Page 112 of Soft Flannel Hank

Hank walked into the kitchen and flipped on the light, wholly unsurprised to find that he was not alone in his house. Sitting at his kitchen table was a large, blond man in an expensive, impeccably tailored suit that looked almost like a second skin. At least that’s how they would have described it in one of his mom’s romance novels.

He looked elegant and lazy, but Hank wasn’t fooled. Because he also had the look of a man who had walked off of a Viking ship after pillaging and bringing an entire country to its knees.

This could only be Callum MacLeod.

Hank could sense the raw, harnessed power of immortality radiating off of him. It was shocking. Like a blast of cold air through a grocery store freezer door. Until now, Nat was the oldest being Hank had ever encountered at just shy of 400 years old. But Callum MacLeod was much, much older than that.

As Hank stood in the doorway and stared at him, he couldn’t help but wonder if Callum wasn’t actually a vampire at all but some old god cursed to live on earth. Hank didn’t stand a chance. He knew that. He’d always known that. But that wasn’t the point, was it?

Callum looked as if he had not a care in the world as he thumbed through a newspaper. Hank’s newspaper.

“I hope ye dinnae mind. I took the liberty of bringing in yer paper,” he said in a deep Scottish brogue. Hank had always been told his own voice was particularly deep, but this man’s voicecamefrom the depths.

“Where are my manners?” Callum asked, flipping the newspaper closed and setting it down on the table. “I am Callum MacLeod.” He gestured to the seat across from him, the seat where Hank usually sat.

Hank didn’t move from the doorway. “I know who you are.”

Callum tsked his tongue against his teeth. “Cannae we be civilized about this?”

“I don’t know,” Hank said. “Can we?”

Callum leaned back in his chair, an indolent smile on his face. He was bored, which enraged Hank. He was about to open his mouth to say something to the fact when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Two men, as large as he was, stepped out of the shadows of the dining room and toward the kitchen.

Hank crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Callum, who sighed before muttering something in a language Hank didn’t understand.

Just then, a tattooed man stepped into the kitchen from the mudroom. Hank recognized him from the gas station. Robbie Cain smirked as he leaned against the pantry door behind Callum, one eyebrow raised, looking very much like a cat who brought a mouse home to its owner.

Callum gestured to the empty chair again, and with a heavy sigh, Hank sat and waited, refusing to be the one who spoke first.

“So you’re Hank Dove,” Callum said. It wasn’t a question.

Hank nodded.

“I’ve heard a great deal about you. Ye’re rather popular around here. Everyone had such nice things to say about you. How good you are. How kind. How… helpful.”

Callum reached for an apple from the fruit bowl in the center of the table, a bowl that had been empty for months but that Hank had filled with apples the other week because he thought Esther would like them.

Callum polished the apple on the lapel of his suit before pulling a wicked-looking knife out of his inside jacket pocket and flicking it open. Hank watched as Callum’s huge, tanned hands cradled the small apple so deftly, gliding the knife against the fruit’s flesh, slivering the peel into a delicate, perfectly even, unbroken curl.

Before he could stop himself, Hank said, “I thought vampires couldn’t eat food.”

Callum looked up, his eyebrows raising in surprise, a chuckle escaping his lips. But his peeling never faltered. “Ye thought right. We cannae eat food. But I picked this habit up when I was a human a verra long time ago. It calms my nerves. Helps me think.”

“Calms your nerves,” Hank asked, crossing his arms and leaning back in his own chair, trying to look as unaffected as possible.

“Aye,” Callum replied. “I’ve had an anxious few months chasing after that wily lass of yours, Hank.”

“You didn’t need to chase her,” Hank said through clenched teeth.

“But I did,” Callum replied, glancing down at his apple, which was more than half peeled now. “I only wanted to help her. Just like you only wanted to help her.”

“Like hell you did.”

“Come now, Hank. I’m not a monster. Since everyone spoke of how helpful ye were, I wondered if ye might help me.”

Hank glared at him. “I don’t know where she went. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

Callum studied him. Hank saw Callum’s brows furrow and his eyes narrow slightly as he observed him. “I believe you,” Callum said.