Page 3 of A Bloom in Winter

Milly looked back and forth. “What—where’d he go?”

Connelly was a ghost town this late. Heck, seven fifty-seven p.m. might as well be after midnight. Even the diner was shut down, and so were the lawyer’s office, the shoe shop, thedressmaker’s, and the bank. The pharmacy was still open for another hour, but its glow was far off, on the next corner.

No car driving away. No purr of a departing motorcycle. Not even a pedaling bike disappearing down the road.

Also no big man, in black leather and massive boots, striding off heavily enough to crack the pavement.

“It’s like he up and disappeared,” Judy breathed.

“Oh, no. He lost his flower.”

Milly hopped out into the cold. The white rose had been dropped about ten feet from the door, and she picked up the stem. The petals were bruised from where they’d hit the sidewalk’s rough cement.

“It’s starting to snow,” Judy said as she looked up at the sky. “You’re really not in the Bahamas anymore.”

Milly took a moment to glance around at the tiny downtown that was as familiar as her own reflection. She’d been born and raised here, and she was going to die here, too. Alone. Because Roger had a new Mrs., like he’d traded in an old car for the newer model.

“First snow of the season,” she said as she tracked the flakes that were spinning down from the sky.

“Come inside, Milly. You’ll catch pneumonia.”

Heading back into the warmth of their little shop, the chill stayed with her as she pictured the man in black leather. It felt a little strange to feel compassion for a stranger, especially one who looked like that. But she was sad for him. Whoever he was.

Then again, she was the other side of his no-go coin: She had no one to buy her flowers anymore. And living in this town, where all the men her age were either married or relatives, she wasn’t going to find one.

She put the bloom to her nose and breathed in. The sense that life had passed her by already made her feel eighty years old.

The man had had the same air about him.

“I got chicken cacciatore leftovers tonight,” Judy said brusquely. “Too much for me and Joe to eat by ourselves now that we’re empty nesters.”

Milly looked at her best friend. Judy was back behind the counter, pushing at the roses like she didn’t approve of her efforts.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Of course I don’t. But I did miss you.” Judy bent down and brought something out from under the counter. “Here. For your rose.”

The little vase was just the right size, and Milly blinked a couple of times. Good thing she had to turn away to the sink and fill it up.

“That sounds great,” she said roughly as she tucked the stem into the narrow neck. “Thanks—”

“Roger’s going to regret this whole thing,” Judy announced. “And when he comes back to you, you need to make him grovel.”

“He’s not coming back. He’s married.”

Judy emphasized her words with a red rose. “He still loves you. Mark my words.”

“Well, I can’t love him anymore. Not after this.”

As Apex dematerialized away from the town square, he traveled through the cold night in a scatter of molecules, as any vampire could do, did do, often did. When he re-formed, it was in the parking lot behind the Willow Hills Sanatorium, and as he looked up at the building’s back elevation, he saw none of the stained brick, the decaying mortar, or the broken windows.

His memories were like a movie being projected onto the rear flank, the images eclipsing that which actually existed, taking over reality like a tax collector.

Instead of the central core and the two wings that seemed to stretch out for miles on either side, he saw an SUV screeching out from the lot, with Mayhem behind the wheel and Kane half dead from his burns in the back. Apex was in the rear as well, having tossed the latter in with him, and he’d been in charge of returning fire against the flank of prison guards who got right on their ass in their own vehicles.

Somewhere down the road, there had been an explosion. A crash.

And it was after that, when they’d surfaced from the wreck, that his life had changed forever.

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