“Teagan, you sound as if you wanted a serial killer to find you attractive.”
She sighed. Her talk with her grandmother wasn’t going at all in the direction she wanted it to go. Worse, Andre’s hand had stopped moving, but remained wrapped around the nape of her neck. Her life was totally out of control.
“Grandma Trixie, take a breath. I don’t want a serial killer to find me attractive. I don’t think that much matters to them, although since he was a serial rapist as well, maybe he had a preference type.”
Her grandmother shrieked, an ear-splitting shriek Teagan was fairly certain she heard straight from the States and not from her cell phone. Okay, another mistake. She blamed Andre, because right at the moment she began trying to explain, his fingers slid into her hair again and totally short-circuited her brain.
“A rapist? Teagan Jonelle Joanes, you come home right this minute. Now. Get on a plane or I swear, I’m coming out there to save you from yourself.”
When her grandmother used all three of her names in that tone, she meant business. She opened her mouth to defend herself, but her grandmother wasn’t finished.
“Whoever this man is, he is a total foreigner. He has a different culture, and those foreigners treat women different. He might lock you up in his harem or something. Lose him now and get home.”
Teagan closed her eyes. Andre heard. Probably the people in the pub down the street heard. “He isn’t from a place where they have harems,” she defended lamely. “Grandma Trixie, you have to take a breath and just listen to me. He’s dead. Armend is dead. There is no threat to me.” Her voice kind of took a dive on that, because if you counted vampires and Armend’s friends she might have been lying just a tiny bit to her grandmother.
A tiny bit?
Andre’s laughter slid into her mind. Poured through her skin into her veins. It wasn’t fair he was so damned sexy. She tried hard not smile. The situation was just plain out of hand. Everything she said only made it worse.
“Don’t you lie to me, girl. You went right up into those mountains, and I warned you there are vampires wreaking havoc on the population.”
“I’ll watch out for them, Grandma Trixie,” she assured, because she would. “The idea of encountering a vampire in my travels is very, very low on my to-do list.”
“You take me seriously.”
“I always take you seriously. I have to go now, but I’m all right. I’ll check in again in a couple of days, and please stop worrying about me. Andre is perfectly capable of protecting me from anything or anyone who might want to harm me.”
“You don’t know this man, Teagan. Come home.”
“I’m going to marry him, Grandma Trixie,” she blurted out. “I’m very serious about him so don’t get it in your head he’s wrong for me. I’ve waited a long time to find the right man and he’s the one. He’s coming home with me, and I want you to make an effort with him.”
There was a long silence. Teagan bit her lip hard. Her heart pounded. Andre leaned down, his lips against her ear.
Breathe, sivamet. She will learn to accept me. She wants to protect you, that is all. She loves you. You apparently get into a lot of trouble when you are out of her sight.
I do not. She was silent for a moment. She sighed. Okay that’s not exactly the truth, but really it isn’t my fault. There was the time in Chile when the police—corrupt police—tried to take my passport and I refused to get back on the bus without it and they nearly shot me. She chewed on her bottom lip. There might have been a few incidents like that one, but I always get out of them.
“Come home, Teagan. Bring him if you want, but don’t do anything until we meet him. Just get away from those mountains. I have some friends who know all about that particular mountain range, especially around Romania.”
“I’m not in Romania at the moment, Grandma Trixie,” she pointed out. “I really have to go. I love you. Like crazy, I love you. To infinity and back.”
“I love you, too, Teagan,” her grandmother whispered. “Honey, come home.”
Teagan didn’t answer. She ended the call and turned in Andre’s arms. “That went well.”
“The police in Chile wanted to shoot you?”
“Corrupt police,” she said. “They have a great black market for American passports. I managed to get my passport and get back on the bus in one piece.”
“And Argentina?”
She gasped. “You looked into my memories.”
“What were you thinking in Spain, confronting those two men who tried to put something in your drink?”
“Well, it was an outrageous thing to do and very disgusting. It happens to women all the time, but see, I noticed because I was paying attention.”
“Why were you there in the first place with no one to look after you?”
He sounded genuinely puzzled as well as angry. Risking a look at him—yeah—he was definitely not a happy camper. His eyes went glacier cold, like total blue ice, and at the same time, his face darkened. He looked—scary. Really scary. She took a deep breath and tried to step away from him, put a little space between them.
His arms turned into absolute steel. She couldn’t move, not even a fraction of an inch.
“Andre.” She pushed at his arms. “Modern day women travel all the time on their own. They go into bars and have a drink, not to pick anyone up, but just to wind down. I don’t exactly look like the kind of woman men are going to get excited about. Maybe because I’m small, they thought I looked like a victim. I have a few self-defense moves. I can take care of myself.”