“I can’t—” She paused and swallowed, cleared her throat, then tried again. “I love you, Paul, and Livy too, but I can’t do this. I’m going to lose you one way or another. If not to some stupid accident, then to cancer, or a heart attack, or just plain old age. And the longer I’m with you the more crazy I’ll make you with my fussing and . . . the more it will hurt when I do lose you.” She paused and peered at him pleadingly. “I can’t do this.”
He nodded and cleared his throat. Now Paul was the one avoiding her eyes. He wouldn’t beg for her to stay. Couldn’t ask that of her. Because he understood. Asking her to stay was asking her to stand by and watch him die. If she were mortal, it would have been different. But she wasn’t. It was like wanting to be with a goddess. A beautiful, strong, brilliant being of light and glory. While he was a mere man. He couldn’t ask her to stay. It was selfish to expect her to. But it was hard not to. Losing Jerri had been painful as hell, but losing Jeanne Louise would be harder. Because she wouldn’t be dead and in the ground beyond his reach. Although he would be eventually.
“What about Livy’s training?” he asked finally.
“I called Uncle Lucian last night. He said he’d make arrangements,” Jeanne Louise said quietly and something in her voice made him glance her way finally.
Had she sounded disappointed? Had she hoped he’d protest, beg, and plead? Should he? Or was that selfish?
“I should go,” she said abruptly, moving to collect a packed suitcase beside the door to the garage. He should have noticed that, he thought with a frown. It would have given him some warning, prepared him. Maybe he would have known what to do then, what to say.
“Uncle Lucian will contact you in the next couple of days with arrangements to help Livy,” she said quietly as she opened the door to the garage. Glancing back, she peered at him silently for a moment, and then murmured, “Have a good life.”
He thought he caught the sheen of tears in her eyes before she turned away, but then she was walking out the door into the garage and closing it behind her.
Paul listened to the sounds of her moving around, then the slam of the door, the car starting and the garage door opening. He heard her pull out and after a pause, the sound of the door closing again and wondered idly if she would mail him the garage door opener. Then his hand jerked out and sent the plate of bacon and eggs smashing to the floor.
Eighteen
“When is Jeanne Louise coming to see us again, Daddy?”
Paul paused in front of the trunk he’d just opened and stared blindly at the groceries inside. When was Jeanne Louise coming to see us again? Never was the answer. She’d backed out of their lives, unable to handle watching him age and die, leaving him alone. He understood. He hadn’t been able to stand helplessly by and watch Livy wither away and die either, but damn, he missed her. If only . . .
If only? Paul’s mouth twisted at the words in his head. If only what? If only she hadn’t turned Livy? He didn’t want that. He loved his daughter and wanted her alive. So he supposed it was if only the Rogue Hunters hadn’t arrived when they had. If only that Bricker fellow hadn’t scared the kid into running, so that she’d fallen and been mortally wounded so that Jeanie had been forced to turn her? So that they could have carried through their plan for her to turn him and let him turn Livy?
He supposed. But “if only” didn’t matter. What had happened had happened, and now they had to live with the results.
“Huh? When is she coming, Daddy?”
Paul sighed and glanced to his daughter, frowning when he saw that she’d lifted four cases of pop out of the trunk as if they weighed next to nothing. “Honey, let Daddy take those. You—”
“It’s okay. They aren’t heavy,” she assured him and moved toward the door to the kitchen.
As he watched, Livy shifted the heavy cases to one hand to open the door with the other, and then stepped out of the garage and into the kitchen.
“Jesus,” Paul muttered and turned his attention to gathering several bags of groceries in each hand. He managed to get all of them out, and was about to close the trunk when it suddenly slammed shut for him. Paul turned to peer at his daughter silently. She’d returned without his noticing, probably that vampire speed. And somehow she’d closed the trunk. She must have leapt up a couple feet to reach it, she was too short to do so otherwise, but she was smiling at him now looking like a normal, happy five-year-old rather than some strange hybrid vampire.
“So how come Jeanne Louise doesn’t come see us anymore? I like her. Doesn’t she like us anymore?”
Paul’s shoulders sagged with defeat and then he knelt before her, setting their grocery bags down so that he could give her a hug. “Yes, she loves us a great deal, and that’s why we don’t see her anymore.”
“But that doesn’t make sense, Daddy,” Livy complained. “If she loves us—”
“Sweetie, do you remember how upset and worried I was when you were sick and I thought you were going to die?”
Livy pulled back to peer at him solemnly, and nodded. “Yes. You were scared.”
Paul’s eyebrows rose at her wisdom. He had tried to hide his worries and fears, but apparently she’d seen right through them. “Yes, I was. I knew it would hurt to lose you because I love you. And now Jeanne Louise feels that same way.”
“But she won’t lose me. I’m not sick anymore,” Livy pointed out.
“Not you, sweetie, me.”
Her eyes went wide and scared. “Are you sick, Daddy?”
“No,” Paul assured her quickly. “But I’m not like you and Jeanne Louise. I’m mortal. You remember how Marguerite taught you about being an immortal and how you’ll grow up, but won’t grow old? And how you won’t get sick, or die?”
Livy nodded.