Keep Me Close Page 4

  Vinny looked a tiny bit chagrined. “You got me on that. But I do have a knife.” She slipped a folding knife from her pocket for a second, flipped it open and closed, then slid it back.

  “Well, now I’d better behave.” He thought it best not to mention he had a couple knives of his own. She’d be running into the hills at that news.

  Vinny looked around at the emptiness. “Don’t suppose you got firewood packed away on that bike.”

  “Nope, sorry. You afraid of the dark?” he asked, starting to pull his gear from the bike.

  “No. And I’m not afraid of things that go bump in the night, either.”

  He stopped what he was doing and gave her his full attention.

  “Why not?” he asked, wondering if this woman knew the truth about the world, the truth Dom and his family lived with every day, but couldn’t ever talk about with ordinary people.

  “Because I don’t believe in monsters,” she said.

  Dom sighed. So much for that notion.

  Vinny went on, “I don’t need to blame monsters for bad stuff when I know humans who are real monsters.”

  He kept watching her for a moment longer. Then he shrugged, accepting her answer. “Good enough.”

  “What’s the matter?” Vinny asked, her eyes on him. “You believe in ghosts?”

  That’s just the beginning of what I believe. “Doesn’t matter if I do or not. We’re still stuck out here tonight.” After Dom got the blankets arranged and wadded up his sweatshirt as a pillow, he laid down. Vinny still sat on a rock near the bike.

  “It’s safe, you know,” he said. “I won’t bite.”

  “Oh, really.” She arched an eyebrow at that. The expression was sexier than she probably intended it to be.

  “Well, to be totally honest…” he said, then trailed off.

  “Go on,” Vinny said, eyes narrow.

  “…if the mood’s right…”

  “What.”

  “Piewicket might bite. Fair warning,” Dom finished. He pointed to the cat, who’d returned from wherever she’d been.

  Vinny’s laugh was sudden and electric as a lightning strike. With a smile on her face, she looked like a different person. “Oh, that’s fine. She can do whatever she wants.”

  Of course I can, Piewicket thought in Dom’s mind. I am a cat.

  Evidently willing to risk it, Vinny walked over to the blankets and sat down, kicking off her boots and sliding out of the jacket. The metal chains of her multitude of necklaces jangled softly.

  “You won’t choke on all that jewelry?” Dom asked, genuinely curious.

  “Nah. I wear these twenty-four seven. Hasn’t killed me yet.” Vinny stretched out, pulling the top blanket over her. “I’ve made myself really, really clear about what’s allowed, right?”

  “My impression was that nothing is allowed.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “You don’t know a lot of decent guys, do you?”

  “I know a few,” Vinny said. “But the point is that I don’t know you, Dom.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Dom closed his eyes, trying to get the message through this girl’s head that he wasn’t a danger to her. He was pretty tired, actually, but he was hyperaware of the woman next to him. She slept fitfully at first, waking up at every sound and twitch.

  Then a soft, furred shape slinked onto the blankets. Piewicket nuzzled into the space between Vinny and Dom. The cat stretched, filling the gap as only a cat can. Vinny made a sleepy, murmuring sound—an entirely too intriguing sound to Dom—and then her restlessness subsided. Dom drifted off to sleep himself, Piewicket’s subtle purring in his ears.

  He woke up once, very abruptly, in the middle of the night. The temperature had dropped a lot. The night sky was clear, with a bright half moon high in the sky, and a rich scattering of stars visible overhead. By habit, Dom picked out several of the constellations, all useful for those who did magic for a living.

  He glanced over at Vinny. She was lying on her side, facing toward him, completely lost to the world.

  Piewicket lay cuddled next to her. The cat’s eyes gleamed in the darkness.

  “Thought she’d never stop tossing,” he said softly to Pie.

  I made her sleep, Piewicket told him. Or she would be awake still. She doesn’t trust you.

  “Because I’m a guy.”

  And because you’re human.

  “Smart girl,” Dom said, curious about the woman sleeping at his side.

  He leaned over. Being very careful to avoid touching Vinny, he examined a few of the necklaces now half-lying on the blanket. Most of the charms were cheap—silver-colored but not silver. But there was a beautiful real silver cross that had a certain power in it. It made Dom’s fingers tingle when he touched it.

  Blessed, he thought, feeling the threads of an old spell inside the metal. There was also a tiny glass bottle filled with salt, which vibrated with a different sort of power—protection. Not very strong, but definitely real. He wondered where Vinny picked it up, and if she knew that it was actually magic. He suspected that each necklace she wore held a story, and he was interested in hearing every single one.

  His gaze drifted from the necklaces back to her. She was pretty. Sexy was one thing, and she was sexy, even when she was going out of her way to run for mayor of Icetown. Dom felt bad for any guy who ever thought she was just playing hard to get. Vinny acted very comfortable with that pocketknife.

  But now, when she wasn’t threatening to kill him, she was simply pretty. Straight blonde hair covered part of her face. He had to stop himself from pushing it off her cheek—he didn’t want to lose any fingers. Sleep made her features softer, less tense and wary. Her mouth was slightly open, and her breathing came soft and even. Dom could imagine that mouth on him.

  Shit. He shouldn’t have done that, because he had a good imagination and his body immediately reacted to the idea of her all over him. Going by her attitude so far, she was probably a handful in bed, which was a really interesting line of thought.

  “Ugh, stop that,” he told himself under his breath.

  You should sleep, Piewicket told him suddenly. I will watch. The night belongs to my kind.

  “Wake me up if there’s trouble.”

  I will wake you if it pleases me to do so.

  “Typical.”

  Dom slid back into sleep, wondering what Vinny would do if a cat ever started talking to her.

  Chapter 5

  Vinny woke up just before dawn to find a dead chipmunk two feet away from her head. “Oh, Miss Piewicket,” she groaned. “You shouldn’t have.”

  The cat bounded into view and then got in her face, purring madly.

  “Yes, thank you for the gift,” she said, scratching behind Pie’s ears. One was white and one was muted orange. “It was super sweet and you’re a vicious killer.”

  Piewicket looked proud, accepting that praise. She also seemed to really like the ear scratching. Vinny smiled at the cat. “You kept me warm last night, and you’re kind of a purr machine.”

  “That she is.”

  Still petting Piewicket, Vinny looked over to Dom, who was already up, moving around by his bike. “Is that why you take her with you? To keep you company? Seems like this isn’t her first rodeo.”

  “She’s very well-traveled,” Dom said. “But mostly I keep her around to look less intimidating.”

  Vinny laughed, having noticed how Dom was trying not to smile as he spoke. And this morning, he looked much more approachable than he had yesterday. Maybe that was just because he wasn’t a complete stranger now. In fact, he’d gone a full night without losing his nice guy status. Vinny wanted to pretend she wasn’t impressed, but she was.

  “I’m sorry I was mean to you last night,” she said suddenly. “I was kind of on edge. I had a bad day until you picked me up. And I should have been grateful…and I was, but…”

  “I get it,” Dom said, reaching into one of the bike’s packs. “If I had a sister, I’d f
reak out if I heard she hitchhiked. Oh, here it is.” He moved back toward her, dropping an energy bar by her head. “Last one.”

  Vinny grabbed it. She was ravenous. “Thanks. Dead rodent’s not my first choice.”

  “Too bad. Pie doesn’t go hunting for just anybody, you know.” He gave her a half-smile and turned away again, offering a bit of privacy for Vinny to sit up and get herself together. Pie mewed and ambled after Dom.

  She devoured the bar and rolled out of the blankets. She had them both bundled up within minutes.

  “You’re a pro,” he said, taking the packed blankets to stow.

  “Told you. I was in a band. We toured for years. No frills. No fucking around.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  “I didn’t mean…oh, never mind.”

  “I don’t mind,” Dom said. She got another half-smile she couldn’t decipher.

  Dom was a little too good-looking for comfort. Why couldn’t Vinny have been rescued by a family in a minivan? Oh, right. They would have driven right past someone who looked like her.

  “Hey,” Vinny said then. “I didn’t wake you up at all, did I?” She didn’t remember having a nightmare, but it was possible she did and he heard something.

  But Dom was shaking his head. “You’re a sound sleeper.” He gestured to the bike. “Let’s get moving. Real breakfast in a couple hours if we’re lucky.”

  It was full on morning when they pulled up at a diner on the side of the highway. A large neon sign proclaimed it served the best coffee in the West, and Vinny was very willing to test that claim personally.

  Dom ordered the biggest breakfast on the menu, and after a second Vinny echoed him. She should have stuck with coffee—cheap fuel. But she was so hungry she almost attacked the sugar packets on the table.

  The coffee came fast, and was very good. Vinny felt much more human after the first cup. Sitting across from Dom, she surveyed him as subtly as she could. He still looked good. He needed a shave, and his t-shirt was totally wrinkled, but neither of those things looked bad.

  “Where were you coming from when you drove by me?” she asked.

  “When I stopped for you, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dom took a sip of coffee, then said, “Florida, but only because of a job. I’m not from there.”

  “Where are you from?”

  His brow furrowed. “Um, that’s not an easy question. Sort of all over. My family moved around a lot. Now I live with my brothers in a big house just outside a small town in Ohio. Flyover country. I’d tell you the name, but it wouldn’t mean anything.”

  “Probably not,” Vinny agreed. “I’ve been living the last few months in New Orleans, but I spent most of my life in New York City. Lots of traveling when my bands were on tour, but always through big cities or college towns.”

  “Bands, plural? How many were you in?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  Dom put his coffee down. “Seriously? What do you play?”

  “Bass guitar, mostly. Guitar if I need to.”

  “And you’re good enough to be in bands that tour.”

  “You don’t have to be good to tour,” Vinny explained. “Just crazy. And the reason I was in so many bands is because the half-life of a punk band is about six months.”

  “When did you start?” he said, looking more surprised. “That’s over eleven years.”

  “Longer than that. Some of the bands didn’t suck as much. Which is not to say they were stellar, or that I was.”

  “Yeah, but still. People wouldn’t keep asking you to be in a band if you were no good.”

  Vinny smiled. “Having a girl boosts a band’s, um, stage presence.” She paused. “I suppose I did get one skill out of all those gigs. I’m good at wrangling packs of immature dudes.”

  “Is that what you put on your resume?” he asked, with a smile.

  “Do I look like I have a resume?” she asked, feeling a surge of cheerfulness. Must be the coffee. “Resumes are not punk rock.”

  “You got that look,” he agreed. “All the metal and necklaces and such. How many of those are you wearing?”

  “About thirty?” she guessed, looking down at the collection. “I don’t keep track.”

  “Don’t the chains get tangled?”

  “Sorting them out gives me something to do on long trips.”

  “Like hitching to Seattle,” he said, his expression becoming more curious.

  “Yeah,” said Vin quickly. She did not want to get into her reasons for heading there. “Tell me something. How much did the helmet set you back? I know you said it was gift, but it’s not. I want to make it up to you.”

  He made a face. “Three hundred.”

  “Are you kidding? You paid three hundred dollars for that?”

  “You don’t want to know what the other option was.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I do now.”

  Dom shifted uncomfortably, but he said, “If I didn’t feel like paying cash, the guy offered an alternative form of payment. Ten minutes alone with you. I nearly knocked his jaw off.”

  “What an asshole. Him, not you,” Vinny said, her flesh crawling at the thought of being alone with those guys. Lucky Dom was there. Oh, wait. She didn’t believe in luck. “Why would you do that? Hit him, I mean? You barely know me.”

  “General principle,” Dom said, his expression tight. He pressed his hands on the table, palms down, as if they’d ball up into fists otherwise. “And I didn’t hit him. I just really, really wanted to. But I didn’t like the odds.”

  “Cheese and crackers. Okay, I owe you.”

  “I said it was a gift.”

  “It was literal highway robbery, and I’ll make it up to you. Let’s not argue about this.”

  “Did you just say cheese and crackers?” he asked suddenly.

  “Yeah. Instead of Jesus Christ, you know? I went to Catholic school for a while,” she said, hoping that explained it.

  He was clearly trying not to laugh. “That’s fair. I actually did a few years in a Catholic school too. My dad was half Irish, and my mom was Mexican. You can do the math.”

  “Hold on. Your dad was Irish and your mom was Mexican?”

  Dom’s smile slid off his face. “Uh. Yeah. My parents died when I was ten.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said, picturing a car accident. Without thinking about it, she reached over to take his hand. His fingers curled around hers, gripping tightly.

  Vinny wasn’t exactly a nurturer, but she hoped she could make him feel a little better by being there. “That sucks. I mean, I’m sorry.”

  “It does suck,” he agreed, taking a deeper breath. “It’s been twenty years, but it hurts every day still. But I have my brothers—two of them. And our extended family, which is, um, extensive. And friends. It could be worse.”

  “That’s why you were so insistent about the helmet,” she guessed. “Why it couldn’t wait.”

  “Partly. Life is so much more fragile than most people think. And you usually don’t get much warning when things are about to change.” Dom looked directly at her, his gaze intense. “Not to mention that you just don’t know what’s in your hands and what’s up to fate or chance or whatever you want to call it. If I’d picked you up to stop you from dying in a desert and then you died because you didn’t have a helmet on the bike…”

  “That’d mess anyone up,” she said, feeling shaken. “Thinking you saved someone but really you…”

  “Condemned them.” Dom looked bleak when he said that, as if something was eating him up inside.

  “Not condemned,” Vinny said quickly. “I was going to say that you couldn’t avert fate. I mean, I don’t believe in fate, but maybe some things happen a certain way no matter how hard we try to fix them or change them or stop them.”

  Dom looked at her, right in her eyes. “Yeah. And when that happens, it haunts you. It makes you realize how little power you have.”

  Vinny had no idea what to say to that.


  It was Dom who broke the silence. “At least the conversation didn’t get all heavy.” He laughed, and it made Vinny smile. She was relieved he could laugh after that. Sad Dom wasn’t something she liked seeing, and she barely knew him.

  “We sure dodged that bullet,” she said.

  She tilted her head, trying to fit Dom’s revelation of his parentage with what he looked like. His skin was darker then hers, sure, but she never would have guessed he was part Hispanic.

  “What?” Dom asked.

  “Sorry. You said your mom was Mexican, and I guess I was trying to see it.”

  Dom raised one eyebrow and said something in rapid Spanish.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  “I asked if I looked more Hispanic when I speak Spanish.” He took a sip of coffee, then looked out the window. “Funny. When I say I’m part Irish, no one asks if I speak Gaelic.”

  “Do you?” Somehow, she wouldn’t be surprised if he did. Dom seemed to know a lot.

  “I know a couple of prayers from my dad’s dad.”

  “I really didn’t mean to offend you,” she said quickly, worried that she’d hurt his feelings when he’d just told her something incredibly personal. Nice move, Vinny. “I was just surprised. I mean, your name is…pretty…”

  “Pretty white, yes. Mom and Dad thought it would be easier for us to have names Americans are used to. She pushed for Dominic, even though her grandfather was Dominico. Malachy is as Irish as you can get, so I assume Dad pushed for that. And Lex is short for Alexander, though visit the relatives on her side and he’s Alejandro the second he steps into the yard.” Dom was smiling by the end of this, and she guessed it was brought on by the thought of all his relatives, a perspective utterly unreal to Vinny.

  “You sound like you have a big family,” she said. “Sometimes I wish I did. Then I remember that more family members means more people to disappoint. I’m better off on my own.”

  “Are you?” he asked, a challenge in his tone.

  She forgot what she was going to reply when Dom took the check from the waitress.

  “I got it,” he said, before Vinny could protest. “Just add it to your tab.”