Tremble

1-2

“I JUST SEATED AN OLD friend of yours,” Susan murmured an hour later.

I raised my eyebrow. “Really?”

She nodded toward my section.

I looked over and immediately felt a weight on my chest.

Duncan.

We hadn’t spoken in over three months; his choice, not mine. He’d been pissed about me leaving with Ethan, which I understood. But, to make matters worse, I’d woken up in the hospital calling out for Ethan, when it had been Duncan who’d stayed by my side. That had been the final straw for him. He left and refused to talk to me. I’d even tried calling and apologizing, but too much damage had been done. I couldn’t exactly blame him, either. Not only had I let Ethan kiss me goodbye, but I’d allowed him to drink my blood. He only knew about the latter, but that was bad enough.

I’d hurt him badly.

I wanted to believe that it wasn’t totally my fault. That it was Ethan’s power of persuasion. But, even now I sometimes found myself daydreaming about being in his arms again. I definitely missed the guy. The crazy thing was that we were basically strangers. I hardly knew anything about him, other than he was a vampire and had once loved a girl named Miranda. I also knew that he’d almost killed me the night he fled to New York.

“He’d have drained you dry if we wouldn’t have arrived when we did,” Caleb had said afterward. “Ethan always was a selfish son-of-a-b***h. He may have fancied you, but that wouldn’t stop him from taking your life to salvage his own.”

I didn’t want to believe that Ethan would have gone that far. But, there was no denying that I’d passed out and he hadn’t shown any sign of stopping. Caleb’s bullet just might have saved my life.

After leaving the hospital, Caleb and I had a long talk. He’d agreed to protect my family from other vampires and I’d agreed to not give him away. Unfortunately, he’d also wiped out Mom’s and Nathan’s memory of that night. Neither knew there were vampires in Shore Lake. Or that I’d even been in the hospital. Somehow, Caleb was able make that disappear as well. I was basically the only person in town aware of what was really going on in town. It was frustrating, scary, and stressful.

Taking a deep breath, I headed over to Duncan’s table. He was with his father and didn’t look very happy to see me. I forced a smile to my face. “Hi.”

Sonny smiled up at me. “Well, hello, Nikki.”

Duncan had his face buried in the menu. He wouldn’t even look at me. He responded with a curt “hi” back.

It hurt like hell and I realized right then and there that I still had feelings for him. I would have done almost anything to, at the very least, regain his friendship.

I cleared my throat. “Can I start you off with something to drink?”

“Coffee for me.” Sonny looked at his son. “What about you, Dunc?”

“Just water,” he said, still trying to avoid my eyes.

“Okay,” I replied.

“Your brother is doing a fine job at the marina,” Sonny said, rapping his knuckles on the table. “Yep, a fine job. He’s a hard worker.”

I nodded. “Yeah, he must be doing something because he’s completely wiped out when he gets home.”

Sonny smiled. “We keep him hopping. But he seems to like it even so.”

I smiled. “He says he loves it.”

Sonny grinned back. “Good. Glad to hear that. So, how’s your Mom doing? I heard she was having some problems with her eyes?”

Duncan glanced at me when I answered. “Yeah. She’s been to a couple of specialists, but they don’t really know what it is.”

Secretly I knew, though. Caleb was slowly turning her into a vampire. I’m not sure exactly when the final change was going to happen and he still claimed that he was only doing it to save her from cancer. It still pissed me off that she hadn’t been given a choice about becoming a vampire. When I’d tried warning her about what Caleb was doing, she only rolled her eyes and scoffed. She still believed that I was watching too many late night movies and they were going to my head.

“Well, hopefully it will clear up. Just tell her I said hello and that the offer still stands to get her out on my boat.”

“I will,” I replied.

I left to give them time to look over the menus. After refilling coffees and checking on the status of my other orders, I went back to their table and realized that Duncan was missing. Sonny explained that he had some errands to run and had realized he didn’t have time to eat.

Right. He just didn’t have time for me. “That’s too bad.”

Sonny let out a sigh. “Ever since he started hanging out with Caleb’s daughter, he’s been up late and moving slow during the day. It’s so frustrating. I just don’t know what’s gotten into that boy.”

My throat went dry. “He’s been hanging out with Celeste?”

Sonny took a sip of coffee. “Yeah. Says they’re just friends, but the way she looks at him, he’s got to be blind if he doesn’t see it.”

I felt a pang of jealousy mixed with fear. I highly doubted her intentions were good. “How long have they been hanging out?”

“Oh, about a month now. Pretty girl she is, but a little on the wild side.”

Wild side? He had no idea.

I only nodded.

“Anyway, I suppose I’d better order. I’ll have The Special,” he said, looking into his menu, “with my eggs over easy, please.”

I wrote it down. “Sounds good, Sonny.”

He looked at me. “You know, I’m surprised I haven’t seen you around the marina lately.”

I shrugged. “I know. Now that school’s started and I’ve been working here at the diner, I haven’t had time to do much of anything else.”

“Well, pity. I think Duncan was beginning to really like you.”

His words made my heart heavy again. I stared out the window, noticing in dismay that Duncan was standing in the parking lot talking to Celeste. She was sitting in her truck, wearing thick, dark sunglasses and a pouty expression. She must have sensed I was watching, because she turned toward me and smiled.

Bitch.

As frightening as she was, I wanted to smack that grin right off of her face.

“Nikki?”

I looked at Sonny. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

He chuckled. “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“Nikki, one of your orders is up,” Rosie said, passing by the table. “Hey, Sonny.”

“Hi, Rosie.”

I left Sonny’s table and finished up my shift, thinking about Duncan and Celeste.

What in the hell did she really want with him?

Whatever it was, it made me nervous. She was dangerous and he had to get away from her. Screw Caleb’s warnings about keeping quiet. Duncan was in danger. I decided it was about time to hash everything out with him, whether he liked it or not.