Eve climbed up on the counter, found the plates, and handed them down to Claire. Once that was done, Claire took Shane's place at the stove, stirring the lumpy stuff that was supposed to be gravy. It looked like something an alien would barf.
"That girl," Claire said to Shane.
"What girl?"
"The - you know. Out there."
"You mean the bloodsucker? Yeah, what about her?"
"She was staring at you."
"What can I say? Irresistible."
"Shane, it's not funny. I just - you should be careful."
"Always am." Which was an absolute lie. Shane's eyes fixed on hers, and she felt a burst of heat inside that crept up to burn in her cheeks. He smiled slowly. "Jealous?"
"Maybe."
"No reason. I like my ladies with a pulse." He took her hand and pressed his fingers gently against her wrist. "Yep, you've got one. It's beating pretty fast, too."
"I'm not kidding, Shane."
"Neither am I." He stepped closer, and they were barely a breath apart. "No vamp's going to come between us. You believe me?"
She nodded wordlessly. For the life of her, she couldn't have forced out a single word just then. His eyes were dark, the color of rich brown velvet, with a thin rim of gold. She'd looked into his eyes a lot recently, but she'd never noticed just how beautiful they were.
Shane stepped back as the door opened again. Michael turned first toward them, offering up a mute apology, then faced Claire's parents.
"Mr. and Mrs. Danvers, Mr. Bishop would like for you to join him for dinner," he said. "But if you have to go home - "
If Michael was hoping they'd changed their minds, Claire could have told him that wasn't going to happen. As long as her dad had the idea something funny was going on, he wasn't about to do the sensible thing. Sure enough, he got to his feet, holding his coffee cup. "I could do with some breakfast. Never tasted Claire's eggs before. Kathy? You coming?"
Clueless, Claire thought in despair, but then again, she'd been just as bad when she'd first come to Morganville. She hadn't taken the strong hints, or even the outright instructions, seriously. Maybe she'd gotten that from her parents, along with the fair skin and slightly curly hair. In their defense, though, Mr. Bishop was playing with their heads.
And they were scared for her.
She watched as her parents followed Michael into the other room, and then helped Eve get the eggs and bacon and biscuits onto serving dishes - nice ones at that. The lumpy gravy couldn't be helped. They poured it into a gravy bowl and hoped for the best, then silently carried it out into the dining area, which was really a corner of the living room.
Claire was struck again, as she was at the oddest times, how the mood of the house could change at a moment's notice. Not just the mood of the people in it - the house itself. Right now, it felt dark, cold, foreboding. Almost hostile. And yet all that dark emotion seemed directed at the intruding vampires.
The house was worried, and on guard. The solid Victorian furniture crouched hunched and deformed, nothing warm or welcoming about it. Even the lights seemed dimmed, and Claire could feel something, almost a presence - the way she'd been able to sometimes sense Michael when he'd been trapped in the house as a ghost. The fine hair on her arms stood on end, and her skin pebbled into gooseflesh.
Claire set the eggs and bacon down on the wooden table and backed away. Nobody had asked her, Eve, and Shane to take seats, although there were empty places at the table; she caught Eve's eye and retreated back to the kitchen, grateful to escape. Michael stayed by the table, putting food on plates. Serving. There was a tight, pale set to his face and a cold fear in his eyes, and God, if Michael was panicking, there was definitely reason for a total freak-out.
As soon as the kitchen door closed again, Shane grabbed her and Eve and hustled them to the farthest corner of the room. "Right," he whispered. "It's official - this is getting way more than creepy. Did you feel that?"
"Yeah," Eve breathed. "Wow. I think if the house had teeth, it'd be chomping down right now. You have to admit, that's cool."
"Cool isn't getting us anywhere. Claire?"
"What?" She stared at him blankly for a few long seconds, then said, "Oh. Right. Yeah. I'll call Amelie again." She dug the cell phone out of her pocket. It was new, and came with a few important numbers preloaded on it. One of them - the first on speed dial, in fact - was a contact number for Amelie, the Founder of Morganville.
The head vampire. Claire's boss, sort of. In Morganville, the technical term was Patron, but Claire had known from the beginning that it was just a more polite word for owner.
It rang - again - to voice mail. Claire left another hurried, half-desperate message to "come to the house, please, we need your help," and hung up. She looked mutely at Eve, who sighed and took the phone, then dialed another number.
"Yeah, hi," she said when she got someone on the line. "Let me talk to the boss." A longish pause, and Eve looked like she was steeling herself for something really unpleasant. "Oliver. It's Eve. Don't bother to tell me how nice it is to hear from me, because it's not, and this is business, so save the BS. Hold on."
Eve handed over the phone to Claire. Frowning, Claire mouthed, Are you sure? Eve made an emphatic thumb-and-little-finger phone gesture at her ear.
Claire reluctantly took the call.
"Oliver?" she asked. On the other end of the line, she heard a low, lazy chuckle.
"Well," he said. The owner of Common Grounds, the local coffee shop, had a warm voice - the kind that had made her think he was just an all-around nice guy when she'd first met him. "If it isn't little Claire. Eve didn't want to hear it, but I'll tell it to you - it's nice that you turn to me in your moment of need. It is a moment of need, I assume? And not an invitation to socialize?"