Sam I Am (5 page)

“Very well. Have a nice weekend, Katelyn. Stay safe.”

Logan shoved the last batch of pumpkin and ghost-shaped cookies into the oven and closed the door. She straightened and pulled off the mitts, plopping them down on the flour-covered counter.

It was so, so nice not having Randy Hodges around to give her a hard time as she worked. Mrs. Witherspoon had put her in charge until further notice; in other words, until Randy decided to stop being AWOL and take responsibility of the store again.

Personally, Logan hoped he never showed up. It was ungracious, she knew. But a big, albeit secret part of her actually hoped the bastard was dead.

Because until he returned, Mrs. Witherspoon had made Logan manager. And managers got paid. She was now not only in charge and out from under Randy’s leering lewdness, she was earning seven dollars an hour to bake whatever she wanted, decorate however she wanted, and stay open as late as she wanted.

Randy was missing and Logan was getting paid now. But Meagan was in a coma.

Logan’s brother was kind and giving and loving – when his sickness wasn’t killing them all. Their mother got happy when she had a glass or two of wine. And then she became closed off and withdrawn.

Everything up had a down, it seemed. Logan wondered whether she would ever experience a day when only
good
things happened, and they weren’t inextricably balanced out with the bad.

“Time to close up,” she told herself as she dusted off her hands and returned to the front of the store. Another few minutes and the cookies for tomorrow’s birthday party would be done. Another few after that, and she could ice and decorate them. Then she would leave them out to cool as she made her way to St. Mary’s.

Logan turned the sign at the front of the store and locked the door. Then she brought down the blinds and shut off the front room lights.

The scents of the day’s cooking filled the shop, making her feel warm. It was peaceful here, and it smelled like cinnamon and butter and sour dough bread and chocolate cake. There were no slamming doors and no holes in the walls.

Logan sighed and moved to one of the tables. She pulled out a chair and sat down, laying her head on her folded arms. Then she closed her eyes and waited for the oven to beep.

A loud knocking on the glass store front caused her to sit bolt upright, her heart pounding in her chest. For a moment, she thought she’d fallen asleep, she was so shocked. But there was no beeping from the kitchen. And there was no smoke in the air.

Logan wondered whether she’d imagined the foreign sound. But a second round of knocking negated that thought.

Logan stood and made her way to the windows, taking one of the wooden chairs with her. She knew a trick to peeking out windows so that anyone on the other side couldn’t see her. She set the chair beside the window, stood on it, and then peeked out from in between the two top blinds. No one ever looked up that high.

There was a man outside the shop. He was tall and thin and wore a suit. Logan recognized him at once. It was Mr. Lehrer from school.

“Crap,” she whispered. She’d skipped his class today. Fear instantly uncoiled inside of her and her stomach began to ache.

Calm down
, she scolded herself as she stepped down off of the chair and shoved it back toward the table she’d taken it from.
You have a reason for missing class. It’s legitimate. He’s cool and he’ll understand.

History was her favorite class and surely her high grade had to count for something.

Logan unlocked the door and opened it. “Mr. Lehrer?” she addressed him. He nodded and smiled; he seemed nervous.

“Logan, I’m sorry. I know you’re very busy; I heard about the store’s manager going missing and I know you have a lot to do. But I wanted to talk to you about Meagan Stone.”

Logan blinked. Then she blinked again. Somewhere along the way, common sense kicked in, and she opened the door, inviting him in. He accepted and entered the shop. Logan closed the door behind him.

He turned and pulled a small brown paper bag out of the inside pocket of his brown suit coat. “I heard about what happened with Meagan and that you’ll be stopping by St. Mary’s tonight to see her.”

Logan nodded.

“Will you give this to her for me?” He held out the small bag and Logan stared at it. She was having trouble processing everything all at once. In the back room, the cookies began beeping.

Logan quickly took the paper bag. “What is it?”

“It’s a medallion. It’s hers anyway, actually,” he smiled and shrugged. “She earned it a few weeks ago and we forgot to give it to her.”

“We?” Logan asked, her brow furrowed. Something was nudging the back of her mind – a memory, a puzzle piece. A clue as to what this was all about. But the cookies were about to burn and she couldn’t concentrate.

Mr. Lehrer studied her face, his gaze narrowing slightly in thought. “I’ll let you get those,” he said.

Logan nodded and immediately ran to the back room. She donned a mitt, pulled the cookies out, and spun the dial to the off position. Then she quickly tore off the mitt again and returned to the front room. Mr. Lehrer was gone.

Sam listened in on Katelyn’s thoughts as they rode down Little Walnut road toward the camping spot he’d seen earlier that day. It would be the ideal location to carry out his plan.

Thanks to the supernatural abilities Logan’s writing had given him, seducing Katelyn Shanks would be even easier than it should have been, given what he was. He was handsome and he was charismatic; that much had been very clearly written into all of Logan’s male characters. He was also a vampire, among other things. And along with his new form came the ability to read human minds.

He knew what Katelyn wanted before she even did. He smiled to himself as he pressed the bike into a higher gear and the girl behind him tightened the grip she had on the leather of his jacket. Right now, she couldn’t believe her luck. Sam Hain had asked her out. And on the first day that he’d been at school!
Imagine that,
he chuckled inwardly.

What are the odds?
She thought as he listened.
Do gods normally go slumming through high schools in the middle of nowhere?

And there was no doubt in Katelyn’s mind that Sam Hain was a god. To her, he had to be. He was
beyond
gorgeous. His smile broadened and he almost shook his head. Instead, he kept the bike steady and listened on. Katelyn found him impossibly beautiful; in fact, sometimes it hurt her to look into his eyes. She was certain that if she did, his penetrating gaze would notice that she wasn’t as hot as he was.

And you would hate that, wouldn’t you?
he thought to himself.

No Kate,
she told herself firmly. He could feel her grip on him tighten again, as if in response to her inner resolve.
I am hot. I’m worthy. And I’m going to screw this guy’s brains out before anyone else gets to him and ruins him
.

Sam’s grin widened as he pulled the bike off of the road and onto the dirt trail that led into the woods. A few seconds later, he was parking it.

“So… you seem to know an awful lot about how many people have kicked the bucket,” she ventured tentatively. She was trying to sound nonchalant even as Sam knew that her stomach painfully knotted itself into some kind of intestinal Celtic design.

Sam kicked the stand down on his motorcycle. He glanced at her over his broad shoulder and gave her a mysterious smile. “I guess you could say that,” he replied, unzipping his jacket and waiting for her to get off of the bike. She stayed put, instead taking the opportunity to slip her hands around his waist beneath the leather of his jacket.

At first, he stiffened beneath her touch. He hadn’t been expecting it and it was personal. Her fingers traced the hard muscles of his abdomen and his blood seemed to still in his veins. She wasn’t the one he wanted to touch him this way. It made him feel too much like the Death Lord he’d always been. It a made him feel icy. Cold.

But Katelyn Shanks expected a much different reaction. So, he put on his proverbial mask and kept his eye on the prize. He settled back into her embrace and gently grazed his fingertips over the backs of her hands. She shivered. His touch was both cold and strangely hot.

He could sense her frowning behind him, forcing herself to concentrate. “So, how do you know so much about war?”

He took a while to answer. As she waited for him to reply, he continued to trace circles on her hands. The attention was forcing her stomach to knot even more tightly, but it also served as a distraction. The circles he traced were not mere lazy touches; they were ancient Celtic symbols. He knew they were working when her head began to feel fuzzy, as if she were drunk.
Oh man
, she thought.
This is what it feels like when you really like a guy….

“War brings death,” he said, distracting her again. His tone was so soft, he knew she would have to concentrate to hear him. She closed her eyes as he went on. “And death is something I am quite familiar with.”

At that, he released her hands and stood. Katelyn reluctantly leaned back to allow him room to get off of the bike. He gracefully dismounted, his long, well-muscled legs flexing beneath the material of his jeans.

Damn, that’s so fine,
Katelyn thought. Again, Sam shamelessly listened.
Logan would go nuts over this guy. He’s right up her alley.

He suddenly looked her in the eye, devouring her own image of Logan as if it were sustenance and he needed its strength to go on. She watched him in a somewhat dazed silence as he gazed down at her and he saw in that moment what she saw as he stood over her. He was tall and formidable, an indomitable figure with the moon and clouds forming an eerie picture over his shoulder.

“But I don’t want you thinking about death tonight,” he told her as he offered her his hand. His smile was back when she didn’t hesitate in taking it. “Tonight is about the living,” he went on, helping her off of the bike. “Not the dead.”

She giggled at that, obviously affected by his magic. She was getting giddy. And then she frowned, apparently confused as to why she’d laughed. “Right,” she said, as if to cover up her foolishness. “The living.”

Sam knew he had her then. She was already lost; he could see it in her eyes, read it in her mind. She was nearly his for the taking. All he needed to do was drive a few things home and he would have her eating out of his hand.

“Are you up for a walk?” he asked her, using his gaze to wreak havoc on her senses. He watched her swallow, the movement of her throat drawing his attention to the pulse at the side of her neck. He reined in the sudden swell of hunger that rose within him. Her blood was the one part of her he would gladly take. But this was far more important than a mere midnight snack.

She nodded and let him pull her by the hand. He led her down the trail that cut through the dense woods and sensed the fleeting reservations that ran through her system like a shock wave. He eased it away, effortlessly leeching it from her body with yet another of his abilities.

“You’re quite lovely, Katelyn,” he told her then, speaking so softly and tenderly that his voice seemed to come directly from his heart. He felt her pulse quicken beneath his fingers, which rested so lightly over the vein in her wrist.

She cleared her throat. “Thank you,” she whispered. He felt her skin heat up and knew she was blushing.

“Of course… I mean, your friend Logan Wright is very beautiful, too. I can see why you chose her for a friend.”

She blinked beside him, her thoughts suddenly unsettled. “I… I didn’t know you’d met her,” she said.

“Oh, just in passing,” he said, shrugging as if it were nothing. He still did not look at her, his gaze trained on the path before them. “But she’s stunning really, isn’t she?” He cocked his head to one side, as if considering something. “It must be frustrating to walk into a room with her and know that everyone is looking at your friend and not at you.”

Her grip on his hand slackened a little, but he tightened his own, compensating. He stopped and turned to face her and the expression on her lovely face mirrored her inner turmoil. She was confused. Embarrassed. More than a touch angry.

“I’m sorry,” he pretended to be concerned, cupping her cheek in the palm of his hand. “Did I say something to offend you?”

She shook her head quickly. Too quickly.
Yes,
she thought. “No,” she said as she closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of him. “It’s okay.”

“Oh, good,” he continued. He was glad her eyes were closed, because he could feel his own gaze both heating up and growing colder. Becoming mean. “I wouldn’t want you to be jealous of her. I mean, I do plan on asking her out. She’s too good to pass up, isn’t she?”

Katelyn’s eyes flew open and Sam forced himself not to grin in triumph. She gazed up at him in bewildered, muddled emotion. He pressed on, drawing her closer so that he could whisper his next words across the small space between them. “You’ll always come second, Katelyn. With me, with them – with any man.” He let it sink in. Just for a moment. And then, “Unless….”

“U-unless?” she asked, so,
so
quietly.