Change of Fate (The Briar Creek Vampires, #4) by Jayme Morse & Jody Morse (19 page)

Closing her eyes, Lexi thought,
I want to
go home
. When she opened her eyes, she was still sitting on the
large rock next to Dan.

“Don’t you kind of wish that we could stay
here in a way?” Dan asked.

Lexi glanced at him, raising her eyebrows.
“Why would I wish that?”

“Well, for one thing, life seemed so much
simpler during this time,” Dan began, running a hand through his
sandy blonde hair. “And we also wouldn’t have to deal with the
stressors that will be waiting for us when we get back. There’s no
Greg Lawrence here.”

“True,” Lexi replied, gazing into the water.
She felt a few drops of sweat make their way down her forehead. It
was three o’clock – the hottest hour of the day. Deciding that she
couldn’t take the heat anymore, Lexi climbed off the rock and raced
over to the river and pulled her tank top off over her head and
climbed out of her jeans. Carefully, she set the jar of potion on
top of her clothes.

It was probably a good idea for her to bathe
now, anyway. It had been days since she’d even changed her clothes.
Just thinking about how much their personal hygiene had suffered
since they’d time traveled made her feel really gross.

“What are you doing?” Dan called from his
place on the rock. Lexi picked up on an amused tone in his voice.
When she glanced over at him, she noticed him taking in her body.
She was only wearing a bra and her bikini underwear. Dan was the
only guy who had ever seen her so undressed. She’d taken her shirt
off in front of Gabe once, on impulse, but even he had never seen
her without her pants on.

Oddly, Lexi didn’t mind Dan seeing her this
way. She knew that she would feel much more awkward about her body
if she were standing in front of Gabe, but something about being
nearly naked around Dan made her feel more comfortable. It felt
like she was just wearing a bikini instead of actual underwear.

“Are you stripping for me?” Dan called when
she didn’t answer him.

“No! You wish!” Lexi yelled, giggling, as she
leaped into the water. “I’m swimming. It’s hot out. Come in!”

Without asking any questions, Dan stripped
down to his boxer shorts. It wasn’t the first time Lexi had seen
him without a shirt on. There had been the time at her aunt’s house
when she’d rubbed sunscreen lotion on his shoulders, which was the
first time she could ever remember herself being physically
attracted to him at all. Lexi had also seen him without a shirt on
since they’d time traveled, when she had wrapped the dress around
his body in hopes of relieving his sunburn.

It didn’t matter how many times she’d seen
him without a shirt on; Lexi still couldn’t help but notice how
attractive his chiseled chest and muscular arms looked when they
were bare.

Dan ran towards the river and jumped into the
water, making a large splash. Brushing his wet hair back, he doggy
paddled over to her.

“So, vampires can swim, huh?” Lexi asked,
splashing water at him playfully.

“Even better than humans can,” Dan replied,
diving under the water. Lexi watched as his body skirted around her
and then disappeared into the depths of the murky river.

Floating on her back, she allowed the
undertow of the water to carry her a little upstream before
flipping over and onto her stomach. Dan still hadn’t surfaced yet.
Lexi began to panic.

She scanned the river for him, but she didn’t
see him anywhere. His tan skin must have blended in with the
mud-covered rocks beneath them. “Dan?” she called, hoping that he
would be able to hear her underwater. There was no response.

“Dan?” Lexi called again. This time, she felt
her eyes filling up with tears. She didn’t even try to hold them
back, instead allowing them to slide down her cheeks, one by one,
as she tried to figure out what to do.

Several minutes had passed since he’d gone
under the water, which was more than enough time for him to drown.
Had he gotten caught on something at the bottom of the river? Had
the current of the river dragged him under?

Just as Lexi was about to climb out of the
river and get help, she heard the sound of water moving. She turned
around just in time to watch Dan’s head emerge from the water. He
burst into laughter.

Lexi swam towards him and slammed her hand
against the water, creating a large splash. His face told her that
he understood that she was angry. “What the hell, Dan! It’s not
funny! I was worried about you. I thought you drowned!”

Dan swam over to her and wrapped his arms
around her. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he said soothingly, running his hands
through her wet hair. “I thought you knew that vampires can’t
drown.”

“Well, that’s not something you think about
when someone goes under the water and doesn’t come up right away,
vampire or not,” Lexi shot back at him. Feeling defeated, she
wrapped her arms around his back. She pressed her cheek against his
ear and rested her chin on his shoulder. Dan’s embrace tightened
around her.

“Lexi?” Dan asked quietly. “Are you in love
with Gabe?”

Lexi let out a sigh. “I don’t know. I thought
so, but . . .” She trailed off.

“It seems to me that if you really loved him,
you wouldn’t be hesitating about whether you love him,” Dan said
quietly.

“It’s complicated, Dan,” Lexi said. She still
hadn’t told Dan that she thought Gabe had cheated on her with
Veronica, and she didn’t plan to. It would only make her look
pathetic if she chose to take him back. Plus, it would prove that
he had been right many months ago when he’d told her that Gabe
wasn’t right for her.

None of that really mattered right now,
anyway. She didn’t even want to think about Gabe or what might
happen between them when she and Dan got back. Lexi was actually
enjoying getting to know Dan – and the scare he had just given her
had made her realize how upset she would be if something did happen
to him. Months ago, she might have been happy if he drowned, but he
was proving to be one of the best friends she could ever ask
for.

Dan didn’t respond. He just continued to
stroke Lexi’s hair. “I wasn’t lying, you know. I do plan to go to
Huntington with you, instead of back to Briar Creek.”

“I know,” Lexi whispered. The night he had
told her that – the night he had admitted that he knew what had
happened to her mom, which was the same night that she first
thought that she might have some sort of feelings for him – his
words had seemed so genuine and true. It was the first night that
she’d realized that, no matter how much she might not have trusted
Dan in the past, he would never lie to her again in the future.

“Do you want me there?” Dan asked
carefully.

Lexi pulled back and looked into his face,
meeting his blue eyes, which matched the color of the cloudless
sky. She knew that letting him go back to Huntington with her would
only complicate things if there was anything left between her and
Gabe. They would probably even fight about it, especially now that
Lexi and Dan were friends. But she didn’t want him to go back to
Briar Creek. She would constantly worry about his well-being now
that she knew that Greg Lawrence had been threatening him all
along.

And the truth was, Lexi didn’t want him to go
back because she didn’t want to lose whatever it was that was
developing between them. Whether they remained close friends or
this grew into something more, she didn’t want to prevent it from
happening. So, she told Dan the truth. “Yes, I do want you
there.”

“Good,” Dan whispered. He leaned in closer to
her. Lexi could feel his breath against her neck, and she felt his
eyes staring at her lips. She knew that he was thinking the same
thing that she was thinking: that he wanted to kiss her.

Lexi inched closer to him and tilted her
chin, as she braced herself for their first kiss. Her heart was
doing cartwheels, and her stomach was swarming with
butterflies.

Just as Dan’s lips were about to brush
against hers, a voice behind them said, “Lexi, I thought you hated
Dan.”

Chapter 28

****

Mary-Kate stood on the riverbank, with her
hand on her hip, as she stared at Lexi and Dan. Her eyes were
squinted, which Lexi assumed was to block out the glare from the
sun.

“Mary-Kate!” Lexi yelled excitedly. “I can’t
believe you’re here! Oh, my God. How did you find us?”

“I’ve been following you for days,” Mary-Kate
said curtly. Lexi remembered when she felt like they had been
followed on the way to town the other day. The person in the bushes
must have been Mary-Kate . . . but why hadn’t she made her presence
known then?

“Did you come to bring us back? Do the others
know you’re here?”

Mary-Kate laughed loudly. The sound of her
laughter echoed into the air that surrounded Lexi and Dan. “You
know, originally, that was what I had planned,” Mary-Kate said. “To
bring
you
back.” From the emphasis that her half-sister had
placed on ‘you’, Lexi could tell that she was talking about her
specifically and not Dan. “And no, no one else knows I’m here. I
was going to follow you right away, but my plans got interrupted. I
had to track them down in Long Island before I could come after
you.”

Lexi swam closer to Mary-Kate, the water
swirling around her. “Well, I’m so glad that you came! I’m so happy
to see you.” Although she was a little disappointed that Mary-Kate
had just interrupted her first kiss with Dan, Lexi really was
excited to see her sister. Maybe she just wasn’t meant to kiss Dan
right now, anyway. They should probably wait to see if they still
wanted to kiss each other when they got back to the real world, and
they weren’t involved in what felt almost like a fairytale.

Mary-Kate laughed again. Lexi wasn’t sure,
but it looked like her sister was also rolling her eyes at her. It
was almost as though Lexi had done or said something to annoy
her.

“Is everything okay?” Lexi asked. “You seem .
. . different.”

“Am I okay? Am I okay?“ Mary-Kate scoffed
before laughing again. “How can I seem
different
when you
really don’t know me at all?” It didn’t seem like Mary-Kate was
waiting for an answer – which was good because Lexi didn’t know how
to respond to her. Mary-Kate continued. “At first, I have to admit,
I was jealous of you, Lexi.”

“Jealous? Why would you be jealous of
me
?” Lexi asked with wide eyes. She and her sister were
polar opposites. She couldn’t even begin to imagine why Mary-Kate
might be jealous of. Mary-Kate was the mayor’s daughter. She was
one of the most popular girls in town. She had plenty of friends,
lots of attention from guys, and she probably hadn’t worked a day
in her life, yet she owned a whole wardrobe of designer clothes and
handbags. Lexi was pretty sure that she didn’t have anything that
her sister could be even remotely envious of.

“Because you have
everything
that I
have ever needed,” Mary-Kate said, her voice cracking. “When we
were little, you had our father. Maybe not for long, but at least
you had him at all. You got to know what he was like. He
disappeared when I was just a baby so he could be with your mom and
you.”

“Well, I don’t have him either now,” Lexi
stammered. “I haven’t seen him since I was a child.” She tried to
imagine how Mary-Kate must feel. If the roles were reverse and
their dad had left her and her mom so that he could with Mary-Kate
and Mrs. Lawrence, would she hold it against her sister?

“He’s out there right now trying to protect
you right now, though!” Mary-Kate shot back at her. “Do you know
what he did for me when the town wanted my blood? Not a damn
thing!”

Lexi felt the water moving behind her. She
glanced over her shoulder to find that Dan was standing behind her
protectively. He must have noticed that Mary-Kate seemed really
angry, too.

“Our father – if you can even
call
him
a father – just allowed the people from the town to drink from me.
Do you know how disgusting it was for some of those old men to
drink my blood? It took me
months
to get my dad to agree to
use vials to collect my blood instead of letting them suck from my
neck. He was worried that allowing my blood to hit the air would
make it less powerful.” Mary-Kate scoffed. “He didn’t even consider
how it was affecting me emotionally. And I tried to get in touch
with Ben, hoping that he would find a way to rescue me. Do you know
what our ‘daddy’ did to help me?” She asked, making air quotes with
her fingers, as she sarcastically rolled her eyes. “Nothing! He
said it was out of his hands because I wasn’t his daughter because
Greg adopted me.”

“I’m sorry,” Lexi whispered, unsure of what
else she could say. It almost felt like Mary-Kate was blaming her
for what their father had done, which really wasn’t fair. It’s not
like Lexi had kept in touch with him all of these years – and even
if she had, she wouldn’t have been able to do anything to sway his
decision to help Mary-Kate.

“Meanwhile, you were off living with a
healthy
mom in New Jersey, while I had to suffer living in
Briar Creek,” Mary-Kate went on, her voice full of hatred. “Why is
it that you were the one who was able to get out and not me?”

Lexi didn’t say anything. She just looked
down at her hands and ran them through the water. “I don’t know. It
just happened that way, I guess. It’s not like it’s my fault.”

“No, maybe it’s not your fault. But you know
what
is
your fault?” Mary-Kate asked.

Lexi looked up at her, meeting her eyes,
which had an icy glare to them that definitely wasn’t to block out
the sun. “What?”

“You have the potential to save hundreds of
people. You could be their hero, and you’re choosing not to.”
Mary-Kate shook her head, and Lexi got a look at her sister for the
first time. Her chestnut brown hair, which was normally as straight
as a pin, was disheveled. Her eyes were sunken in, and they were
red and puffy like she’d been crying. “That is why I’m jealous of
you. You’re so fortunate, and you don’t even realize it. Your blood
is still powerful enough to save people!”