Present Tense (Out of the Fire #3) - Candace Blevins Page 0,125

off.

Fabio glared at both of them, but then shook his head and removed the rest of the paper — no ripping required at that point.

Inside the archive-type box was a three-ring binder. He opened it, and saw a picture taken from the top of a mountain. Fabio thought it might be somewhere near or in the Smokey Mountains, but he couldn’t be certain. The next page was a picture of a cabin on top of a mountain. A two-story log cabin. The top level was mostly glass, the bottom level had normal sized windows from the front. When he turned the page, he saw the same could be said of the back.

Fabio looked up and met Collosa’s gaze. “What gives?”

“Keep going.”

There were shots of the inside — a great room, a huge kitchen, and a game room on the first floor. The top floor was one big seating area. All four bedrooms were below ground level, with one clearly made for a vampire, complete with hidey-hole.

And then the last page was the deed, in all four of their names.

“It’s in the Robbinsville area, in the general direction of Joyce Kilmer. Two hours and fifteen minutes from here in normal traffic. We have just over ten acres of land, and it’s far enough from civilization and hiking trails, we should be able to change and explore the mountain without worry of running into humans. The driveway is shit, raw dirt with huge ruts, and it’s much too steep, so we’ll need to take the Jeep or truck until we have some work done on it. I made it up okay in my truck, but it took some maneuvering. The realtor arranged for us to go to the top on ATVs when I viewed it with her.” He shrugged. “The price was right, and it’s perfect for us. The only thing I’ve done so far is make Kelsey’s hidey-hole. The rest is as I bought it. There’s two bathrooms downstairs, and one on the first level. We might want to add another, but I can’t see much else that needs doing.”

“You bought us a vacation house?” Kelsey asked.

“Yeah. A place we can go to get away. Just us. Doesn’t have to be all four of us.”

“I can’t wait to see it in person,” Fabio said. “My cat is going to love it, and I’m sure your bear already does.”

Collosa nodded. “Yeah. He does, but I got it for all of us. We can’t get married, you know? But owning real estate ties us together financially. It’s a legal document with all four of our names on it. It seemed...” he shrugged. “Seems important.”

Kelsey stood and levitated to him, so their heads were the same height when she hugged him. “That may be the most romantic thing ever, James. Thank you.” She turned to face the other men. “Thank you doesn’t seem enough for anything. The car, the brooch and ring, and now the cabin. The thought that went into them — I never expected to have anyone care so much for me. Care enough to come up with the perfect gift, and nail it, and you all did.”

Fabio thought she might start crying, but she shook her head, took a breath, and levitated down. This oh-so-timid vampire with a spine of steel when she needed it, had grown on him until he was madly in love with her. Before he got emotional about it, he moved them forward before the grizzly had a chance to.

“Okay, time for us to watch ’Losa open his gifts.”

Collosa opened the package that smelled like a gaming unit first. It could’ve been something else electronic, but the size of the box told him he wanted to open it first. Also, the fact it was from Eunice spoke strongly of being the latest and greatest, released just barely in time for Christmas.

He grinned when he saw he was right, and then smiled even bigger when he discovered it included four controllers, and a brand-new setup for driving. The old one would be backwards compatible, but there were always little glitches. It was best to buy the new hardware. Plus, this way, two people could drive against each other, since they’d have two setups upstairs now.

“It’s just what I wanted,” he told Eunice.

“It also comes with a ninety-five-inch HD television, but that was a bit much to wrap.”

Collosa looked through the games Eunice had chosen, and couldn’t wait to try them out. He had no idea which to try