Free Immortal Ever After by Lynsay Sands Page B

simply took them from her and slung both over his own shoulder.
    “Anything else?” he asked.
    She hesitated, but then headed for the bedroom to survey her wardrobe. Marguerite had done a good job of picking clothes for her, but there were a couple of items Valerie thought might come in handy. She pulled them out of the closet, and quickly rolled up and packed them into a duffel bag Anders pulled down from the closet’s upper shelf for her.
    The bathroom was last, and Valerie was very aware that Anders was standing a foot away, waiting patiently. She would have liked to ask him to leave, but she was a grown-up, he was a grown-up and old enough to know about the physiology of the female body, so she took a deep breath, knelt to open the cupboard under the sink and pulled out tampons and pads. Her period should come in the next week or so and she didn’t know how long she’d have to stay at Leigh’s house.
    Valerie set the feminine items on the counter, and then moved to the other end of the cupboard to gather some makeup and moisturizer from a drawer there.
    When she turned back with the new items, Anders was calmly packing her feminine hygiene products away in the duffel with her clothes.
    “Thank you,” she murmured self-consciously as she dumped the new items in. Valerie then moved to the medicine cabinet. Her birth control pills were still there. She didn’t know if Marguerite had missed them or if she’d just thought that since Valerie had been without them for the last two weeks and was now in protective custody for an unknown length of time, she wouldn’t need them, but Valerie took them and threw them on top of the other items in the duffel bag Anders was holding.
    She zipped it shut with a cheerful, “All done,” then bent to pet Roxy, who was nosing her side.
    “Thank you for working quickly,” Anders responded quietly, the words drawing a laugh from Valerie.
    “That’s the only speed I know,” she admitted wryly as she led him out of the bathroom. The clinic was always busy and rush was the speed she’d become used to.
    Leigh and Marguerite were waiting in the living room, Leigh holding the grocery bag with the smaller, lighter items. Marguerite had Roxy’s bed under one arm, and was dangling the large bag of dog food from one hand as if it weighed nothing. Both women smiled at their arrival, but it was Leigh who asked, “All set?”
    “All set,” Valerie agreed. “We can go.”
    “Good. I’m dying for a cup of coffee,” Leigh announced, leading the way to the door and out onto the porch.
    “I thought you were avoiding coffee until you had the baby,” Anders said, following the women out of the house.
    “I was. But the baby is overdue and mama wants a coffee,” she said rebelliously, sailing across the porch. Pausing at the top of the stairs down to the sidewalk, she turned back with a grimace and said, “But I’ll settle for decaf.”
    “Hmmm,” Anders muttered as he locked the door with Valerie’s keys. “I suppose that means you want to hit a coffee shop on the way out of Cambridge?”
    “You suppose right,” Leigh said cheerfully.
    “I wouldn’t mind a coffee myself,” Valerie said apologetically. “That ice cream left me thirsty and—” She paused and glanced around as Roxy went suddenly stiff beside her and began to growl low in her throat. Noting that the dog was staring across the street, Valerie glanced that way herself as she put a soothing hand on the dog’s neck, and then she froze. There was a man standing in the late-afternoon shadow cast by the house across the street and she was sure it was Igor. The shape and sheer size were his, but—
    “Valerie?” Anders moved up beside her and took her arm. “What is it?”
    She glanced to him briefly, and then back, eyes widening when she saw that Igor was gone. If he had ever really been there, Valerie thought and reminded herself that he was dead. She’d killed him. No man could survive a stake through the