Vacation with a Vampire & Other Immortals Read Online Free PDF Page B

this is the first time I’ve heard yours.”
    “Why are you lying to me?” she asked softly.
    He met her eyes again, holding her gaze steadily as if to show her how sincere he was being. How truthful. “You’ve been through a terrible ordeal. That’s just confusing you now. And it doesn’t matter, anyway, does it? The past rarely does, you know. You are here with me now, safe and sound, and I can get you back to your people just as quickly as you wish. So there’s not a thing in the world for you to worry about.”
    She nodded very gently, even while thinking that she had no “people” to go back to, and now no boat and no money.
    “You should lie back down. Your poor body is bruised and battered from end to end. You need rest, so you can heal.”
    She thought so, too, but didn’t obey. Not yet. “How badly am I hurt?”
    “Nothing is broken, pequita, and I don’t detect any internal injuries. I think it would be harder on you to make the journey to the mainland in your current state than it would be to just remain for a few days and let your body heal.”
    “The mainland?” She frowned and lifted her head again. “Where are we?”
    “We’re on my island. I call her Serenity, because that is what she has given me.”
    “Your island?”
    “Yes.”
    “And…you live here with…?”
    “With the animals. With the birds. With the ocean waves and the palms and the coconuts. And…with peace.”
    “There’s no one else?”
    “No. No one else.” He shrugged. “Until now. But I promise you, you are safe with me. I will not harm you. And I’ll take you back as soon as—”
    “Can I see it? I need to see it—please.”
    “The island?”
    “Yes. Please, Diego, I need to see it.”
    He hesitated, staring at her as if trying to see more than what she was saying, and she experienced the oddest sensation, as if he were probing her very soul. And then he seemed to make a decision. He bent closer, sliding his arms underneath her body and lifting her up.
    “Wait! You don’t have to carry me.”
    “You’re in no condition to walk on your own. And it’s not the first time, after all.” She barely had time to glimpse the other rooms in his home as he swept through them toward a large wooden door that seemed to be made from one single board and was completely covered with the images of animals and symbols, like she would have expected to see on some Native totem pole.
    He nodded at the handle, which was a wrought-iron ring. “If you would,” he said.
    She grasped it and pulled. And the door swung open, revealing…paradise. Stone paths wound in a dozen directions amid exotic flowering plants, the likes of which she had never seen. Orchids, maybe. Birds-of-paradise, perhaps. And others, huge blossoms and tall grasses, all emitting the most beautiful fragrances she’d ever smelled. There was a fire circle in the center of it all, made of stacked rocks, with a bare, sandy patch of ground surrounding it and a chair entirely carved from a tree trunk close beside. Beyond the flowers and paths and fire circle, palm trees stood tall and graceful, along with other trees she couldn’t have named. And beyond those she saw a very large roof. “What’s that?”
    “My workshop. I’m building a new sailboat.”
    A tiny animal—like a miniature deer—grazed nearby. Its head came up, soft eyes meeting hers, nostrils flaring slightly. But it didn’t run away. It looked at the man who held her, and he looked back. Anna watched his face, more caught up in his expression than the odd little animal. He looked at it the way an adoring father looks at his child. He loved it. He smiled at it, and she looked back at the tiny deer as it returned to grazing. Something moved in her peripheral vision, and she glimpsed a peacock strutting along one of the winding paths that led into the forest, its long tail dragging behind.
    She looked and looked and looked. And the more she looked, the more beauty she saw unfolding beneath