Vengeance in Blood (Book 2): Tribulations (4 page)

Backing out, Kenneth smiled. “We need to, baby. That would make a great spot to pull a boat to and drive away. We should look at some more property on this side for the same reason, but the prices are stupid.”

Throwing her arms up, she huffed, “There you go again about money.”

He shook his head as they headed to shore. “What would you say if I wanted to buy a plane?” he asked.

“Oh, that would be a good idea. Then we could get to places real fast together,” she said with a smile.

“You didn’t even ask what they cost,” he whined.

She turned around in shock. “We don’t have enough to buy one?”

“We could buy a commercial airline company with what’s on that pallet in the vault alone,” he mumbled.

“Oh,” she said, relieved. “Then why should I worry?”

“I was just making a point,” he huffed.

“Well, when we get back, let’s buy a plane,” she said. “How about a helicopter too?” Kenneth just pushed the throttle forward, and the boat shot across the lake. When he pulled into the shore dock, he was still mumbling to himself. “Well, why don’t we?” she asked.

“Ah, I haven’t flown a chopper or plane in years, and I doubt you know how with how fast you can run,” he pointed out.

“Well, it can’t be that hard for you to remember,” she said, standing up. Then she jumped from the center of the boat to the end of the pier thirty feet away. Landing on her toes, she bounced with excitement at the thought of her own plane.

“It is much more complicated than a car,” he said, raising his voice because she was so far away, not realizing he didn’t have to.

“I can learn, and you can refresh,” she shouted back to him.

As he took a deep breath to start on money again, the sharp pain in his rib reminded him not to. Slowly letting the air out, he surmised, “That’s probably for the best,” and let the thoughts go. Walking down the pier, he stopped beside her. She was still bouncing on her toes. “We can look into it,” he offered, and she clapped, almost running to the car.

“That would be neat,” she said as he pushed the button to unlock the doors.

As he climbed in, he looked at her and couldn’t help but smile. Her auburn hair was framing her cherub face with the lose curls, making her look so innocent. “It would take more money than you realize,” he pointed out uselessly.

At the mention of money, the smile fell off. “You and money,” she huffed and turned away. “What would you say if I told you that wasn’t even a tenth of what I have?”

“I would pass out,” he stated emphatically. Besseta grabbed her door and opened it. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“To drive because you’re about to pass out,” she told him with a straight face.

His pulse jumped to an impossible level as he started the car. “We need to get going,” he told her.

Finally smiling, she told him, “You don’t need to worry. When we get back, we can have a garage built and a house on the other side of the lake and look for a spot you like on this side.”

Backing out, he never said a word and drove down the lane. He only spoke when he stopped the car to open the gate. “Then we are getting a remote for this gate,” he said, getting out. As he walked to open the gate, behind him, the car shifted back and forth, stopping before he turned around to walk back.

He climbed in, put the car in gear, pulled through, and put it back in park. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he did a double take, whipping his head around and pushing his back to the door. “HOLY SHIT!” he shouted, looking at her sitting with the small dress shirt with bra and panties.

“What’s wrong? You scared?” she grinned at him.

Finally getting on the road, they crossed into Canada with Kenneth grinning like the Cheshire Cat at the checkpoint. The officer looked at him then over to Besseta and tried to hide his smile. “Enjoy your stay,” he said, handing over the passports.

“Heheheh,” Kenneth grinned as he took the passports, making the officer chuckle.

“You need to quit,” Besseta told him, smiling as they pulled away.

Getting serious, he dropped his grin. “You do know it’s almost two thousand miles, right?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes, we’ll drive straight through, get there tomorrow night, spend a day with her, then drive back.”

“This is a Jag; we’ll be there in twenty hours,” he told her, pulling on the highway.

“But you told me cops don’t like you driving faster than the numbers on the signs,” she reminded him.

“They aren’t in a Jag,” he said with a grin.

Not understanding, she asked, “So this is the fastest car then?”

“Not by a long shot,” he told her. “But it’s the fastest you can get to drive with this kind of style without spending stupid amounts of money.”

Besseta thought about that. “I like driving in style,” she admitted, letting the money comment slide.

“How long do you think it would take you to get there running?”

“About five or six hours I’m sure,” she replied. “I normally would have to feed when I got there and when I got home. I’m not sure now after…well, you know.”

“Yes, your ‘upgrade,’” Kenneth laughed.

Besseta put a frown on her face till she thought about that and smiled. “Yes, it was like an upgrade,” she laughed.

Soon, they were driving along a highway lined with trees. “Besseta, if I ask about your family, will it make you sad?” Kenneth asked.

“No,” she smiled.

“Was your dad like a king or something?”

Besseta started laughing. “No, what on earth gave you that idea?”

“Well, you’re very refined and pretty. I thought only ladies of station were that way,” he confessed.

“I’ve had a long time to develop my persona,” she smiled. “Papa was a lower noble. We were just above commoners.”

“So do the movies and books get what it was like?”

She looked over at him and could see an intense interest in his face, which made her smile more. “Not really. It was dirty, and I mean dirty,” she said. “The movies never get much right. I laughed when I watched Braveheart. Papa fought with Wallace during the uprising.”

“Are you kidding?” he asked excitedly.

“No, Papa was rather fond of Wallace. He always said Wallace was a great fighter and very smart.”

“Were the English really that bad?”

The smile fell off, and her face turned to stone. “Yes,” she almost growled.

Quickly changing the line of questioning, he asked, “How was it? I mean living day to day?”

“Hard,” she said, and her face became long. “You learned to be hungry. We knew families that died because their cows died. They had nothing to carry them during the winter. When you woke up, you worked to get food in the ground or out of the ground. Animals always needed tending to.”

“How did you learn to read and write? I know the families taught back then,” he asked.

“Kenneth,” she said, shaking her head. “I was a vampire and almost a hundred before I learned to read and write. Momma and Papa couldn’t read. They taught you how to survive off the land, killing and skinning animals. Making your own clothes,” she told him. “I can tell you, shearing a sheep with a straight blade just so you could have something to wear really sucked.”

“Whoa,” he mouthed. “So you didn’t live in a castle?” he asked.

“No, our house had two rooms: a bedroom and a living area. The house had stone walls and a thatched roof. In the winter, it was so cold some days we would just stay in bed, only getting out to throw wood in the fireplace,” she said, looking away and remembering.

“Two rooms? Where did you sleep?”

“In the bedroom.”

“Everyone?” he asked, shocked.

“Yeah, now Momma and Papa had their own bed, but we shared one. All six kids.”

“We are so spoiled now it’s not funny,” Kenneth mumbled.

“I’m not going to argue,” she agreed. “But that way of life drove you to an early death, aging you fast.”

“So at fourteen, were you considered an adult?”

“Not really. When you turned sixteen, you could leave, but you always wanted your parents’ blessing,” she told him. Then she turned to him with a soft smile. “Papa was trying to set me up with Reginald O’Connell. His father was a rather strong lord and owned lots of land. Reginald always watched me at gatherings.”

“So were teens the same then as they are now?”

“Reginald was twenty,” she told him, and Kenneth stomped the brakes, pulling off the road to horns sounding behind him. Rolling down his window, he gave them the one-finger American salute.

He turned to Besseta. “Your father was trying to fix you up with a twenty-year-old man?” he asked, trying to work that through his brain.

“Yes, I had friends that married that young and knew a girl who married at twelve,” she told him.

“To men?” he almost shouted.

She reached over, patting his arm. “Kenneth, think in those times. Why would a family want their girl to marry a boy? He wasn’t established on a farm, and lords were training for war or learning how to rule. Most men didn’t marry till their late teens or early twenties. I didn’t think Reginald was too bad.”

Kenneth just stared ahead for a few minutes then pulled back on the road. “If you would’ve been a princess, I guess it would’ve been okay,” he mumbled.

She smiled and looked off. “To be honest, I just wanted to be able to sleep late once in a while. Not have to worry about food and not have to bring the damn pigs inside when it got cold.”

“When did you come to America?” he asked.

“The first time was around 1540. I had heard some Norseman talk about a far off land to the west, so I wanted to see it,” she told him.

“Norseman?” he asked.

“You would know them as Vikings,” she told him.

“Wow,” he said.

“You do realize I was over a hundred before Columbus made his sail?” she asked then laughed. “It was thirty years after he did it before I heard about it, and I was in Spain at the time.”

Blown away, Kenneth just sat there with his mouth hanging open. She smiled and leaned over the console, resting her head on his arm. “The second time I came to America was the year before the War of Independence. I’m not going to lie; I came just to help fight the British. Then I really started liking the colonists with their idea of being free of a crown. For a year, I pretended to be a boy and just stalked the British lines.”

In shock, Kenneth just mumbled, “Did you meet any of the founding fathers?”

“Just a few and not formally. Just at parties or in passing. Let me tell you Benjamin Franklin was a womanizer like you can’t even imagine,” she snickered.

“I’ve read that,” Kenneth said with his shock subsiding.

Shaking her head, she said, “It doesn’t even come close.”

“You went to parties?” he asked.

“Ah, yeah. What, you think I just lived in caves, lying in wait for a criminal to walk by?” she asked, laughing. “It was the only way I could move about without attracting attention. I remained very visibly single just to present an easy target. I really liked it when my prey came to me and I didn’t have to go after them.”

“Have you ever had a boyfriend?”

“Yes,” she said in a stony voice, moving back to her seat.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” he said quickly.

Besseta let out a long sigh. “It’s not you,” she huffed. “I knew he was an ass but ignored it.”

“Oh, so that really was true?” he asked, and she looked at him, confused. “Before you told me what you were, you said that you had a boyfriend a long time ago, but he was an ass.”

“Yes, that was true,” she said regretfully.

Kenneth took a deep breath. “Okay, who and where is he?”

“Why?” she asked.

“I take it he’s a vampire, so I’m going to kick his ass or kill him. Anyone that treats you like an ass deserves no forgiveness,” Kenneth told her.

“If you do that, they will try to kill us,” she said, getting worried at the look on Kenneth’s face.

“So I’ll have to kill more,” he said, shrugging.

Shaking her head, she said, “You are starting to get bloodthirsty.”

“Are you going to tell me, or will I have to figure it out?” he asked.

“Okay,” she said. “His name is Bereno, and he’s on the American League.”

“Thank you,” Kenneth said with a smile. “So how did you meet?”

“Kenneth,” she said, turning in her seat to face him. “I’ve seen TV shows; you’re not supposed to ask about old boyfriends, and I can see it in your face. I’m not talking about the ass because you’ll try to kill him.”

He turned to face her and smiled. “I never try, Besseta, and you’ve asked about old girlfriends more times than I can remember.”

“Yeah, and you tell me shit!” she snapped.

“Fine, even trade,” he said. “Ask me.”

“Who did you go out with two years ago?” she shot off really fast.

“Corporal Jena Copper from traffic,” he answered. “How did you two meet?”

“I was tracking down a band of cutthroats in Rome around 1551. They were killing when they didn’t have to when they robbed and kidnapped kids from parents for ransom and sent back the pieces if they didn’t pay,” she shot back. “How long did you two date?”