Wyatt almost had a heart attack. “Johnny?” he whispered. Oh, my God. He was f**king going crazy. Or seeing a ghost.
“Yeah.” Johnny darted a glance behind him at the wall he had just leapt down from. “You’ve got to hide me, man. She’s relentless.”
Since his crossover Wyatt didn’t dream. So this had to be real. But he still felt like pinching himself. “I thought you were dead!” he exclaimed, moving forward to get a closer look at his friend, a massive sense of relief flooding him.
“Well, that was the point. Only somehow she figured it out and she tracked me down.” Johnny was rushing forward, right on past Wyatt. “If she shows up here, you haven’t seen me.”
“Who?”
“Bambi.”
Wyatt’s relief was replaced by utter astonishment. “You faked your death to hide from a woman?”
“Yes.”
“Are you f**king kidding me?” Wyatt was going to kill him. Johnny was alive and now Wyatt wanted him dead. “You put Stella through hell, you ass**le!”
“It was unavoidable. She’ll get over it. But now is not the time to chat about it. Now is the time to hide.” Johnny opened the door and slipped into Wyatt’s bedroom.
Where Stella was sleeping naked. Shit. Wyatt moved to follow him when another thump alerted him to a potential problem. He turned around and saw a mortal woman on the bricks of his courtyard cursing and swiping at her hair as she stood up, shaking out her leg like the drop had injured her. Which it probably had, given it was a five-foot drop and she was clearly mortal, since Wyatt could smell her blood.
“Um, can I help you?” he asked, because what the f**k else was he supposed to say?
“You can tell me where that lying deadbeat dad Johnny Malone is.”
Wyatt’s brain froze for a second and he stared through the murky darkness at a very angry-looking blonde woman in the tiniest denim shorts he’d ever seen in his life. That couldn’t be good for her health. “Uh . . . what was the question again?”
She cracked her knuckle and bounded toward him. “Never mind. I know he’s here. I saw him go over the wall. Faking his death, I mean, really? That’s not going to get his sorry ass out of paying child support.”
Wyatt was more than a little confused. Last time he’d checked, vampires couldn’t procreate. So why did this woman think Johnny owed her child support? He wasn’t exactly sure what to say but he did manage, “I think there must be a mistake.”
She stopped in her march on him and snorted. She was a pretty girl, in an overblown sort of way. Lots of bouncing cle**age and swinging hair. “Are you going to stand there and defend him? I don’t think so. Who the hell are you anyway?”
“I’m Wyatt Axelrod.” He stuck his hand out, which she ignored. “Bambi, I presume?”
Her eyes widened. “So you do know. Don’t cover for him. I’ll still find him and it will just piss me off. You don’t want to piss me off.”
No, he suspected he really didn’t want to do that.
But he was saved from having to reply by the ear-piercing scream Stella gave from his bedroom.
For the second time today Wyatt figured that was the sound of the shit hitting the fan.
Chapter Twenty-two
WHEN BAMBI BECOMES THE HUNTER
STELLA was yanked out of a sound sleep when a loud slam happened somewhere behind her head. Jerking her eyes open, she half sat up, searching for Wyatt and the source of the noise. The door was closed; the wind must have blown it shut.
But it wasn’t Wyatt staring down at her, holding a finger to his mouth to indicate she should be quiet.
It was her brother.
Stella opened her mouth and let loose with a scream. Oh, my God, she was seeing her dead brother. Did that mean she was dead, too? She patted her legs and bit her lips, drawing blood. She felt alive. But did dead people feel dead? She didn’t know because she’d never been dead.
“Stella,” Johnny groaned, looking and sounding exactly like he had when he was alive. “Not cool. She’s going to—”
Whatever his dead self was going to say was cut off when the door flew open, slamming hard into the wall, and a wild-eyed blonde with a big chest came barreling into the bedroom. Stella blinked, clutching the sheet to her own flat chest, and wondered if she had lost her mind. Because she was starting to think she wasn’t dead. Which meant that Johnny wasn’t dead.
“You’re alive?” she asked him, brain firing a little slowly from sleep and shock.
“Kind of obvious, isn’t it?” was his response.
Wyatt came in behind the blonde and came over to her. “Stella, are you okay?”
She nodded. She wasn’t sure she was okay, really, but it was an automatic response. “Johnny’s alive.”
“So it seems.”
And her live brother was rolling his eyes at the blonde who had walked straight up to him and slapped him cleanly across the face. “You’re going to accept your responsibility,” she told him scathingly.
“Bambi,” Johnny said in a soothing voice.
So this was the infamous Bambi.
“It’s not my responsibility.”
“What the hell is going on here?” Stella asked.
Bambi rounded on her. “Who are you?” She whirled back to Johnny. “You’ve been hiding out with this ginger slut? Did you get her pregnant, too?” Her hand went up to deliver another slap but Johnny caught it this time and held her still.
Ginger slut? Stella felt her mouth fall open. What had she done to deserve that? Besides being naked in Wyatt’s bed at the moment, but she hadn’t been expecting company. Certainly not her dead brother. Who apparently wasn’t dead.
“You faked your death?” she asked Johnny, relief that he was actually alive hitting her full force, followed by pure rage. “You motherfucker.”
“Tell me about it,” was Bambi’s opinion. “But no one asked you, slut.”
“Hey!” Johnny protested. “This is my sister, Stella. Don’t be calling her a slut.”
“Why the hell would you fake your death?” Stella said, picking up the bed pillow and hurling it at him. It bounced off his knee. “You selfish prick! I was devastated.”
“Wait a minute.” Johnny looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time. “Why are you naked in Wyatt’s bed?” He looked over at Wyatt, who was standing in the doorway without a shirt or shoes on. “Did you have sex with my sister? What’s wrong with you? You’re my best friend! I’m barely cold in the grave and you’re banging my sister? God!”