Page 67

She nodded and smiled. “It’s fine. Listen here, sweetheart, come here,” she said, pulling me closer to her.

“I want you to be happy and if that means being with this Luc, then I am fine with it.”

“You are?” I asked.

She smiled. “I can see you are going to be with him with or without my blessing.”

I could feel myself blushing. “Probably but I would prefer your blessing.”

“Then you have it.”

I gave her a hug and felt tears running down my face.

“Our time in Cape Falls was just the best ever,” she said, stroking my face. “I’ll never forget it.”

“Me neither.”

My mom asked me what I planned on doing next and I told her that I might go to see Luc’s estate. He’d told me so much about it and I was curious to see the hills and the flowers. “And the honey bees!”

“Honey bees?”

“Apparently the honey bees know the beekeepers on the farm. If they don’t like someone, they swarm around them and chase them away.”

“Amazing,” my mom grinned.

“Right? Such small creatures, but so powerful.”

“You used to love honey as a child,” my mother said. “You’d eat spoonfuls at a time but it was so expensive. We had to ration you!”

I remembered it vaguely, asking for honey as a present one year around my birthday.

“Luc says the honey up north is especially sweet,” I said in a dreamy voice. “There are certain flowers up there that produce a honey that is creamy and light and it’s highly sought after.

“Sounds delicious,” my mother said.

“Maybe I’ll become a beekeeper,” I said with a grin.

“I can actually see that!” she laughed.

When she fell asleep, I made some calls to find out which hospital could take her. I knew Luc would help with the finances and asked for an ambulance to come and fetch her later in the day. I didn’t want her to slip into a coma and asked the hotel doctor to look in on her.

I went down to get us something to eat and heard people talking about the missile attacks down south. People were saying the war was over, that things could go back to normal. Some people said they were glad the shifters had not won. “I’ve never been a dog person, you know?” one woman said to another as they got out of the lift.

At reception, I asked if the news was true.

The girl shrugged. “I heard the vamps pay double if you donate blood now. Supplies are low and we don’t want them coming after us!” she gave a nervous giggle.

I asked for coffee and eggs to be sent up to my mother’s room.

As I stepped out of the elevator, I saw Luc standing at my hotel door waiting for me.

I couldn’t get over how handsome he was and how incredibly lucky I felt that he had fallen for me. I couldn’t believe he could love me. I felt like a giggly teenager when I thought about it.

Luc was a catch by anyone’s definition and I’d caught him!

But as I got closer to him, I could see the slump in his shoulders, the weary lines on his face.

“You all right?” I asked, concerned.