Hot Blooded

off the prejudice—which she admitted had no real cause—she noted the
removal of the scaffolding that had obscured the inn's facade for the last few
months. Built in the 1840s, the Night Owl resembled a castle more than a house,
its granite facade and Gothic windows bringing a touch of olde England to their
humble burg. The sward of grass it sat on, smooth enough for a round of golf,
put her patchy yard to shame.
    She had to admit she was impressed. She'd never seen a renovation move so
fast. Then again, maybe the heaps of cash the Luces tossed around encouraged
even the laid-back locals to get in gear.
    Swinging off her old brown Schwinn, Mariann wheeled the bike the last few
feet up the gravel drive. Above her head, the O'Faolain's sign clanked on its
chains. A second plank hung beneath the first. "Family recipes since 1940," it
said, "no matter what anybody claims."
    She nodded approvingly at the addendum and leaned her bike beneath the front
window. O'Faolain's had a small seating area, a diner-style counter and a
kitchen behind that. Since the lights were on, she knew her assistant must have
managed to roll out of bed. Heather was just eighteen and had a boyfriend. To
Heather's credit, she always showed up… just not always on time.
    Smiling to herself, Mariann entered and called hello.
    "In the kitchen," Heather called back, sounding suspiciously teary.
    Mariann found her glaring at six just-baked trays of mini pie shells.
    "They're not flaky," Heather moaned with all the drama of her youth. "It
looked so easy when you showed me, but no matter what I did, they turned out
flat."
    Mariann pinched her lower lip and wondered if she should scold. It was good
of Heather to anticipate her wanting to make tartlets, but now they'd have to
clean up and start from scratch.
    "Did you remember to feed the bread starter like I wrote on the prep board?"
    "Yes," Heather quavered, her arms crossed protectively at her waist, "and I
didn't make a mess."
    Mariann had already noticed the counters' gleam. Her admonitions for Heather
to tidy behind herself were sinking in. What wasn't sinking in were her
reminders not to run before she could walk. A cooking school dropout whose
parents played bridge with Mariann's, Heather had been a pity hire. At the time,
the teenager could barely be trusted to boil eggs.
    As if she knew what her boss was thinking, Heather's chin quivered like a
child's.
    "Oh, honey," Mariann relented, squeezing the girl's shoulder. The kindness
made a tear roll down Heather's cheek. With her shining wheat-brown hair and her
peachy skin, she was blooming even more than usual. In truth, she looked like an
actress crying for the camera. Appearances notwithstanding, Mariann knew the
girl's emotions were as real as a summer storm. She was a babe in the woods, and
Mariann hadn't the heart to toughen her up.
    Business was slow with the inn shut down for renovations. Heather's trial by
fire could wait.
    "It's just experience," Mariann said. "And my cold Irish hands. They keep the
butter from melting in the flour. When I worked in Boston, I knew an Italian
who'd plunge his hands in ice water for two whole minutes before he'd look at a
ball of dough."
    "Yeah, yeah," said Heather, swiping her sleeve across her eyes. "The few, the
proud, the pastry chefs."
    Mariann laughed, knowing Heather was all right if she was cracking jokes.
Heather smiled shyly back.
    "You're late," she pointed out with a sly glance toward the clock.
Apparently, this unheard-of occurrence improved her mood.
    "Hair emergency," Mariann explained to her own surprise. When she left the
house, she'd have sworn her
Wild Kingdom
encounter would have been the
first thing out of her mouth. Now—though Heather eyed her curls skeptically—she
did not retract the lie.
    For reasons she didn't care to examine, Mariann wanted to keep her morning
visitor to herself.

----
Chapter 2
    Â« ^ »
    BASTIEN Luce stood in the shadows outside the bakery, looking in at its
lights. Perfectly still, with a heart that could beat as seldom as once an hour,
he opened his senses to search for threats. Few were great enough to harm him.
The night was his dominion, the sun his enemy. Humans—had they known of his
existence—would have called him vampire. Among his own kind he was
upyr
.
    Theirs was a race of shape-shifting immortal beings, part wolf, part
blood-drinker, with a power and beauty no