“In what way?” His eyes roamed my face.
“She was here when I got home, we cooked dinner together and then we actually ate together.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
In a perfect world, Bo would never have had to know that my mother has a serious drinking problem, but since we don’t live in a perfect world, I knew I’d have to tell him eventually. I had just hoped I would be able to pick and choose the time a little better.
“My mom’s an alcoholic. She’s rarely ever here before 10:00 and, even then, she’s always wasted. I can’t remember the last time we ate dinner together when Dad was gone.”
“Is it possible that she’s just trying to straighten up, turn her life around?” Bo asked the question gently, stooping a little to look into my downcast eyes.
“It’s not that, Bo. Trust me, she’s acting really, really strange. And,” I paused, swallowing the emotion that bubbled up in my throat. “I saw blood on her blouse. She had no idea where it came from and couldn’t have cared less. That’s not like her either.”
Bo’s brows drew together in another frown. “Where was the blood?”
“It was just one drop, right at her wrist.”
“Did you see any marks? Bite marks, holes, scratches, a rash?”
“No, but the sleeves were long. I couldn’t really see her wrist at all.”
“What did she say Lars wanted?”
“She couldn’t really tell me specifics. It’s like she only remembered him, not what they talked about. She didn’t even know why she came home in the first place.”
Bo exhaled, the air hissing through his teeth in a way that made me apprehensive. He stepped back, rubbing the nape of his neck.
“What? What are you thinking?”
He hesitated briefly before he spoke. I wondered if he was considering not telling me.
“I haven’t been this way for very long. What little I know, I’ve learned either from draining other vampires or from Lucius, but it sounds like he might be trying to establish a bond.”
I wanted to ask about Lucius, who he was, but other questions were more pressing.
“A bond? What’s that?”
“When a vampire feeds on a human, if he lets that human drink from him, apparently it bonds them together in such a way that he has some amount of mind control.”
I smothered my gasp with my hand.
“Do you think that’s what Lars did to my mother?”
“It’s possible,” he admitted, his unsettled expression anything but encouraging.
“So what does that mean? What now? What happens to Mom?”
Bo shrugged, a gesture he used frequently, but one that irritated me this time for some reason.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“What he wants with her.”
“What could he possibly want with my mother?”
Bo paused, casting an inscrutable look in my direction.
“There’s only one thing that I can think of.”
“What’s that?”
“You.”
The blood drained from my head so quickly, I had to sit back down in the desk chair before I fell down.
“But what could he possibly want with me?” That just didn’t sound right. I didn’t know him, I posed no threat to him, I—
I stopped when I realized why he might want to get to me.
“Unless he wants to use me to get to something else, someone else.” Bo said nothing to this, confirming my suspicion. “He wants me to get to you.”
Bo’s expression was full of guilt and regret. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he confessed. He rubbed a weary hand over his face. “I should’ve stayed away.” Obviously frustrated, he turned away from me.
I stood and crossed to him. I touched his shoulder, letting my hand rest there until he turned back to face me.
“No, you shouldn’t have. Avoidance is never the answer. Yes, life is all about pain and trouble and frustration and anger, but it’s also about love and friendship and good days and sunshine. You can’t have one without the other. If you avoid pain, you avoid living. My family has walked that road for years and, trust me, it’s no way to exist.”
He looked miserable. “You’ve had enough pain in your life without me adding to it.”
It was my turn to shrug. What he said was true, to a certain extent. “But you’ve also brought me more happiness than I’ve seen in a long time.” More like ever, though he didn’t need to know that. But then, as I looked into his face, I realized that maybe he did. “Actually,” I said, casting my eyes down, shy and a little embarrassed all of a sudden. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been. And it’s because of you, Bo.”
I was afraid to meet his gaze, heat staining my cheeks after having poured my heart out. He drew me into his arms and I went willingly, glad to bury my burning face in his shoulder.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t think I could’ve stayed away from you for even one more day anyway,” he admitted quietly.
One more day?
“What do you mean?”
I felt him stiffen at my question, so I pulled back to look up into his face, to gauge his odd reaction.
I repeated, “What do you mean?”
Bo just watched me, searching my face for something. I waited for him to explain, but he didn’t. A sinking, breathless feeling began to gnaw at my insides.
One image flashed through my mind over and over again, like an eerie strobe. It was the sight of Bo’s compelling eyes hovering outside the windshield of a car. Only it wasn’t Drew’s windshield that I was remembering; it was Izzy’s.
Air slowly filled my lungs in a long gasp of comprehension. I held it there until it burned inside my chest like a raging inferno.
“You were there,” I whispered. “Three years ago, you were there.”
CHAPTER NINE
Several emotions flickered across Bo’s face, but neither confusion nor denial ranked among them.
“Bo?”
He sighed, and it was a weary sound that carried a heavy weight. “Even though it was so long ago, it seems like it happened only yesterday.”