His Vampyrrhic Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

he’s eighteen.’
    ‘Village girls don’t quibble over those kind of details.’
    ‘And you are?’
    ‘Nicola Bekk.’ She held out her free hand.
    Tom shook it. Her hand was small and delicate in his muscular paw. She seemed more like an artistic arrangement of deliciously light bones under that pale skin. Tom Westonby felt his earlier hostility melting away.
Yes, OK, she trespassed last night. She’s got an odd sense of humour. She’s outspoken. But she’s extremely good to look at.
    She possessed another quality too, which he couldn’t readily identify. Charisma? Self-confidence? No, more powerful than that. Almost a sense of being invincible. An aura of strength. Once, at school, a teacher had brought in a war hero to talk about his experiences. He’d survived being blown clean out of a building by an artillery shell. After that, a sniper shot him in the chest. The veteran had shrugged. ‘I’ve been blown up and I’ve been shot,’ he’d said. ‘If that didn’t kill me, then there must be a friendly saint taking care of me.’
    Nicola Bekk had that same air about her. As if she had an all-powerful protector.
    Even as they chatted she strode confidently into the garage.
    ‘I noticed the van,’ she said brightly, then read what was painted on its side out loud. ‘Markham & Westonby – Scuba School.’
    ‘I’m planning to drive that down to Greece later this year. Me and my business partner are starting a dive school.’
    ‘The “Scuba School” on the van suggested that’s the case.’
    He saw from her expression that she was gently teasing him. Now the ice had been broken he didn’t mind. In fact, he’d started to feel lonely up here all by himself at Mull-Rigg Hall. He wondered if there was a chance that he and Nicola might . . .
    ‘And all this equipment.’ She seemed impressed.
    He patted a shelf on which were stacked a dozen aqualung tanks. ‘We picked them up cheap at an auction. Most are in good condition.’ He pulled a cylinder from the shelf. ‘This one isn’t. See the scratches and the gouges?’
    ‘So, it’s no good?’
    ‘No good? It’s lethal. It’s a bomb waiting to go boom.’ He enjoyed her interest. ‘Just imagine, if you took all the air in a garage as big as this and squashed it down into a cylinder that’s not much bigger than a family-size carton of milk. The pressures are enormous.’
    ‘So that thing is likely to kill us?’
    ‘It’s empty. We’re perfectly safe.’ He put the cylinder back on the shelf. ‘Though this tank’s only fit for scrap metal.’
    ‘All that equipment must have been expensive?’
    ‘We’ve been saving for the last eighteen months.’ He shot her a look. ‘And you already know . . . somehow . . . that we need another seventeen thousand dollars.’
    ‘And by the end of the week.’
    That flicker of anger returned. ‘How do you know so much about my private finances?’
    ‘I happened to be walking along the path at the other side of your fence. You were in the orchard when you were talking on the phone.’
    ‘And you eavesdropped?’
    ‘I could hardly throw myself in the river to stop hearing, could I?’
    To his surprise he found himself laughing. ‘Point taken.’ That teasing way of hers suggested that she wanted to engage with him. This was playful sparring.
    So, do you want to play, Nicola?
    Nicola turned her attention to the straight-backed chairs that occupied three-quarters of the garage space. ‘I used to love your aunt’s garden parties.’
    ‘So you came, too?’
    ‘Only after the other villagers had gone.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Your aunt gave me and my mother big bowls full of strawberries and cream.’ She smiled as she remembered happy times. ‘When I was a little girl your aunt let me paddle in the pond.’
    ‘You were paddling last night.’
    ‘I just wanted to find out if walking barefoot in the water was as nice as I remembered.’
    ‘And was it?’
    She nodded. ‘Lovely. Like angels kissing your