy, he'll be gone when we get up in the morning.

The man's gun-shy."

Max sighed. "I suppose I could just tell him." "That might be best."

The vampire's mind was his most powerful tool. He knew that others of his kind shared many of the same abilities-to control the mind of another, to communicate without speaking, to hear private thoughts, to invade dreams, to enslave. But none, to his knowledge, had honed those skills to the degree he had.

The woman, for example.

She wasn't even here, not yet. She was somewhere too the north, asleep in her bed. But he could reach her, even there. He would reach her...

He stared at the photograph on the glossy flyer. Stared into the eyes that were, he reminded himself, the wrong color. He probed and sought, and, eventually, he felt her. She was there, far away, but he could touch her. He slipped inside her mind. She felt him there, stirred in her sleep.

Who are you? he whispered, and his mind searched hers for answers. Tell me who you are.

He didn't expect the question to generate the violent response it did. He felt a struggle as she searched her mind for the correct reply. There was a tearing, a tug-of-war going on, as if for control.

I am No! I am Get out. Leave me alone, dammit!

Never!

Help me. G.o.d, Jesus, help me-what's happening to me?

Tears. He heard and felt them. Racking her. Quaking through her.

Just let go. Let go and let me-"Nooooooo!"

The shriek was so pain-filled, so desperate, he withdrew immediately, then sat very still, holding his head in his hands. Maybe he had made a terrible mistake in seeing to it the woman came to him here. She was not, he realized, entirely sane.

Lou felt like slime. He'd hurt Max's feelings, he knew that. And he'd probably convinced her he was just like every other man she'd ever known in the process. He'd always loved that she saw him differently.

That she trusted him when she didn't trust many of the others. That she felt safe around him.

He hoped he hadn't blown that.

He couldn't sleep. He'd tried a cold shower, then a hot one. He'd stripped down to his shorts and T-shirt, and pulled on a robe over them just in case she came wandering in wanting to talk to him.

Though he doubted she would. He didn't want to sleep. He wanted to make things okay between them again.

He was still pacing the floor when he heard the scream.

Max!

He flung his bedroom door open and ran to hers, whipped it open as well without knocking, and strode inside, ready to do battle.

Max wasn't in her bed. The bathroom door was open, and a light shone and music wafted from within, so he lunged inside.

Maxine lay in the giant sunken tub that sat at the top of a dais in the room's center, with three ceramic-tiled steps going up to it on each of the four sides. He'd come to a stop on the second step, hiseyes riveted to the tub. It was full of steaming water. And Max was sound asleep inside. The water was clear. Not cloudy, no bubbles. She lay there, knees bent slightly and rocked over to one side. He couldn't stop his eyes from drinking their fill. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, small, round, perfect, just beneath the water.

Her smooth torso and soft belly, and the sleek curve of her hip and rounded b.u.t.tocks.

The sight of her crawled into every crevice of his mind, burning her image there. He felt as if his muscles had turned molten. G.o.d, she was beautiful.

Then the scream came again, louder this time, jerking him out of his trancelike state. Not Max, his mind told him. Stormy.

Max's eyes flew open at the sound, met his, widened.

He ran down the steps, s.n.a.t.c.hed the robe that hung from the back of the door and tossed it in her direction. "It's Stormy. Something's wrong." Then he turned and ran from the room and down the hall to Stormy's.

Max sprinted down the hall, d.a.m.n near slipping because of her wet feet. She tied the robe as she ran and burst into Stormy's room to see Lou leaning over her bed, his hands on her shoulders.

"What happened? What's wrong?" Max shouted. Both Lou and Stormy looked at her. Stormy said, "Bad dream."

"About what?"

"I don't know. It didn't make any sense." She sat up in the bed, pushed her hands through her short blond hair. "There were all these voices, one asking me who I was. Another trying to answer for me. I felt like my head was going to split open."

"Are you okay?" Max moved to the other side of the bed and stroked Stormy's hair.

"I'm fine. But it hurt so much in the dream. And once it started, the splitting just kept going-tearing my body in half, splitting my head down the middle, and then my chest, my heart, my belly. I couldn't stop it.

It was so real, Max, this sense of being torn in half."

Max frowned at her. "Are you in any pain now? Your head, is it...?"

"No, no pain. It was all part of the dream, I swear. I'm fine."

Max took her hands. "I don't think you're being honest with me."

Stormy's eyes widened and met hers.

"Something's different-since the coma. Something's wrong, Storm, and it's about time you come clean about it. "

Stormy shook her head slowly. "Never could fool you, could I?"

"So what is it?" "I don't know. I just know I don't feel the same" "That's not an answer, " Max said.

Stormy rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. "It's the only one you're getting tonight. I'll be okay. Go back to bed."

"Are you sure? I can sit with you if you-"

"Lou, make her go to bed, will you?" Stormy muttered, snuggling more deeply into her pillows.

She looked fine, Max had to admit. And it didn't seem there was a d.a.m.n thing she could do for her friend, anyway. She sent Lou a helpless look. He only shrugged, then leaned over to pull Stormy's blanket up over her shoulder. "Call if you need us, " he said.

"I will."

He nodded at Max, and they both left the room. In the hallway, she looked up at him. He licked his lips and averted his eyes. "I'm sorry about busting into your room. When I heard her scream, I thought-"

"It's okay."

"It's really not."

She reached out to him, closed her hand around one of his and then studied it as her thumb ran over his knuckles. "I gotta tell you, Lou, it does me a world of good to know you'd come on a dead run if I were to cry out in the night."

"I know."

She nodded. "I'm scared to death there's something wrong with Stormy. Something big. Major, you know? And no matter what you say, I know I'm right about that. That's topmost on my mind right now.

You catching a glimpse of me in the bathtub is barely a blip on my radar compared to my worry about her."

He nodded. "I think you're overreacting"

"So what's new? You always think I'm overreacting." He sighed, lowering his head.

"Even so, Lou, the only thing keeping me from going off the deep end over this is having you here.

Knowing you've got my back even if you don't agree with me. You'll hold me together if I start to fall apart. I trust you like no one else. I trust you with my life. And with Stormy's. And I can't even tell you how glad I am that you're coming with us tomorrow. Because I've got a bad, bad feeling about all this"

He turned his hand in hers and squeezed. "You, too, huh?"

She met his eyes. "Yeah. Why? Don't you feel good about it, either?"

"I don't know why, but my gut's telling me we're walking into the lion's den."

He sighed. "If I thought I had a s...o...b..ll's chance in h.e.l.l of talking you out of going down there, I'd try.

But I know you too well." She nodded.

He released her hand. "We should get some sleep. Get an early start."

"Yeah. Just...one more thing first."

He looked down at her. She swallowed hard and gathered up her courage-drew it straight up from her ovaries, she thought. "I never thought of you as a gelding, Lou. I don't believe for one minute you're too old to react to a little flirting."

She watched his brows go up. He seemed to be searching for words, so she shook her head. "I'm not trying to put you on the spot for a response to any of that. I just-I thought you needed to know."

With a firm nod, she turned and walked down the hall to her bedroom and just left him standing there.

Chapter 7.

One vehicle seemed more practical than two, so Stormy left her Miata safely at the house in Maine , and Lou drove Maxie's Bug. Not because he was the man, Stormy supposed, but because he was still pretending Maxie's lousy driving was the reason he'd come along in the first place. She knew better and, personally, thought the two of them were pretty pathetic. Meanwhile, though, they were both still way too overprotective of her. G.o.d, it was getting old fast. She could only imagine how much worse that would be if they knew what was really going on with her.

h.e.l.l, how could they? She didn't even know.

Either way, the upshot of it was that Lou drove, Maxie sat in the front of her own car, beside him, and Stormy had the small but comfy back seat all to herself.

Not that she minded all that much. She leaned with her back against the side of the car, and her legs on the seat, knees bent. She'd rolled up Maxie's ever-present car blanket to use as a cushion. The position gave her a chance to observe the two of them. Much more pleasant, she thought, speculating on the state of their issues than wondering about her own.

Lou seemed stiff, guarded, as he drove. He must feel the tension-it was emanating from Max in waves a dead man couldn't have missed. Not anger, not exactly. Or not purely anger, anyway. She was p.i.s.sedoff, sure, but mostly, Stormy thought, she was frustrated and impatient with him for so thoroughly misreading her for the past six months. She must feel like all that flirting had been totally wasted. And she'd done some cla.s.s-A flirting!

Lou didn't talk much, except about where they were going, driving directions or when to stop. Stormy didn't blame him. He was a male, which meant Max's mood was likely confusing him. He had no idea what he'd done wrong, so he didn't dare say much, in case he made things worse.

Poor clueless man.

Max was off her game this morning, too. A little awkward, unsure of herself, and probably resenting the h.e.l.l out of him for making her feel that way. She couldn't relate to him as she usually did, with teasing, flirting and baiting, because he'd called a halt to that, and she hadn't yet figured out the next best way to talk to him, so she didn't talk at all. It wouldn't be long, though, before Max had a brand-new approach.

In the meantime, she was unnaturally quiet. Someone who didn't know her as well as Stormy might think she was brooding, but Stormy knew better. Maxie was regrouping, working out a new plan of attack.

Meanwhile, though, the usual teasing banter between them was gone. Stormy found herself missing it.

She leaned back in her seat, bored with pondering her two hardheaded friends. Instead she wondered what it would be like to see Jason Beck again after all this time. He would be older, more experienced, maybe harder than he'd been before. Life seemed to have that effect on people. She wondered if he would look drastically different-whether he'd let himself go, grown a beard or put on a ton of weight.

Whether he'd let his hair grow back or kept his head shaved, the way he used to. She wondered if he would still be the conservative 'fraidy cat he'd been before.

What if he wasn't? What if he'd opened his mind, grown a little more outgoing over the years? Stormy swallowed and closed her eyes, told herself she wasn't going to New Hampshire to audition Jason as her new love interest-she was going to help him find his sister. Period.

Besides, she'd agonized over her decision not to pursue more than friendship with him in the first place.

He was too b.u.t.toned-up, too tight-a.s.sed. He wasn't for her. She would have driven him crazy, or he would have clipped her wings. Neither was a happy outcome.

Whatever she might have expected of Jason, though, it couldn't have prepared her for the reality she faced four hours later.