Hugo's car, parked around the corner of the coffee shop, was just about as nondescript as it gets. Very befitting for a lawyer, Regina thought as she gingerly slipped into the black leather seats. Smoothing out her brightly floral skirt, she took a moment to check her phone.

8 missed calls.

8 voice mails.

13 text messages.

Her date settled into the driver's seat, and took a moment to glance at Regina as he pulled at the safety belt. Hugo's breath hitched in his throat. The girl was literally breathtaking, and for a moment, he forgot all about Isabel. They had warned Hugo about this girl - they had no clue what she was capable of, or even what she was, but that's all they told him. He wondered what they wanted with her, and found himself sincerely hoping it wasn't anything as vicious as he suspected.

"So, um, where we goin'?"

Her lilted voice brought him out of his stupor. Finally clicking his belt into place, Hugo brought the car to life, glancing at clock on the dashboard. Hugo grimaced - he was going to have to make this fast if he was going to get back in time for sundown.

"I was thinking maybe like the movies or something. There's this one I've been wanting to see for weeks bu-"

Hugo cut her off, "Hate to say, but I have to cut this short. Got a meeting at six that completely skipped my mind."

"Oh, well, you don't have to take my home." Anywhere but there. "Just, um, drop me off at the nearest movie theater."

"And give another man a chance to snake into my territory? I don't think so, darlin'." He winked. He had his orders. "Besides, don't you have a dog to feed?"

She avoided the question. Of course there was no dog.

"Your territory, huh?"

Regina winked back, forcing a grin on her face, cursing the fact that she let him pick her up at her actual address. Sloppy planning that Regina expected to pay for in full.

As he drove, they talked of little things. He learned her birthday (April 26th) and she learned he had studied law at Texas Tech. His cell phone vibrated from within his jacket pocket a total of twelve times, but Hugo assumed his order of keeping her as safe as possible would be compromised if he tried to check it while driving. She would be awake now, a few minutes before sunset. Hugo knew she was worried

Regina's phone, on the other hand, had a new tally by the time they parked in front of a modestly sized, one-story brick exterior home. 32 missed calls, 32 voicemails, and 44 text messages went unanswered, unheard, and unread, and she knew as soon as she walked past that threshold, there would be hell to pay. The sun was disappearing over the horizon every passing second, a fact that didn't go unnoticed by either party. Soon it would be full dark. He was late.

"We're here," Hugo announced, unlocking the doors.

"Did the big moving truck give it away again?" Regina joked, opening the car door and slowly stepping out. At their meeting in the grocery store, her quick directions had been just that: quick. The one with the big red moving truck, she had said.

"I'll call you tomorrow, maybe I can help you unpack or something." He smiled. He wouldn't be able to call unless he was ordered to, but he already found himself missing the scent that filled his car when she sat next to him. Maybe he could find a way around it if they said no.

The front door to her home flew open.

"Regina Adrienne Fallon, you get in this house right this instant!"

The voice was aged, rough, and harsh. It echoed down the quiet neighborhood street. Squeezing her eyes shut, she mouthed a curse before plastering a smile on her face.

"I'll see you later, Hugo. I had fun."

Pivoting on her heel, she slowly sauntered to the front door of her new home, where her grandfather stood firmly, shotgun in hand.

The nest was dark when Hugo arrived, as it usually was when humans were not around. He whispered, "Honey, I'm home," before flipping the light switch. What he saw, he was unprepared for.

On the long couch sat his beloved, Isabel. She was spaced out, staring blankly as he noticed they did when they were waiting. Across from her in an armchair was Godric, the leader, as he understood. Sheriff is what he'd heard them call him every once in a while, and although he'd only been with Isabel for a few months, he thought he understood what that meant.

Hugo didn't understand.

From the darkest corner of the room, the familiar southern drawl of Stan filled the air, "Well look who's come to join us! Goddamn Ricky Ricardo himself."

"Who?" Isabel asked, raising a single finger in a come-hither gesture to her human.

"I Love Lucy ring a bell? Anything? Desi Arnaz? Anyone?" he hesitated for a second before he continued. "Well, at least your damn human understands me... doubt he knew he's a vamp, though."

Hugo raised his eyebrows as Isabel settled into the crook of his shoulder, rubbing against him almost as a cat would. "So are you guys going to tell me why I had to gather information from this girl? She was a tough egg to crack, lemme tell you. Waiting for her to come out of the house and go somewhere public took long enough - not sure if she'll ever warm up enough to even give me her damn dog's name."

"No, you do not need to know why you are gathering information from this girl," Godric replied, speaking for everyone. He always did. "What have you learned?"

"Said she was twenty-one... but I doubt that. Guess she was about eighteen - looked like she was still living with her grandparents, or had a very old father, or somethin'. Recently moved. Wouldn't talk about past relationships, but she didn't look, um... how to say this, green behind the ears when it came to dates, at least."

"Name?" said Stan, hardly bothering to muffle his amused voice. Useless.

"Regina, um... I think the man called her Regina Fallon. Didn't manage to get her full name before the guy said it."

"You think?" Stan chuckled, coming farther into the living room. "We're not paying you to think. We're paying you to fucking gather information."

Stan stalked across the remaining space in between the couple gathered closely on the couch. "Not sure why you're gettin' fuckin' paid anyways, isn't her your human, Isabel? Huh?"

Her fangs were out in an instant. "Hugo is mine."

Hugo had learned to keep his mouth shut long ago when it came to her possessiveness... the sex was so worth being a kept-man. Besides, maybe one day they could have their own human plaything to call "theirs". Once he was made vampire.

Hugo didn't understand.

"Who was he, Ginny?"

The childhood nickname wasn't lost on Regina. It was a ploy - it was always a ploy - to have her walls come tumbling down so she would run into his arms once again, spilling all her scary stories that her mother whispered to her in the middle of the night.

"No one."

She had learned over the years to keep more secretive. If she didn't, they would move again. Just as she started really putting down her roots, her grandfather would tear up her hard work and move them to some new po-dunk town. Only this time, it wasn't a town out in the sticks. It wasn't in Alaska, or that one island no one ever visits on Hawaii. It certainly wasn't Nebraska, thank God. This was the Metroplex; this was Dallas, Texas, baby. Yee-haw. She didn't understand it; it had been almost two years since they had lived in a city with a population over 10,000. Maybe, just maybe he had run out of small towns to run to where he hadn't been stationed.

What Regina had seen so far in her brief escapades looked nothing like the bigger cities of New York or Chicago she had seen in books, or back when she was allowed to watch TV when they had first started running, but she could definitely learn to love it here. Cowboy hats and all.

If only he would let her have the chance to love here.

"I told you, Gin. No boys allowed. Do you hear me? And god, definitely no men! What were you doing?"

She was learning to put her roots down fast, that's what she was doing. Regina turned around as she neared the top of the stairs. His face was wrinkled - seemed to get worse every time they moved - and he was paler than normal. "He's just some guy I met at the grocery store."

"Grocery store? When did you go to the grocery store?" His voice was rising.

"While you were off buying new furniture. The fridge was empty."

"Of course it was empty, we-"

"I know, I know, moved in yesterday. I was hungry, okay? Ya know, I think they have some sort of law about keeping me all cooped up like this."

"I am your legal guardian. I am your grandfather. The world isn't safe out there at night for a girl like you anymore."

"Oh, what now? What's gonna get me now? The big bad wolf? Tornadoes? In Tennessee, it was the killer bees. In Alaska, it was global warming. Hawaii, volcanoes!" Regina was becoming irate, her face becoming redder as his grew less.

"You don't need to worry yourself about it. Just... be back before dark and don't go anywhere without me. That's all I ask of you."

She took a deep breath. "Doubt the cops are looking for me anymore, anyway. I don't think they ever were." Tears welled up in her eyes, "Can't we just go home now?"

"You know we can't. We can't risk that. I won't let you risk that." He paused and took a deep, labored breath before issuing an order in his most authoritative voice. "You can't see that man again."

She turned back, and continued to make her way to her room down the hall as he called up, loud enough for her to hear.

"You know what will happen."

"Send her a text message reading, 'Would you like to join me for dinner tomorrow at my place?'"

"No, no, that's fuckin' stupid. Keep it simple; make it a command, 'Dinner tomorrow at my place.' Humans really love to be dominated." Stan leered, "Isn't that right, Isabel?"

The fangs of the two vampires hadn't retracted for the past ten minutes, and neither seemed to be able to come to an agreement on how Hugo should go about asking Regina on a second date. They needed more information. It needed to be discreet should something go bad. It had taken an hour for them even to agree on dinner being a suitable second date, let alone one at the nest.

It will be the safest way for us to check her out without suspicion, Godric had said, I am your younger brother, and we live together while I go to the University of North Texas at Dallas.

That was the last time the oldest vampire had spoken. It was also the last time anything would be agreed on for a long while.

Around two o'clock in the morning, as Regina slept quite unsoundly, her phone buzzed with a new text message.

"I'd like to have you over for dinner at my place tomorrow.

Call me."

AN: No, this isn't a Hugo/OC romance... promise ;) Please review - every time my crackberry lights up with another email alert, I get a little more excited for this story and its potential!

DrowningInFlames, UntitledEnder, and Birdym, thank you so so so much for the reviews! They really put me in gear to deliver another interesting (I hope!) chapter!

DrowningInFlames: I hope I can keep you interested!

UntitledEnder: I hope you keep liking where I'm going with this ;) I know I do. But, as they say, it's gotta get bad before it gets good.

Birdym: Hell yeah. :D Snapped his neck like a twig!

And of course, thank you Jeanie91, XueLin, FlyAwayBirdOfPrey, downbelowgirl, varja, Tsumi, SummerJane'10, kyskhet, and almaloun for putting this story or me on alert!