One Foot in the Grave Read Online Free Page A

“Well, it’s beautiful. You’re beautiful. I mean, you were beautiful before and you still are now. Let’s go, before you change your mind.”
    I already had, but that had nothing to do with Noah. Still, much as I hated to admit it, Denise was right. I could spend another night tormenting myself over someone I could never have, or I could go out and try to have a nice evening for a change.
    “Bad news,” I told him. “My friend, um, got held up and she couldn’t make it. Sorry. If you want to cancel I’ll completely understand.”
    “No,” Noah said at once, smiling. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”
    It’s just one date , I reminded myself as I walked to his car. What harm could there be?
     
    Noah and I went to Renardo’s, an Italian bistro. Out of courtesy I drank only red wine, not wanting to reveal my penchant for vast quantities of gin and tonic.
    “What do you do for a living, Cristine?” he asked.
    “Field research and recruitment for the Bureau.”
    It was sorta true, if you called hunting down and killing creatures of the night research . Or defined going across the country rounding up the best men the military, law enforcement, FBI, or even the criminal justice system had to offer as recruitment . Hey, far be it for an operation that killed the undead to discriminate in who we hired, right? Some of our best team members had once worn an orange jersey. Juan was a penal code graduate who chose working for Don over twenty years behind bars. The mishmash might not make for the most traditionally behaved fighting unit, but it sure was a deadly one.
    Noah’s eyes widened. “The Bureau? You’re an FBI agent?”
    “Not technically. Our department is more of an extension of Homeland Security.”
    “Oh, so you have one of those jobs where you could tell me what you did, but then you’d have to kill me?” he teased.
    I almost choked on my wine. You said it, buddy. “Uh, nothing that exciting. Just recruitment and research. I’m on call constantly, though, and I work strange hours. That’s why Denise would be a better person to introduce you around Richmond than me.”
    This I said directly to put out any illusions. Noah was sweet, but anything more wouldn’t happen.
    “I understand strange hours and being on call. I get paged at any hour for an emergency. Nothing as serious as your line of work, but still. Even the littlest things in life deserve attention. I’ve always felt how you treated something weaker than you showed your true character.”
    Well, well . He had just raised a notch in my opinion.
    “Sorry Denise couldn’t make it,” I said for probably the fifth time. “I think you’d really like her.”
    Noah leaned forward. “I’m sure I would, but I’m not sorry she couldn’t make it. I only used meeting people as an excuse to ask you out. I really just wanted to go on a date with you. It must have been those fuzzy slippers.”
    I laughed, which startled me. Truthfully, I’d expected to have a miserable time, but this was…nice.
    “I’ll bear that in mind.”
    I studied him over my wineglass. Noah wore a crewneck gray shirt and a sports coat, with charcoal slacks. His black hair was freshly cut, but that one lock kept falling over his forehead. Noah certainly had no reason to lack for dates. Even if his skin didn’t have that creamy crystal luminescence that glittered in the moonlight…
    I shook my head. Dammit, I had to stop haunting myself with Bones! There was no hope for the two of us. Even if we did manage to conquer the insurmountable obstacles of my job killing the undead, or my mother’s seething hatred of anything with fangs, we still wouldn’t work. Bones was a vampire. He’d stay forever young while I’d inevitably grow old and die. The only way around my mortality was if I changed over, and I refused to do that. No matter how it broke my heart, I’d made the only decision I could by leaving him. Hell, Bones might not even think about me anymore. He’d