Claim Me (Vampire Wardens Resurrection)

“Good to see you as well.” I unload my pills and potions and set the book next to the items, removing the money from the pocket of my skirt.

When Melvin finishes calculating the total, I fear the number is too high. I begin counting bills and confirm, it is indeed a bill too steep for my pockets. I fret over my choices, but the medications are the most critical of my choices. I slide the book aside. “I’ll get that next time.” It’s just enough to allow me to complete my purchase.

“Don’t you read your books to those you help mend?” He asks. This is not my first time to meet Melvin. We have chatted often since he opened his store last year.

“Yes,” I say, “but I have another that is well received.”

He slides the book in front of me. “Take it. You can pay me later.”

“No,” I reply. “You, sir, are so kind, but I do not believe in credit.”

“No credit necessary,” a deep voice says, a bill appearing on the counter. “I’ll purchase the book.” He looks down at me, a tall, broad, perfect man, light brown hair teasing his brow, bright blue, hypnotic eyes study me with interest. “A gift I hope you will accept.”

I turn to face him. “It’s hardly appropriate for a lady to accept a gift from a stranger.”

“Then do not accept it for yourself,” he suggests, “but rather those you treat with your pills and potions. And perhaps as payment.”

I bristle, a single woman with an ailing father, who is an easy target for dark intentions. “Payment for what?”

“My arm was injured with barbed wire. It festers. I fear it is a problem.” He rolls up his sleeve, and I notice the fine cloth it’s made from. This is an expensive shirt. He is a man with money. I am a girl with nothing to my name. But he is also a human in need and I bite my lip at the sight of the nasty wound he’s exposed for my viewing. “Oh my. You do not need to buy the book to earn my aid. I’ll help you just to help you.”

He glances at Melvin. “The book and more of whatever she needs to treat me, sir.”

Melvin smiles his approval. “You can go to my back office and tend that wound. I’ll bring around your purchases.” He eyes me. “Grab what you need to treat his arm.”

I retrieve the items quickly and moments later the blue-eyed stranger sits in a chair, while I tend his arm, a strong muscular arm at that. “How did you hurt yourself?”

“A large Collie dog was trapped in the wire of a fence. I couldn’t leave him.”

“Oh no. Where is it now?”

“He’s receiving medical care.”

“He,” I repeat. “What will happen to him when he is well tended?”

“No one seems to know where he belongs, but I just bought a place a few miles away. I have plenty of land he can run on if he likes, and food to go around.”

I finish bandaging his arm and when I would pull away, he catches my hand. Goosebumps rush up my arm and across my chest. Oh my, I think, as my nipples pucker with wanton, inappropriate attraction to this man, whose name I do not know.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome and you shouldn’t be holding my hand.” But I don’t pull away.

“Why? We are no longer in the old ages. A woman can choose what she wants and who she wants. And sometimes a man and a woman do things they should not when they’re attracted to each other.”

He’s right. These are no longer the times of old, but since I’ve been helping my parents for as long as I remember, I sometimes forget I’m living in my present, not their past. And no one has ever spoken to me in such a way, though I admit to the thrill of his attention. “I don’t know your name.”

“Eli. And you are?”

“Ivy.”

“Ivy, can I call on you?”

My heart flutters a million miles an hour. This gorgeous man wants to call on me? “We are humble people,” I say. “We are not a wealthy family.”

“I don’t care about your money, Ivy. I have my own. What I want is to get to know you.”

I’m aware of his touch, so very aware, and I whisper, “You’re still holding my hand.”