Sure, that was it. He figured Fiona could offer to introduce him to her. Except Emma was glued to Randy Quarterback and Tux needed an in…being that he was probably not really into the physical stuff. First, she had the bad luck to get involved with Bradley Stapleton, who had been playing the field, unbeknownst to her, and now Tux…

  She shook her head. Better to end her fantasies before they got any more interesting and unattainable.

  “Do you want to meet her?” Fiona’s voice sounded a bit on edge, though she had meant to sound sweet and innocent, not in the least bit annoyed. She wanted to growl. No wonder the cutest guy she’d seen in forever wanted to dance with her.

  He shook his head, his gaze shifting back to her. He sure wasn’t talkative.

  “You don’t want to meet her?” This time Fiona said the words so incredulously, that he cast her an elusive smile.

  “No,” he said, his word tinged with amusement.

  A strange sense of relief washed over her. The thought the cutest guy in the school wouldn’t be interested in her girlfriend, instantly set her at ease. “So you said you were new to the school?”

  His dark eyes sparkled. “No, you said I was new to the school.”

  “Oh. I haven’t seen you around, so I thought you might be new.” She bit her lip, trying to come up with something even more brilliant to ask. She never was this tongue-tied with Emma. Why did she have to be such a klutz with Tux?

  The guy in the toga approached again, and Tux’s hand tightened on hers. His protectiveness, or maybe possessiveness, cheered her. She glared at the drunk. Why was it that a drunken kid was the only other guy interested in her? Figured.

  The sheet-cloaked guy stumbled into her. “Can I dance now?”

  “Sure, go right ahead.” Fiona motioned to a free space on the dance floor. “There’s lots of room.” There wasn’t much floor space for a couple, but if Toga Guy danced by himself, there would be room enough.

  He laughed, but his tone wasn’t amused. He grabbed her arm with the grip of a gorilla, his fingers instantly bruising her easily bruised skin.

  She would have taken care of the guy effortlessly with one of her own martial arts moves, just a twist of her arm to free herself, then a knee to the groin, and⁠—

  Before she had a chance to jerk her arm free as she had learned in martial arts, Tux touched him with the palm of his hand and shoved lightly. The drunken kid fell several feet into another couple.

  The toga-clad guy jolted a six-foot tall mummy, who immediately slammed his huge fist into Toga Guy’s face and knocked him on his butt.

  “Fight! Fight!” several of the students chanted, like a bunch of bloodthirsty ghouls.

  “Time to leave.” Tux’s voice was determined, brooking no argument. He grabbed Fiona’s hand, then hurried her toward the exit.

  “Wait! I came with Emma!” Fiona struggled to extract her hand from his, her heart thundering. She didn’t know anything about the guy. Not even his name—she realized—if he was new to school or not…well, anything. What if he didn’t even belong to the school? He certainly didn’t act like any of the immature guys she’d met. He seemed sophisticated, well beyond his years, for being only seventeen or so. Maybe he was eighteen, or maybe he had been held back a year and was nineteen.

  “Emma won’t mind,” he said, his tone dark and mysterious. With Fiona still in tow, he hurried her toward the door.

  “I mind!” She twisted her arm toward herself, then down and around, freeing herself from his grasp.

  “Fiona!” Emma hollered from somewhere in the cluster of students, who were vying for a better view of the fight, while two parent chaperones were racing to stop it.

  Fiona turned.

  “Fiona!” Emma ran toward her. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  Fiona shook her head. “Not without you.”

  “Where’s the totally hot guy?”

  Turning, Fiona looked at the spot where he’d been standing. He’d vanished. He must have slipped out through the exit, but it seemed as though he’d vanished into thin air.

  “Gone,” Fiona muttered under her breath, her arms prickling with unease, yet she couldn’t help being irritated the way things had turned out. The first cute guy who really took an interest in her…

  Oh, heck, what was the use? Concentrating on schoolwork was the most important thing she could do, then getting out of here. Next year, when she was out from under her great aunt’s tyrannical rule, she would have fun.

  “Who was he?” Emma asked. “I don’t think I ever saw him before. Man was he cute. Randy got mad at me for gawking at the two of you dancing. I stepped on Randy's feet twice.”

  Fiona laughed. “Uhm, well, I didn’t quite catch his name.”

  “What?” The disbelief in Emma’s look and voice made Fiona even more conscious that she’d screwed up.

  Fiona shrugged one shoulder, pretending it didn’t matter. Yet, when she’d torn her hand from his grasp, she’d felt a part of her soul wrenched away. “He wasn’t very talkative.”

  Emma tucked her hair behind her ears. “He seemed to really like you. He had eyes only for you. Why wouldn’t he have told you his name?”

  “Maybe he’s a college student. Maybe he doesn’t go to our school at all.”

  “Ahh, sicko. Older guy after high school girls.”

  Figured. Fiona took a deep breath. “He seemed a lot older than the guys our age. Really sophisticated.”

  “It might have been the tux. But it really looked like you were leaving with him, and I worried⁠—”

  Fiona headed for the punch bowl. “Nah, I’m more level-headed than that.” In fact, that’s what she figured was her problem. She never took any chances, never allowed herself to have any fun. Well, except for with Bradley Stapleton, and that had been a total disaster. Then she frowned. Despite knowing she’d never met Tux before, he really seemed…like the guy from her dreams. The guy she had kissed in her dreams. The guy from the mall. Arman.

  She dipped a ladle filled with punch into a cup, then glanced at a light reflecting off something sparkling through one of the windows.

  Tux—his mesmerizing eyes caught her gaze through the glass.

  Her heart rate sped up, and she nearly dropped her drink.

  Emma grabbed her hand. “Jeez, Fiona, you look like you saw a ghost, and you’re spilling your drink all over the floor.”

  Fiona righted her glass and stepped back from the spill, not wanting to stain her white gi.

  “Though there are enough dead people dancing around here that a ghost or two shouldn’t surprise you.” Setting Fiona’s cup on the table, Emma grabbed a napkin to wipe up the mess. But Fiona couldn’t shake the feeling that Tux was watching her, though she was too busy helping her friend clean up the spill to look at the window again. If he was observing her, did he think she was horribly clumsy?

  Emma glanced at the window. “Did you see someone?”

  Fiona looked up, saw only blackness beyond the glass pane, and swallowed hard. “It was just my imagination playing tricks with my mind. It had to be.”

  A shiver of dread and something else trickled down her spine. A part of her wished she’d taken him up on his offer…to leave with him. Another part—the common-sense side that made her do what was right—cheered her on.

  So why did she want to dash out into the night and search for tall, dark, and handsome at the top of the bewitching hour, and find out what other moves he had planned with her?

  3

  “Earth to Fiona,” Emma said as she drove Fiona home. “You’ve been in a daze all evening. I can’t believe Randy asked you twice to dance with him, and you made him repeat his question. Twice.”

  Fiona imagined Randy had probably never been stood up by a girl, and certainly not twice by the same one. Especially one as unpopular as Fiona. That had to be a real ego deflator.

  “Sorry. I guess I didn’t sleep well enough last night. Besides, Randy was only being nice because you jabbed him in the ribs and told him to ask me.”

  “Nah, he was tired of me dancing on his feet.”

  Fiona chuckled. Emma had told her she’d known Randy since she was a preschooler and as laid back as he was, Randy never got upset with her ever. Not even when she’d accidentally spilled soda on his brand-new football uniform at the beginning of the school year. Which reminded Fiona of spilling a soda on the guy at the Dallas mall. At least Fiona wasn’t the only accident-prone person. Instead, Emma had told Fiona that Randy had just smiled and given Emma a kiss. He was always giving her a kiss, come to think of it. Fiona sighed, wishing a nice guy like Randy could give her a kiss, like the guy in her dreams, except for real. “I thought you were a great dancer.”

  “I got distracted.” Emma lifted a sculpted brow. “I still can’t believe you didn’t learn the new guy’s name.”

  Fiona couldn’t either. Why hadn’t he just come out and told her his name? Why hadn’t she just come out and asked him what it was? Maybe he wasn’t that interested in her.

  Sure, that’s why he nearly dragged her out the door when the fight started.

  Had he wanted to protect her? She snorted. Yeah, right. He might not normally be a physical kind of guy. Even though Tux had shoved Toga Kid into the mummy, he might have worried the mummy would clobber him back.

  Tux really didn’t look like he had the kind of build that could handle muscled mummies or other threats. Yet, his sinfully dark eyes held some kind of a hold over her that could definitely be labeled dangerous with a big “D.”

  She glanced at the rearview mirror and swore a black sports car had followed them from the dance. First down the main drag, then a side road, then another street, but then it disappeared down the next one.

  She couldn’t shake the feeling the car had been following them. Paranoia. Sleepless nights were absolutely making her paranoid.

  She glanced back at the road and saw a guy standing next to the road in the dark—too close…too close to the road. The headlights of Emma’s car highlighted the tall, dark-clothed figure of a teen, right before he dashed out in front of them.

  “Stop, Emma!” Fiona screamed at her friend but warned her too late.

  Emma slammed on the brakes, the screeching sound shattering the silence of the night.

  The front bumper hit him squarely in the legs with a horrible thud. For a second, he lingered on the hood, rolled off, and disappeared before their eyes.

  Fiona’s heart thundered, and she barely breathed. “Ohmigod, ohmigod.”

  Emma stared out the windshield, not moving, not saying a word.

  For a second, Fiona was worried her friend had gone into shock, but what about the guy she had just ran over? Fiona began issuing orders. “Emma, snap out of it! Turn off the ignition, set the emergency brake. Call 911.”

  “I…I didn’t bring my cell phone.”

  Through clenched teeth, Fiona ground out, “Great! Neither did I.” Too late to regret the fact she had left it at home. She’d been running late for the party and had left it charging on her dresser. That’s what she got for being out of time as usual. Jumping out of the car, Fiona dashed in front of it. The blood rushed to her ears as she peered at the six-foot tall, dead-looking, redheaded hunk. He…he looked like the guy who had been at the Dallas mall with Arman. This was just too unreal. She didn’t believe in coincidences, and she couldn’t believe they would all be here in Portland, Oregon suddenly, running into her in different ways.

  “He just can’t be dead,” Fiona whispered to Emma, touching the guy’s wrist. No sign of a pulse, not even a whisper of one.

  Emma crept up beside her. “Is he…he⁠—”

  “He doesn’t have a pulse.”

  Emma tugged at her long blond hair. “Give him mouth-to-mouth.”

  “You give him mouth-to-mouth! He’s dead!” Fiona touched his throat, trying to find a pulse there, just in case his wrist one wasn’t working. “Jeez, Emma, we’ve got to take him to the hospital.”

  “But, they’ll report this to the police.”

  “So?” Fiona couldn’t believe Emma. She was usually pretty well-grounded. Of course, running over a guy could shake anyone. Fiona shook her head and sighed, deeply exasperated. “Help me get him into your car.”

  “We can’t.”

  “What? We can’t leave him out here in the middle of nowhere. That’s illegal,” Fiona said.

  “Running over him is illegal.”

  Her friend had a point. Fiona motioned to his tux, which reminded her of the other guy who had disappeared at the dance. “The guy’s wearing black clothes and stepped out of the woods into the car’s path. He blended in with the night. You didn’t have time to stop.”

  “I don’t have my driver’s license yet. I mean, when Mom returns home on Monday, she was going to take me in to get the license. I’m supposed to be driving with an adult still.”

  Fiona stared at her. “I thought you got your license yesterday.”

  “I was supposed to, but Mom had to leave too early.”

  “Emma! I can’t believe you did this to me…to us. Help me get him into your car, now! I’ll drive us to the hospital.” At least Fiona had her license!

  He stirred.

  They both stared at the guy. In the car headlights, he appeared pale, probably due to running over him and killing him, briefly. His hair was slightly long and red. But his lips were as pale as his skin.

  Fiona ran her fingers over his arm and felt him stir again. “Oh, oh, oh, he’s coming to.”

  Emma frowned. “You said he was dead.”

  “Don’t argue with me! He groaned and his hand moved. Help me get him into your car.”

  “But if he has injuries, couldn’t we make them worse?”

  Fiona took his hand. “He’s ice cold. But you’re right. We shouldn’t move him.” She looked up at Emma. “What am I saying? We can’t stay here all night, waiting for someone to come along. Help me get him into your car.”

  The dead guy groaned.

  Both she and Emma gasped.

  “Are you all right? Where do you hurt? Can you hear me?” Fiona asked.

  The guy’s eyes popped open, pretty green eyes. They seemed to draw Fiona into their bottomless depth. She blinked as he stared at her, then felt his hold over her withdraw as he looked up at Emma.

  “She hit you,” Fiona said, quickly. Though she hadn’t meant to sound like a five-year-old who wanted a parent to know she hadn’t done the bad deed.

  Emma rolled her eyes and folded her arms.

  A slight smile curved the guy’s lips upward at the corners when he looked back at Fiona.

  Was he delirious? In shock? What was there to smile about? He was mostly dead only seconds before. Even if the car didn’t break any of his bones, he would surely be in lots of pain, bruises, internal injuries even, maybe.

  “I’m hungry. Do you want to go to the Burger Joint?” he asked.

  His dark, deep voice made Fiona think of Tux at the dance. She’d never seen a guy in a tux, accept at the prom in Dallas last year. And now two in one night? Still, she reasoned the guy had to be half out of it. Whoever heard of a guy getting hit by a car, dying, and then wanting a burger?

  “We have to get you to a hospital,” Fiona said, taking his hand to help him up.

  “Do we have to?” Emma squeaked. “I mean, you heard him. He has got to be fine if he’s hungry.”

  “Emma, he was dead…I mean, unconscious.” Fiona didn’t want to make him feel worse than he had to be feeling about it already. “That means we need to take him to the hospital and get him checked out. He’s probably in shock. If we feed him, no telling what might happen. What if he has internal injuries? The food could go someplace it shouldn’t.”

  “I feel perfectly fine,” he said, and allowed Fiona to help him up. “Really, I haven’t eaten in a while. Would you mind joining me at the Burger Joint? I hate eating alone.”

  “See?” Emma said, tilting her chin up. Then she frowned. “Mom said I couldn’t let anyone ride in the car except for you, Fiona.”

  “She probably said you couldn’t drive the car until you got your license either.”

  Emma frowned. “Alright. That was if I was driving. If you’re driving, it could be okay.”

  Fiona shook her head, but she still held onto his hand. If he was alright, why was he so terribly pale?

  “Please?” the guy said.

  Fiona took the keys from Emma. “Alright, but I think that you eating anything before a hospital checks you out is a horrible idea. Don’t blame me if you die on us again.”

  “In your capable hands, I’m sure you would bring me right back to life again.” He smiled at her. “My name is Ruric, by the way.”

  She opened the back door for him. “I’m Fiona, and this is Emma. You probably ought to lie down in the backseat until we reach town.”

  He moved to the passenger’s front door. “If you don’t mind. I might get queasy sitting in the back.”

  Emma shook her head. “Whatever.”

  Anything should have suited Emma as long as Fiona didn’t take Ruric to the hospital. Still, Fiona worried he wasn’t quite all right.

  “Do you feel nauseated right now?” Fiona asked.

  He smiled when she climbed into the driver’s seat. “No. Really, I feel great.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Fiona muttered under her breath. For one thing, he had to have a terrific headache. For another, where the car smacked his body, he had to be feeling some pain.

  “Dead guys don’t lie, Fiona.” Again, he smiled at her when she glanced at him.

  Emma tried to change the subject. “So you have a strange accent, and Ruric isn’t a usual name. Where are you from?”

  “Wales. The name means people of victory in Romania, where some of my people were from. Though some believe I have Celtic heritage. Others say they’re sure I descended from Vikings.”

  “Cool,” Emma said.

  “Were you at a dance or something?” Fiona asked, this time keeping her eyes on the road.

  “Yeah, a dance.”