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With a shake of his head, he left his lair and went up the private stairway to his aparted into a clean shirt and a pair of pants If he didn’t hurry, he would be late

He was doing a quick walk-through of the casino floor, on his way out, when he had the sudden sense that he was being watched Pausing near the dice table, Zack pretended to be interested in the garew louder, colors brighter, slanced casually around the casino, his gaze resting quickly on each patron It was still early The croas light He had no sense of another vampire on the premises, no scent of olf, and yet he would have sworn there was another supernatural creature in the building, although there was no trace of it now Had he ih, stopped to talk with a few of the pit bosses, conferred briefly with the head of security, and left the casino, bound for Kaitlyn’s

She opened the door before he knocked, a smile of welcome on her face Dressed in a pair of white slacks and a lavender sweater, her cheeks flushed with color, she was even prettier than he reht?"

"Take a walk?" he suggested "Go for a drive? See a ht for a walk," Kaitlyn said

"Then that’s e’ll do"

Kaitlyn felt the same peculiar sensation she had on other occasions when he took her hand in his Not a chill, exactly, more like a warm shiver of awareness that she felt all the way down to her toes

She pondered her strange reaction to him as they walked down the narrow, tree-lined path toward the lake Maybe what she felt for Zack wasn’t all that extraordinary He was an extre that she was physically attracted to hiht seemed to close in around the two of theleaht of the full e of the water where soh for two He waited until Kaitlyn sat down and then sat beside her, one ar the fecund scent of earth and foliage, rustled the leaves of the trees A fish popped up in theripples across the face of the water

"It’s lovely here," Kaitlyn said "Do you ever co?"

She nodded "My father taught et howwith her dad Of course, they’d had to go at night, but she had never been afraid, not when he was there Before she was old enough to swim, he had let her sit on his chest while he floated in the water Theto his back while he siftly, effortlessly, froain

"What else do you like to do?" Zack asked

"Oh, lots of things I enjoy going tocrossword puzzles I don’t like to cook, but I love to bake" She smiled at him "I make a really wicked strawberry pie," she said "I’ll have to bake you one"

Zack nodded "Anything else?"

"I love to read"

"Me, too" He had spent ood book "What do you like to read?"

"You’ll laugh"

"Why would I laugh?"

"Because I like to read old fairy tales"

He didn’t laugh, but he couldn’t hold back a grin "YouBeauty?"

"Yes, but my favorite is Beauty and the Beast It’s such a wonderful story, the way Belle learns to love the Beast in spite of his gruff attitude and fearsouess you’re really into those happily-ever-after endings"

"What’s wrong with that?"

"Nothing" He glanced out over the water, wondering if he would ever have a happy ending of his own "I guess everybody wants one"

"So, what do you like to read?"

"Murder mysteries Arthur Conan Doyle Dashiell Hauts, huh?" she asked with a grin "Death on every page"

He had to laugh at that She had no idea

"What’s so funny?" she asked, frowning

"I was just thinking how far apart our tastes are in books" And in food and drink and sleeping habits, he added silently

"So, Mr Macho Man, what do you like to do?"