CHAPTER THREE
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE CHEATING EX KIND

There was no way that Lucy could have known what little trick fate had in store for her that night.

I should have just gone home after my meeting with Mr. Moody, she thought in irritation. Why had she agreed to the stupid rendezvous with Desmond Tribideux? Maybe because she was lonely, and perhaps she really had wanted to see the art gallery’s new exhibits. The show on The Art of Paranormal was supposedly excellent.

Lucy narrowed her eyes at her date, thinking that next time she was lonely she would stay at home with a good book and a glass of wine. Women, she mused thoughtfully, were such suckers. They had an intense need to connect, which meant they were constantly setting themselves up for disappointment, even when instincts warned them to beware. And Lucy had more reason than most to be unhappy with her lacking love life. She had been reminded of it this very evening. Once, she had been loved and cherished by the very best. How could anyone else ever compare?

Shaking her head slightly, she decided ruefully that some southern nights the only things worthwhile were old dogs, children, and dandelion wine.

“This painting reveals man’s need to dominate and control his woman,” Desmond remarked, winking at her.

Looking at the painting, which held shapes vaguely resembling human ones, also with a pair of large red eyes and a long black chain, Lucy smiled vaguely. “Really?” Actually, the painting’s eyes seemed to follow her movements, making her uncomfortable.

Desmond seemed put out. “Come now, Lucy. I should think you would know a bit more about art than this,” he remarked, his eyes dancing upon the cleavage revealed by her short blue beaded dress. The garment had been a definite mistake, Lucy thought regretfully. I should have worn a turtleneck sweater—a baggy turtleneck sweater. Except it was too hot in New Orleans for heavy-duty date camouflage like that.

“I’m not really into more abstract art,” she protested politely. Desmond was ruining the art exhibition for her, just as he had ruined dinner with his prosing about the wine, his work, and his rudeness to the waiter. Not to mention the amount of touching he’d done all during dinner and their walk to the art gallery in the French Quarter.

Smiling suggestively, he motioned to another abstract painting. “I see my work is cut out for me. I’ll be happy to tutor you in abstract art—and in anything else, for that matter. I’m quite an expert,” he announced pompously, a leer on his face, “in pretty much everything.”

You’re an expert sleazy troll, she decided, brushing his hand off her bottom for the seventh time. Her date, this human octopus, had more moves than Chuck Norris. She was almost considering inviting him on her show as a guest freak. “Oh, I wouldn’t impose. I’ve always thought ignorance is bliss.”

But her stratagem didn’t work. Ignoring her words, he began explaining the next painting, which was a series of bright blue circles with dark golden slashes and a faint distorted humanlike figure. “This painting represents woman’s wish to be dominated by her passions and by her master. The woman’s longings are evident in the work. She can hardly wait for the forceful thrust of his—”

Lucy interrupted. “I see.” Her date had sex on the brain, there was no question. She needed to put the kibosh on that.

“The woman is in need—extreme need,” Desmond continued. “Note the powerful brushstrokes around her thighs.”

Lucy let his words flow around her and disappear. But he continued to talk, no doubt in love with the sound of his own voice.

Chalk up another dud evening and another date from hell. Again, she wondered why she even bothered. Four years of being constantly assaulted with unwanted sexual passes, listening to men moan about their work, their exwives or girlfriends was getting to be much too much. And the men believed that after two or three dates she would be happy to hop into a bed with them, because this was dating etiquette for the twenty-first century!

Although she wasn’t a virgin, not at the age of twenty-eight, she certainly wasn’t easy, being a two-fingered-hand kind of woman. Meaning she could count her lovers on one hand—holding up only two fingers.

No, she didn’t want to sleep with someone on a schedule, nor did she want instant sexual gratification. She wanted to love, or at least to feel deeply about her sex partner. She didn’t want to sleep with someone she couldn’t trust or respect, and therein lay the problem.

Supposedly time healed all wounds. But not, of course, if they were made by a vampire. After four long, cold, bitter years, the ghost of a memory was still tormenting her. Five years before and to her eternal sorrow, Lucy had fallen deeply in love with an amoral immortal. She had been working on her last sixteen hours of graduate study in broadcast communication when she’d met Valmont Frances Pierre DuPonte. He had come to San Antonio, where Lucy was attending the University of Texas.

Val had been born in a time when women were put on a pedestal—before women had all jumped off like sky divers with no parachutes. He had been born when kings and queens ruled, and he had been a French count. When being a count counted for something.

Valmont now was a law enforcement officer, and he had come to San Antonio to teach the police force some newer methods in restraining and incapacitating dangerous preternatural predators. One night, the vampire had gone to the Riverwalk to drink in the view—and probably from a willing pretty neck or two in the shadowy alcoves of the riverbank—when he had met Lucy.

He had immediately knocked her off her feet—quite literally, since she had bumped into him and fallen into the river. But love was moving in the shadows that night, and romance had bloomed in the dark. Twenty minutes later they were having drinks in a pub that catered to vampires and other supernatural creatures, and Lucy had stared into the vampire’s deep blue gaze and realized that this amazing male was going to be someone very special to her. She had wanted to waltz across Texas with him in her arms, never letting go. Fortunately, Val felt the same way, because he had begun courting her in an Old World fashion. Lucy had found it both delightful and unsurprising; he was over 360 years old.

She’d thought it would last. When his lectures at the police academy ended three months later, they had conducted a passionate long-distance love affair. For eight months Lucy had felt more alive than ever before, and all because of a man undead. She had begun planning weddings and her happily-ever-after—which was very possible with a vampire for a husband. Unfortunately, Lucy had decided to visit Val one weekday, and had flown in to surprise him in New Orleans only to discover that her true love was in reality a liar. She had found him with another female vampire, his fangs in her neck, the two-fanged four-flusher! Which proved another thing her mother always said: “Once a bloodsucker, always a bloodsucker.”

She had called him every name in the book and then some. She had never really loved before Val, and at his loss, she was stripped to the bone, with nothing left for a long, long time. No, Lucy had never forgiven Val. Nor had she forgotten him.

“Lucy, pay attention! I feel as if I’m talking to the wall.”

Drawing herself out of her bleak thoughts, Lucy focused back upon Desmond. He continued: “As I was saying, this painting here depicts fierce raging desires and man’s responsibility to have sexual conquest wherever he can.”

Why Desmond—who was an insurance administrator for necromancers and wizards—thought he knew beans about art was beyond Lucy’s comprehension. Cocking a brow, she glanced at her date and then at the painting in question. At least she recognized the subjects. The painting was of a kitchen table with a giant swordfish lying across it, and a swath of white was a female form lying beside the swordfish. A bigger swath of a brown male stood next to the table, with an enormous purple penis.

“Can you feel the power radiating from it?” Desmond asked, staring at her, a look of what could only be called horniness on his handsome features.

“I can certainly feel something,” Lucy muttered.

And it was true; suddenly the back of her neck was tingling. She felt like someone was staring hard at her, possibly someone she knew or had interviewed on her show. Everyone and their dog was here tonight at the gallery opening.

Turning around abruptly, she almost bumped into a drop-dead gorgeous female vampire dressed in a slinky red number. The vampiress had a cool narrow white face with fat red lips the color of ripe pomegranates, and was sporting a choker with a diamond the size of the Rock of Gibraltar.

“Pardon me for being so clumsy,” Lucy apologized, then caught her breath as she glanced over to see the vampiress’s escort. Speaking of dogs! Or rather, undead monsters, Lucy corrected in stunned recognition.

The moment seemed frozen in time, with the past interceding into the present, everything blending together in shades of betrayal, pain, and the ever-present hope of lost love becoming found again. Lucy felt a sense of dislocation, as if she were underwater where everything was slow and wavy, for she stared at Valmont DuPonte, now the detective superintendent of the Supernatural Task Force for New Orleans.

The vampiress smiled slightly, her smile widening as she took in Desmond. Lucy’s date might be a tad conceited, a tad kinky, a tab obnoxious, but he was handsome. Lucy sighed.

Val, on the other hand, wasn’t smiling—although he too looked wonderful in his black jacket and black jeans. He was still going for the austere look, Lucy mused, her long-suffering eyes drinking him in.

His dark black hair was pulled back in a ponytail that hung to slightly below his broad shoulders. His dark blue eyes were staring down at her from his wonderful height of six feet three—eyes that always had reminded her of the icy North Atlantic.

He looked great in those tight jeans. He had a good seat for riding, and rode hard and hot for somebody that wasn’t a cowboy. Dang him! He just oozed sex appeal, and Lucy couldn’t help thinking cattily that his date looked like she’d been around the block a few times—on her back.

“Lucy Campbell,” Val remarked casually.

Lucy inclined her head, trying to regain her breath. Her body was heating up, her legs slightly shaky and her stomach doing somersaults. “Val.”

What should she say next? She needed mundane words for this extraordinary situation. Finally she managed, “Long time no see.” Four years, two months, and a week to be exact, with the exception of the times she had seen him featured on some news story about an exceptionally hard capture, like that charmingly lucky leprechaun who’d turned out to be a serial killer.

“Has it?” Val commented dryly.

Lucy fumed. Four years, two months, and one week might not seem like a long time to Mr. Immortal, but to her human mind it sure as heck was.

“Cherie, you must introduce me to your little friend,” Val’s Bourbon Street vamp said.

Lucy fumed harder. Little? She might only be five feet four, but it wasn’t like she was one of the seven dwarves.

“Certainly, ma jolie fille,” Val remarked. He placed an arm around his date’s svelte waist. “Beverly Perrogeut, this is Lucy Campbell, an old…” Here, Val seemed to hesitate. “An old acquaintance of mine.”

Even though he made her sound like an old shoe, Lucy held her smile firmly in place—likely resembling a deer frozen by headlights. Why couldn’t she be nonchalant like Val was being? Well, she supposed she didn’t have three-plus centuries of practice with meeting ex-lovers.

Her heart cried out with every cell of her body that had once known Val’s body intimately. Once, he had cherished her like she was made of rare stone. They had been both lovers and friends. Now she was relegated to a position of “old acquaintance,” which hurt.

Tearing her eyes away from Val’s, she heard Desmond introduce himself to the vampiress. She in turn introduced Val.

“Have you been dating long?” Val asked, speaking to Desmond. He kept his expression deadpan, which was actually quite easy for a vampire like himself. Poor deluded male, he thought. Lucy was a hardheaded and hard-hearted female. She was also impossible and immature, with her idiotic twenty-first-century lack of understanding of what exactly honor meant to a man, and most especially to an Old World vampire.

“Tonight is our first date,” Desmond confided; then he leered at Lucy and pulled her closer. “But we are becoming acquainted very quickly.”

In your dreams, buster, Lucy thought with irritation. Wanting to shove the jackass away, she instead resisted the impulse, hoping to spark a little jealousy in the old ex-boyfriend. Her mama had always said: “A skinny worm might be worthless to a cat, but if you’re trying to catch a bird, watch out.” And she recalled as well her grandma’s sage advice for every situation: “Remember the Alamo.”

Val kept his expression relaxed as he watched Lucy let Desmond hold her hand. The man was a randy goat with absolutely no savoir faire whatsoever. Even now, the idiot was trying to flirt with both women while also trying to stare down Lucy’s dress—a dress that was too revealing for public viewing, low-cut and short, showing those muscular slim legs that had been made so remarkable by years of horseback riding. He fought back irritation.

Beverly flashed a very toothy smile at the human male, then looked the painting over. She loved competition, though she viewed no mortal as much of a serious challenge. She said, “I see this painting is done by Salvador. From his earliest period.”

“I was just telling Lucy its very sexual implications. Such passion in the work. Look at the brushstrokes! Such primal desire. Such a forceful presence is the man. And the woman’s face is remarkable—a true study in sex-slave ecstasy,” Desmond explained with his slight hauteur.

Such a big purple prick, Lucy thought sardonically. Looking at the painting, her date and her ex-lover, she amended: pricks.

“Lucy didn’t seem to properly appreciate the painting,” Desmond remarked. “But with her beautiful face and body to match, I can tolerate that she’s not knowledgeable about the art world. A man can’t have everything, you know.”

Wanting to slam his nose into the painting, Lucy instead remarked through clenched teeth, “Why, thank you, Desmond.”

Val’s mouth twitched, hiding a smile. He knew Lucy hated condescension. In spite of the pair holding hands at the moment, Desmond wouldn’t be holding anything more tonight; Val was certain of that fact. Unable to resist stirring the pot a little, he asked, “What did you think of the painting, Lucy?”

She retorted flippantly, giving Desmond a long dark look and Val a hard glare. “It looks like a painting of a dead fish on a table to me, and a big prick.” Take that, you faithless fang-face, she added hatefully. She knew her thoughts were rude, but she had had her fill of Desmond’s condescension and Val’s cool demeanor.

Val stopped the grin from coming to his face, wondering just which of them was the big prick Lucy had mentioned. Did she mean the painting? Or…She was glaring at both him and the human. He stirred the pot a little more by saying in a patronizing tone, “A prejudiced viewpoint never advanced the science of art.”

Desmond, who was clearly embarrassed by her comment, nodded his head. “Lucy! You don’t understand the painting or its theme of significant sexual bondage.”

Val’s date added her two cents, too, in a very superior manner. “It’s a Salvador. Everyone just loves Salvador. Why, I have three of his prints. You must look beyond the obvious. But then, mortals are so often limited in their scope.” Turning to Val, she shrugged sexy shoulders. “But what can you expect from the great unwashed.”

“Excuse me?” Lucy asked, swelling with ire. “I may be a mortal, but I bathe daily and at least I don’t go rolling in mudpiles at the cemetery like you dirt nappers. I don’t make love in nasty old coffins, and I’m smart enough to know a dead fish is a dead fish. I like what I like, and I dislike pretentious people who run around spouting off popular mumbo jumbo about nothing.”

Val watched with amusement. Lucy could do that better than anybody: go from irritated to full-out enraged in less than sixty seconds. He so enjoyed her pale blue eyes when they lit with that inner fire—whether passion or anger. And it appeared that four years had done little to dim her inner fire. It was such a waste, since she was untrustworthy and disloyal, a fickle female and a death-dealer to hearts, like that Buffy character or two.

“Stupid human. Just because you can’t understand the otherworldly is no reason to disdain it,” Beverly snapped, her cool demeanor vanished.

Lucy didn’t care that she was creating a scene or enraging the full-blooded vampiress. She continued, “Otherwordly? This painting has nothing to do with the paranormal. It only makes me feel glad I didn’t have swordfish for supper.”

Desmond dropped her hand and took several steps away, frowning in disapproval.

Val’s date sneered. “You know nothing about art or the paranormal! Who do you think you are, you insignificant piece of human offal, to ridicule my tastes? What utter rubbish. What conceit. I’ve lived centuries!”

Hiding the urge to laugh out loud when Beverly got on her high horse, Val decided to defuse the situation. He didn’t want mortal and vampire to come to blows even if it would be amusing. “Settle down, cherie. Lucy does know a little about the supernatural. She’s the host of the Twilight Zone talk show.”

Lucy fell off her high horse, crashing to the figurative ground with a loud thump. Why did Val have to bring up what she did for a living? The vampiress’s anger slipped away, and she actually giggled.

“C’est vrai?”

“Mais oui—it’s true,” Val replied.

The vampiress giggled again. “So that’s why you look familiar. I’ve seen your show by accident once or twice. I couldn’t believe it. I caught the tail end of the one about ‘Men Who are Genies and the Women Who Rub Them.’ I had tears in my eyes by the time that genie appeared in all his pinkish smoke. You were coughing, and your face had black tracks where your mascara had run. It was just so…camp.”

Lucy’s lips tightened. “I happened to have an allergic reaction to the smoke coming out of the genie’s bottle, although I didn’t know it at the time.”

“Your face swelled up and you croaked like a frog!” the vampiress recalled, chortling gleefully.

“Too bad I didn’t fall down and crack my head open. You could have really gotten a real thrill then. All that tasty blood,” Lucy retorted.

“Fall down and crack your head?” Val asked. He couldn’t resist. “But, didn’t you do just that on the show where you had to chase those gremlins about?” Lucy glared at him, letting him know that he was definitely the big prick she’d been talking about earlier. Nobody wore a clearer “I’d like to kick you in the balls” expression.

Glaring at Val, Lucy recalled only too clearly how she’d had to go and get stitches after the gremlins fiasco. It had been her Easter show, and she had thought gremlins would be cuter than bunnies. Their cages had been decorated like Easter baskets, but the scheming little devils had made short work of those, chewing through the bars and snapping at her audience’s pant legs. Recalling the whole sordid event, Lucy recognized that she probably hadn’t thought the whole basket-cage thing through well enough.

“Yes. I ended up with six stitches,” she admitted.

Suddenly realizing that the wily detective had made a deadly slip, she stopped glaring, a slight smile forming on her lips. “I didn’t know you watched my show.”

Val replied smoothly, inwardly kicking himself for admitting as much to the untrustworthy female. “Only when I’m in the mood for some good lighthearted comedy, Lucy.” He would never admit that he watched her show whenever he got the chance, and that, when he didn’t, he actually taped it.

“I live to entertain,” Lucy replied. “By the way, I’m thinking of doing a show called ‘Supernatural Cheaters.’ You’d be perfect for it.”

Val glared at her. “Not my style.”

“If the show fits…”

“Fits? There is one thing certain in this life, cherie—the only way I’d do that sorry-ass show is over my dead body.”

“Stake, anyone?” Lucy quipped.

Val’s lips lifted in a sneer, and he went on the offensive. “I’ve often wondered. Did you catch all those little gremlins—especially the one that took a bite out of your finger?” he asked, his expression wicked.

Lucy shook her head, her face red with anger. “You know, some men don’t have any moral compass,” she said. Glaring first at Val and then at Desmond, she retorted savagely, “Speaking of fingers,” and then she shot Val one as she left. The two vampires and her date were given a view of her quickly retreating form.

She departed in graceful elegance, though inside her raged a storm of emotion. Unfortunately, while patting herself on the back for getting the last word and finger in on Val, she wasn’t watching where she was going, and as she pushed her way through the crowd, she suddenly knocked into something.

Falling, Lucy at first thought that she had knocked over a life-sized statue of a gargoyle, tumbling them both to the floor. She hoped the statue didn’t break. How could she ever cover the cost on her peanuts salary? But at the enraged shriek, much to her embarrassment, she realized the statue wasn’t a statue but a real-life gargoyle in the flesh. How humiliating!

The gargoyle cursed her roundly, and in the background Lucy could hear Val’s laughter stinging her very soul. It reminded her of another of her mother’s quaint little sayings:

“He who laughs last is usually the biggest ass.”

She couldn’t agree more.