Passions Read online

  “Yes! All the time. I remember him screaming at your grandmother that he had underwear and trousers that had gone missing, but they weren’t in the wash. It was little stuff like that. But your aunt took those stories and blew them way out of proportion. She started saying that the house was haunted.”

  Her mother paused, but Chloe knew there was more to this. She was so close to finding the answers she needed. “But we didn’t stop visiting just because she thought the house was haunted, right?”

  “No. We didn’t stop visiting because of that. We stopped after one trip around Thanksgiving time. Your aunt pulled me aside and said she’d met the ghost that stole all those things when we were growing up.”

  Chloe’s blood ran cold. “Met him?”

  “Yes. I remember she said his name was Gavin. She went on for hours about him and all the things they talked about. I admit that I was a little freaked out about it. Your aunt was always the rational one. After that trip, I talked to your father, and we decided that it was best to not let you be around her for a while until she got out of this ghost phase. We didn’t want her to fill your head with stories and things that weren’t true. You were so impressionable at that age.”

  Chloe let this new information settle for a moment. Her aunt had met Gavin. So far, the story was checking out—from what she found in the attic to what her aunt had told Rosie and what her mother was confessing now. There was no mistaking that he was real.

  “Did she ever say what Gavin looked like?” Chloe asked, trying to keep her voice steady. If she could fool her mother into thinking that everything was alright, she would get all the answers she wanted without the unnecessary worry.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Tall, dark, and handsome, I suppose. The way she talked about him over the phone sometimes, I thought maybe he was actually her boyfriend or something. I knew Mary Anne had lost it when she changed her story all of a sudden and said that Gavin was a vampire and not a ghost.”

  Chloe dropped the cell phone and let it tumble onto the mattress. Through the stunned daze, she heard her mother call out to her over the line.

  She blinked away the shock and picked up the phone again. “Sorry, I uh… She said a vampire?” Chloe asked with heightened incredulity as she sat up on the bed.

  “Yeah, a vampire. She even told me how she caught him drinking the blood of a squirrel one time out on the back deck.”

  Chloe suddenly felt dizzy and pressed her free hand against her forehead to keep the world from spinning. With this new piece of information, nothing was simple anymore.

  Rosie never confirmed that it was a ghost that Mary Anne met. And Chloe really had no solid proof besides the idea that the place felt haunted. She had no doubt that Mary Anne was in her right mind the entire time while she told these stories to her mother and Rosie.

  So, she must have been telling the truth when she said that Gavin was a vampire. Unbidden, the distorted image of Gavin’s pale face and fierce green eyes came to mind. In her imagination, she could easily see his lips and chin coated in dark blood. Yes, it wasn’t hard to picture Gavin as a vampire as opposed to a ghost. It explained why she never saw him during the day and how he felt as real as any solid human being rather than a misty ghost.

  But there was that warmth about him. Weren’t vampires supposed to be cold? And how did he become a vampire? Was he the same Gavin who the land deed was issued to? Could vampires live forever like that too? Was he even dead?

  Once again, Chloe knew nothing beyond what pop culture taught her in passing about monsters and folklore.

  “You still there, baby?” she heard her mother ask, though her mind was miles away.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just didn’t know any of that stuff. Did she check herself into that place down in Savannah?” she asked after swallowing a few times to compose herself.

  “Yeah, she did. But she would never tell me why. I did notice that she stopped talking about Gavin a few weeks before she left Carter Lake. So, I think she was beginning to get a hold on reality for a while towards the end.”

  “Did you ever meet Gavin?”

  Her mother laughed. “Of course not. He didn’t exist, Chloe. Yes, we did go to visit her a few times when you were a teenager, but we never met him, and Mary Anne never offered to introduce us.”

  Chloe could tell her mother was finding this all a little hilarious. If only she knew the truth—that Gavin certainly was real. She had a fantastic memory of the night before and a small stack of letters to prove it.

  “What’s this all about, honey?” her mother questioned after a long pensive pause over the line. “Nothing. Just all the memories here made me wonder about it. That’s all.” Chloe took a deep breath and finished with, “I should have visited her.”

  “We all should have, dear. But that’s just the way things are.”

  That was her mother’s favorite saying. She said it whenever she knew that she couldn’t change things or go back to the way things were. She said it when Chloe broke the priceless vase her father brought back from Europe one summer. She said it when Chloe lost her best friend to a silly argument in junior high. She said it when everything in Atlanta came crumbling down. And she said it now talking about all the things they should have done for her late aunt.

  Chloe wanted to just forget and move on with her life the way her mother had. Her grandmother always told her to let horrible things be like water off a duck’s back. But Chloe had a hard time letting go. She couldn’t just forget this place, Gavin, or her aunt.

  Moving to the mountains to escape Brent and all the mistakes that followed was futile when Chloe could never truly forget. And she wouldn’t let herself off the hook when it came to her aunt.

  “Did I tell you that I started my first book?” Chloe asked, changing the subject more for herself than for her mother.

  “No! You didn’t!” she exclaimed and Chloe didn’t have to see her face to know that she was smiling with pride.

  Chloe then began to tell her all about the novel she was working on. She wanted there to be someone besides Gavin who knew about the book. Her mother sounded interested, but it was a passive interest. Romances were not her favorite genre, and Chloe knew it. But while her mother served as a captive audience, she figured there was no harm in boring her.

  Once that conversation was over, her mother took her turn in telling mind-numbing stories to Chloe about their many adventures out in the Midwest. She was glad her parents were finally getting out and doing the exciting things that they always talked about doing, but Chloe liked the idea of being settled and stable in one place too much to up and travel across the country. Maybe a few vacations to Disney World here and there, but nothing like driving for days on end to see the Grand Canyon and all that came before it on the road.

  The chatter did help for one thing. It distracted Chloe, just for a little while, from the heart-stopping anxiety about Gavin and the cabin. She’d rather think about her imminent death in the years to come than about the fact that a vampire had offered to help write her book.

  Chapter 8

  Chloe lay awake in her bed, moonlight filtering through the lace curtains of her bedroom. She was listening so intently, she thought she could hear her own heartbeat in between breaths.

  After getting off the phone with her mother, she devoted the entire day to two things: one, learning all she could about vampires according to what her slow internet connection could provide, and two, writing a short story for Gavin.

  It was a little something to entice him to open her laptop and keep him there. Chloe had shut her computer down just before going to bed, something she hadn’t done before. She made sure to turn the volume on high so that when Gavin turned the computer on to check for any new stories, it would chime and alert her all the way upstairs.

  It was a cunning trap as she thought it. Not only would his arrival be heralded throughout the cabin, but he would be forced to stick around and read what she’d written in the hopes that he hadn’t woken her up.
If she knew anything about Gavin at this point, it was that he was eager to read something new from her. That might give her enough time to slip out of bed and catch him in the living room.

  But, as she lay in bed, her mind raced with all she had learned. Vampires, as everyone knew, drank blood and needed it to survive. Gavin, if he really was a vampire, would be no different. It gave her chills to think that she had been so close to death itself, and yet he never bit her. How many nights had she been in a vulnerable position, and not once had he given in to his primal need for blood; not only with her, but with the other tenants of the cabin over the last few years who came and went.

  Then, there was the idea that her entire family line had lived in this cabin, yet no one had been drained dry by the vampire—not to her knowledge anyway. But her aunt had told her mother that Gavin was caught red handed—quite literally—feeding on a squirrel. Was Gavin the vegan version of a vampire, or did he have an acquired taste for the type of humans he preferred? If he really wanted to, he could ensure that no one else lived in that cabin except for himself. But he didn’t.

  The mystery of his origins still remained. He was from England and had been given a land grant to settle in Georgia before the Revolutionary War, but was he a vampire in England? Did he turn when he came to America? How did he turn? The internet gave her many different ways that a human could become a vampire, but which ones were true?

  Chloe was left with more questions than ever before.

  Her naturally curious and over-active imagination ran wild with images of how he looked when he fed. Not only did she research on blogs and web pages, but she watched how Hollywood depicted vampires. She saw everything from sparkly hotties to skinny, bat-like men dressed in suits. Some were portrayed as vicious beasts, and others were hopeless victims of an eternal curse. What was true?

  She was determined to find out tonight.

  Her whole body convulsed when she heard her laptop turn on. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, thudding against her chest. Gavin was in the house. He was sitting at her computer.

  She could hardly move and barely breathe from the mix of terror and excitement building up in her core. Though every muscle in her body protested against it, she swung her legs, slowly but silently, over the edge of the bed and lowered herself to the floor.

  The floorboards creaked against her weight, and she winced, hoping he hadn’t heard her. One wrong move and he could vanish.

  She read how vampires could dematerialize into smoke, which could have been why her locks had proved useless. Then again, a vampire was supposed to be invited into a home. But this was technically his own home almost three hundred years ago, so did that apply in the same way?

  Chloe waited for a moment and then took another step towards the door. The rest of the way towards the stairs went much of the same way. Step, wait. Step, wait—until she reached the top of the stairs.

  The living room light wasn’t on, but she could see the blue glow from the computer screen reflecting on the smooth stones of the fireplace. Chloe listened and thought she could hear the faint stroking of fingers on the mouse pad on her laptop as Gavin scrolled through the document.

  What she wrote wasn’t more than a few pages, so she didn’t have much time.

  Chloe took a deep, muted breath and began to descend the stairs. For once, she was glad that the third step from the top didn’t groan with the slightest weight. Who knew that the improvements the real estate company had made would turn out to her benefit?

  She made it halfway to the bottom, right to the point where the wall would no longer conceal her from the place where her desk sat in the living room. After taking another pause to make sure he was still there, she bounded down the last few steps and flicked on the lights.

  Sitting at the desk, slightly hunched over in order to read the laptop screen, sat the same man who had come to her aid in the woods the night before. But now, in more ample lighting, she was able to paint a full picture of him in her mind, filling in the gaps that the darkness and disorientation had created for her.

  He seemed to be wearing the same outfit as the night before, the trench coat draping down around the seat of the chair to graze the floor. But in this light, she found that he wasn’t all cloaked in black as she had previously thought. His slacks were indeed black, but his button up shirt was a rich navy blue.

  Not only his clothes were different than she remembered but his hair as well. Despite the moonlight, his hair that had appeared black was actually just a very dark brown. It was like seeing a black and white photograph in full, high definition color for the first time. But even in the yellowish, fluorescent light, his skin was a pale, milky white and his eyes a blazing green.

  She froze at the bottom of the stairs, gazing at the eyes that were not focused on her yet, but soon would be. For one silly moment, Chloe thought she’d burst into flames under such a stare from him. Could she handle the intensity? Night had diluted its effects before, but now she could see him more clearly.

  After a few agonizing seconds, Gavin turned his head and looked at her. His expression was carefully blank, but a world of feeling was hidden beneath that she could see very plainly. She felt if she could just reach out and touch his pale cheek, his defenses may shatter. But did she dare to get that close?

  Chloe stared, lips parted and eyes wide with a mix of fear and wonder at the creature before her. Still moments passed, and he patiently waited for her to speak first. She hadn’t prepared for this meeting. Yes, she made sure that it would happen, but she never really thought it would work. Gavin was cautious, that much she could tell. She half expected that we would have vanished into mist by now if such a thing were possible. Was he still able to do that, or did he stick around for her? Did he want to see her for a second time as much as she wanted to see him?

  Before she could stop herself, the words tumbled out. “Here I come down to get a snack, and I may end up being the snack.” Her voice was breathy and light as if she had little voice at all.

  When she finished speaking, she realized how much of an insult that must seem to him. It was unintentional.

  Gavin, in one graceful movement, stood from the chair. He was much taller than she remembered, towering at least a whole foot above her meager five-and-a-half-foot stature. He was intimidating. Predators had to be, she supposed.

  But her knees went weak when he gave her a smile. It was a good-natured smile, with one side tilting up more than the other to show one of his long, sharp incisors. Her stomach lurched at the sight of it.

  “If I wanted you as a snack, you would have been gone a long time ago.”

  Chloe’s heart seized at the accent she had almost forgotten. She wanted to hear more words flow from his perfectly formed mouth, but she hardly knew what to say. All the questions she had fled her in this moment while his eyes stared so fixedly into hers.

  They were still a good eight feet from each other, well out of arms reach. But if all of the facts on the internet proved true, distance was no match for him. He could close that gap in less time than it took her to blink. And still he stood firm, not making any movements at all. Not even breathing.

  “You needn’t have any fear,” he said, a little softer than before. “I will not harm you.”

  Surely he could hear her pounding heart, her quickened breaths as they seeped out between her lips. Could he smell her fear? Could he sense her every emotion? Or even read her mind?

  “Do you know that I know what you are?” she asked, tilting her chin down a bit in an effort to make her neck less appealing if it was at all.

  “I do,” he said with an affirmative nod.

  “And now you’re not hiding?”

  Chloe remembered all the near misses she had with him like that time she’d tried to stay up all night to catch him. Thinking about it now, she wondered if he had used some sort of mesmerizing trick to make her fall asleep so they would never meet. Is that what happened last night, too?

  Gavin shrugged. “I
see no need to.”

  She marveled at how such a human gesture seemed so incongruent with the fact that he was a creature of the night, a thing of myths and lore. And yet, he shrugged just like she would.

  “Then why didn’t you just tell me from the beginning? You had your chances.” Chloe heard her voice rise with an indignant fervor. It was the one question that had truly weighed on her mind all day.

  She appreciated honesty and abhorred cowardice. At least, she did now. In any other circumstance, and with a human who was hopelessly flawed, she would have been even angrier. But Gavin only annoyed her with his secrets and mystery. She wouldn’t have talked this way with a stranger, but she felt like she knew too much about Gavin to be coldly polite in that way.

  He blinked and opened his mouth as if to answer, but he donned a thoughtful look as if he were sensibly choosing his words. “I thought it would be easier to continue our correspondence if you remained unaware of who I was.”

  Chloe, feeling slightly more comfortable in the flow of conversation, snorted an impertinent laugh. “You kind of blew that out of the water last night. I would have rather you had been honest. Do you realize how freaked out I was the whole time? I thought you were a burglar when you left that first note.” Without her conscious effort, she began to gesture around the room as if to make her point. “Then, I was pretty content with the idea that you were a ghost. Imagine my surprise when I had to hear from someone else that you’re a vampire. I’m still pretty freaked out all around by this.”

  Chloe gripped her arms and shielded her chest as if such a move could block out the madness that she had unwittingly walked into. It felt good to finally voice how she’d been feeling over the last few days. She couldn’t confide in anyone. But as soon as she was done with her rant, she wanted to take every single word back.

  He looked at her, so pained and distraught by her admission. She had unintentionally struck a raw nerve and that judiciously formed defense he had been sporting since God only knew how long, had been shattered. Chloe wanted to throw herself off the nearest cliff without a parachute. The last thing she had ever wanted to do was hurt him with her words. She knew how it felt to be on the receiving end.