SINGLE WHITE VAMPIRE Page 0,20

stage on opening night."

When she appeared rather doubtful, he realized that admitting to seeing the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway showwhich had premiered in 1951, if he wasn't mistakenwas rather dating himself. As he looked to be in his mid-thirties, it was no wonder she appeared taken aback. Clearing his throat, he added, "The revival of course. It hit Broadway in 1977, I believe."

Her eyebrows rose. "You must have been all of what? Seven? Eight?"

Unwilling to lie, Lucern merely grunted. He added, "I have an excellent memory."

"Yes. Of course you do." Kate sighed and picked up a letter. She read aloud, " 'Dear Mr. Argeneau. I read and adored Love Bites, volumes one and two. But the first was my favorite. You truly have a talent! The medieval feel to that novel was so gritty and realistic that I could almost believe you were there.'" Kate paused and glanced up. "All the letters in this stack are along that line, praising you for the realism of your writing and the fact that it reads as if you were actually there."

When Lucern merely nodded, she frowned. "Well?"

"Well, what?" he asked with surprise.

"That reader is right."

"That reader is right?" She gaped at him. "That's what you're going to write? 'Dear reader, You're right?'"

Lucern shrugged mildly, wondering why she was raising her voice. The reader was right. His books did read as if he'd been there in medieval times. Because he had been. Not during the precise time period when his parents met, but not long afterwardand in those days, change was slow enough that little had differed.

He watched his editor slam the letter back on the pile and move on to another. She muttered the whole time about him being an arrogant jerk, and added other uncomplimentary descriptions. "Insensitive" and "lacking in social skills" were just two. All of which Lucern knew he wasn't supposed to hear.

He wasn't offended. He was six hundred years old. A man gained some self-confidence in that time. Lucern supposed that to most people he would seem arrogant, possibly even a jerk. Insensitive certainly, and he knew his social skills were somewhat rusty. Etienne and Bastien had always been better at this social stuff. Yet, after years of living as a reclusive author, he was terribly lacking and knew it.

Still, he couldn't see any good reason to sharpen those social skills. He was at that stage in life where impressing someone seemed like a load of bother.

He'd taken a waitress for dinner once who'd explained the way he felt rather nicely. She'd said, "You can go along, working your shift and everything's fine. Most of the customers are pretty good, though there might be the occasional bad one. But sometimes you have that night where you get a real nasty customer, or even two or three in a row, and they bring you down, make you tired and miserable, feeling like the whole human race sucks. Then a baby might coo and smile at you, or another customer will say "Rough night?" with a sympathetic smile. Then your mood picks up and you'll realize maybe people aren't so bad."

Well, Lucern had suffered a couple of bad decades, and he was feeling tired and depressed and as if the whole human race rather sucked. He didn't have the energy or desire to put up with people. He just wanted to be left alone. That was why he'd started writinga solitary pursuit that kept him busy and took him into much more pleasant worlds.

He knew that all it would take was someone to smile and say "rough decade?" to change that. Someone like Kate. As much as he'd resisted having to deal with her, he'd begun to enjoy her company. She'd even made him smile several times.

Realizing the path his thoughts were taking, and that they were rather warmer than he was comfortable feeling for his unwanted house guest, he drew himself up short and began to scowl. Dear God, what had he been thinking? Kate C. Leever was a stubborn, annoying woman who had done nothing but bring chaos to an orderly existence. He

" 'Dear Mr Argeneau,'" she read grimly, drawing Lucern out of his thoughts. " 'I've read your vampire novels and enjoyed them immensely. I have always been fascinated with vampirism and read everything on the subject voraciously. I just know that there really is such a thing, and suspect you yourself really are one. I would love to be one. Would you please turn me