Love Me Forever. Rosemary Laurey

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      “Another glass of port?” Vlad asked.

      Justin shook his head. “Thank you, but no. As they say, I have a plane to catch.” And this place with its pasty-faced, red-lipped mortals gave him the willies.

      Vlad rose with him and walked him to the door. “It’s been a pleasure doing business. I never imagined the stern Dr. Corvus would be so reasonable.”

      “I’m not unreasonable, Vlad,” he replied. “My thanks for the excellent port. Gwyltha ever had a good nose for a fine vintage.”

      Vlad smiled. “A pleasant flight and…” He paused. “By the way, I have five. Perhaps you missed one of the ghouls.”

      Shocked, Justin rescanned the room. In addition to the three vampires, there were two ghouls. Both young women, one behind the bar, the other carrying a tray to a table in the corner. Ghouls! Was there no end to the man’s depravity?

      “Ah!” Vlad all but chuckled. “You disapprove?”

      “You know my stand on that!”

      “Yes.” He smiled. “They are raised from the grave. You raise from the dead. Is there any difference?”

      All the difference in the world. Not that he was about to debate ethics with Vlad Tepes. “Give my regards to Gwyltha.”

      Regards! The word jangled at the fringes of his mind all the way out to O’Hare. Regards! Was that all he felt for the woman who’d once ruled his life and owned his soul? Regards? Yes. Memories of Gwyltha were just that. Joyous, passion-filled, and sore. But the pain of almost a century had faded. Was this the re-energizing atmosphere of the New World? Or the acquaintance of an intriguing New World woman? And now he was returning posthaste to the same woman and, he conceded, to share the good news with his friends. Vlad never went back on his word, Justin had to hand him that. Kit and Dixie were assured enough ground to roam comfortably for a least a couple of hundred years.

      “Be a good boy, Sam.”

      “You know he will!” Lindy Zeibel, Stella’s next-door neighbor, ruffled Sam’s head. “Won’t you, Sam? We’re going to bake brownies and then he can take his bike up to the park. I’ve got a video to watch later, so you take your time. Drive carefully.”

      “What video?” Sam’s eyes glowed with curiosity.

      “Secret, you’ll see soon enough.” She glanced towards the inside of the house. “I’ve a pack of brownie mix out on the countertop. You go along, read the box and figure out what we need. And watch the oven, it’s already on.”

      Sam hugged Stella. “Bye, Mom.”

      She watched him disappear inside the house without a backward glance. Staying with Mrs. Zeibel was never a hardship. “Thanks. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

      “No hurry. Don’t speed, now, and tell your mom I say hello.” She glanced into the house where noises of fridge-opening and spoons jingling showed Sam was readying to bake. “And tell her she’s got one fine grandson there.”

      “I will.”

      “You’ve got to tell him sometime, you know.”

      Knowing Lindy Zeibel was right didn’t help anything.

      “Not yet. Later. What good would it do right now to know his grandma’s in jail?”

      Mrs. Zeibel nodded. “He’s fine for now. Ain’t anyone going to tell him. Except those Day boys, and he’d never believe them.”

      Thank heaven! Sam was scared of them and she wanted it to stay that way. Mind you, they’d been noticeably quiet since Justin had confronted the younger ones. No matter how he denied it, she did owe him. But…“Must get going. Thanks for keeping Sam.”

      “He’s no trouble, dear. It’s nice to have a kid in the house. Drive carefully, now.”

      Stella drove carefully. Cars were passing her and disappearing in the distance but what did she have to hurry for? She hated making this drive every two weeks to see her mother. Hated the checks and double checks, the questions, the searches and the locked doors. And at the end of it, she had to face Mom’s complaints and recriminations. Stella always told herself Mom was under stress, depressed—heck, she was in jail, she was entitled to moan a bit—and it was a daughter’s obligation to visit her mother. But it would be nice, just once in a while, to be greeted with a smile or be thanked for coming.

      Trying hard to squelch her undaughterly thoughts, Stella parked and went through the motions of the system, the questions, the cursory search of her purse. On her first few visits, she noticed the almost incoherent boredom in other visitors’ eyes as they went through the process. Now she suspected her eyes looked the same. It was a means to let the humiliation slide off her soul.

      “You’re late.”

      “Sorry. There were road works on thirty-three. They fixed the stretch on the way back but now they’re working on the other direction.” It was all too obvious Mom wasn’t interested in repairs to roads she’d not be traveling along for years. “Sam’s doing real well in school.” Mom seemed only a little less bored over Sam’s progress. “Did you get the school picture I mailed you?”

      “Yeah, I got it. Nice looking boy, you got there.”

      Stella felt herself warm inside over even that crumb of approval. “Yes, Mom, and he’s growing like a weed.”

      “When are you bringing him to see me, then?” The silence that followed was heightened by her mother’s smirk.

      “Mom, you know how I feel about that. This is not the place to bring a kid.”

      “Other inmates have their kids and grandkids visit. I suppose you’re just too ashamed to tell your son his grandma’s in jail?”

      Since Mom put it so bluntly…“It’s not something he needs to know right now.”

      “I knew it!” Mom’s narrow eyes gleamed. “Ashamed of me, aren’t you?”

      Stella choked back the truthful response. “Mom, it’s not that.” She looked straight into her mother’s skeptical eyes as she went on. “I’m not ashamed of you, you’re my mother. But I’m doing my darnedest to raise Sam to be law-abiding, and I just don’t think now is the time to tell him his grandma is doing time for bank robbery.”

      Mom gave her the full benefit of her hurt expression. “I see.” Her mouth became a narrow, tight line. “That’s how it is. I suppose next thing, you’ll decide you’re too proud to come and see me.”

      “No, Mom!” The accusation hurt. “I’ve always come and I always will. Didn’t I promise?”

      Mom waved a careless hand. “Yeah, yeah, you promised. I know you’ll come. It just gets me down being here. You don’t know what it’s like.”

      True enough. The little Stella had seen was grim—but not grim enough, it seemed, to discourage Mom’s repeat visits. “No, Mom, I don’t, but I come as often as I can.”

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