“What do you mean, it’s not what I think? I don’t know what to think. Because you don’t tell me anything! Look at me. This is the result of your grand freaking plan to protect me!” I yelled. Gabriel started to turn away. I grabbed his arm and screamed, “Look at me!”

Gabriel’s face in the moonlight was a mask of misery, the shadows against his bone-white skin sharp and stark. I didn’t have to be a mind reader to see that he wanted to disappear.

“This is your handiwork, Gabriel. This neurotic mess of a vampire standing here. You made me what I am. I hope you’re proud.”

Looking as if he’d been kicked in the gut, Gabriel backed away from me into the shadows. Hot, bloody tears spilled down my cheeks as I shouted, “Don’t come back! Don’t watch my house. Don’t come by. Don’t call me. Just stay away!”

Gabriel’s silver-gray eyes reflected back at me in the dark. I could hear his footsteps on the pavement as he walked briskly away from me without another word.

Somehow, it seemed so much worse than the first time. I sank to my knees, crying until my eyes ran dry. I cried until I was embarrassed to be crouched in an alleyway, shedding tears for someone who obviously didn’t care enough to shed them for me. I pulled myself together, grabbing my purse and straightening my rumpled clothes.

“Damn it.” I sniffled, looking around. “Where’s my underwear?”

I didn’t want to be that friend who shows up at your door with raccoon eyes and hysterics, complaining about her love life.

That’s why I didn’t wear mascara.

Andrea opened her door, wearing Dick’s “Virginia Is for Lovers” T-shirt and no pants, drinking a Budweiser from the can. A Wrestlemania highlights DVD was playing in the background.

“Baby, who is it?” Dick asked, coming out of the kitchen, wearing one of those beer-drinking helmets, jeans, and no shirt.

“I take it back, you are not the same woman I met a year ago,” I told Andrea.

Andrea burped noiselessly under her breath. “I’m aware.”

“Everything OK, Stretch?” Dick asked, taking off the helmet. He didn’t, however, bother to turn down the wrestling match. Apparently, someone was about to shave Vince McMahon’s head again.

Andrea rolled her eyes at him and turned the TV off. “What’s going on, Jane?” I tried to ignore the unsaid “this time” that hung in the air.

I opened my mouth, but I just couldn’t find the words to express the mishmash of frustration and plain old mad I had spinning through my head. I moved my lips. I narrowed my eyes. I made angry hand gestures. But no words came out. I started to pace, gnawing my fingernails to the quick. Fortunately, they grew back almost instantly, which meant I had an endless supply.

Andrea stopped me in my tracks by grabbing my shoulders. “OK, sweetheart, I’m all for nonverbal forms of communication, but you’re starting to look like an extremely pissed-off mime. Use your words.”

“I Tased Gabriel!” I blurted.

“Sweet!” Dick shouted. Andrea shot him an annoyed look. “Right, sorry.” Dick tried to look remorse-stricken, but the minute Andrea’s back was turned, he gave me an enthusiastic double thumbs-up.

“What are you doing with a stun gun?” Andrea cried. “And how long have I been working in close proximity to you and said stun gun without my knowledge?”

I threw my hands up, exasperated. “Why is everyone so surprised that I have a stun gun?”

“Because I’ve seen you staple your hand to a purchase order,” Andrea told me.

“Well, I can’t return the damn thing now. I used it. On Gabriel. Why can’t I get a reaction on that?”

“OK, why did you zap Gabriel?” Dick asked, his eyes gleaming. “Don’t be afraid to go into details.”

“He snuck up behind me, and I just zapped him. It was an accident. At first.”

“That’s my girl,” Dick crowed.

“And then I had sex with him,” I said, grimacing. “But just a little bit.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Dick said, beating a hasty retreat to another beer.

“And then he dropped me!” I cried, burying my face in my hands.

Andrea gasped. “He broke up with you? Again?”

“No, he literally dropped me, on my ass, on the concrete!”

Dick turned on his heel and flopped onto the couch. “I can stay a little while.”

Andrea gave him a silencing glare and patted my shoulder. “So, you had a little accidental sex, big deal. It’s like falling off the wagon. I’ll just take away your thirty-day Gabriel-free chip, OK? Wait, you didn’t stun him again afterward, did you? Is that why he dropped you?”

“No, I dropped my purse, and a bunch of the creepy letters fell out. Gabriel saw them and asked if ‘she’ was writing to me. Which means that this isn’t just some random crazy. This is someone from his past, someone who sent him into some sort of Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment -style panic at the idea of her communicating with me. And you know what pisses me off?”

Andrea nodded. “I’ve got some idea.”

“He just runs off, skulks away like some thief in the night. He gets me all riled up and angry, and then he leaves me all this crap to deal with, with no help from him. It’s like a relationship hit-and-run.” I cleared my raw, aching throat and looked up into my friend’s pitying eyes. “Andrea, I never thought to ask you directly, because I just assumed you would tell me. But just in case you’re trying to protect him or something … could you tell me—do you know who Jeanine is? I’m pretty sure she’s my ‘concerned and vigilant friend.’ The letters say that he made her, but maybe I’m being too literal. Or maybe she’s just lying out her ass. Is it possible that she’s Gabriel’s sire? Because he won’t share that story, either.“

“Jeanine’s not Gabriel’s sire,” Dick blurted out, clearly without thinking. And when Andrea and I turned our attention on him, he muttered, “Aw, crap.”

“Dick, who’s Jeanine?” Andrea asked.

Dick sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. “This is one of those ‘it’s better if I keep my big mouth shut’ situations, honey.”

“Aw, damn it, Dick,” I moaned. “Not you, too.”

Andrea’s lips pursed. She crawled into his lap and made a pouty face. Dick groaned. We both knew he was powerless against Andrea’s pouty face, or, really, any face that Andrea made. “OK, fine, if you won’t tell us who she is, tell us who she isn’t. How do you know Jeanine is not Gabriel’s sire?”

“Because Gabriel’s sire was a woman named Jessica,” Dick blurted out as if he’d been dosed with truth serum. He had the sense to look chagrinned but buckled when Andrea kissed his earlobe. He cleared his throat. “Irish gal, sort of snooty. And she was, is … not very nice. They met at a party hosted by my parents. I don’t know how she found the party or how she chose Gabriel. But she led him away from the party into a cotton crib, had her lascivious way with him, and bit him. She didn’t give him the choice. We didn’t have the rules we do now. Back then, no vampire would say a word if you didn’t necessarily wait for written permission to turn someone. Jessica thought Gabriel would be amusing, but she got bored waiting for him to rise. She had, well, has, a really short attention span. She walked off without thinking about what might happen if he was discovered or got hit with sunlight while he was still sleeping it off.”

“He was turned against his will?” I shuddered, imagining the torture such a violation would incur today. Eager to keep up a pleasant, harmless public image for vampires, the Council for the Equal Treament of the Undead enforced strict laws against forcibly turning humans. The punishment included the Trial, a combination of sunlight, silver, and sometimes a coffin full of bees, a veritable trifecta of capital punishment.

“Well, it’s more like she bit him and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse,” Dick said. “He caught up to her during WWII, feeding on orphans lodged in the English countryside. When he saw her again, when he saw what a monster she was—as much as he resented her abandonment, being left to figure out this vampire thing all by himself, he knew he probably would have grown cruel and bloodthirsty with Jessica. He was grateful that he was left alone. But he knows that his turning out so ass-numbingly dull was all a matter of chance. That’s part of the reason he felt he had such a responsibility to you. He wants you to have the right sort of influence, to become all that you can be, and all that.

“Stretch, I’ve known Gabriel my whole life. For him to get this worked up over something, to put you through all this, he’s got to have your best interests at heart. Just hold on for a while, let him work it out for himself.”

“Whose side are you on?” I grumbled.

“Mine,” he said. “If you two patch things up, I won’t have to hear the pair of you whining all the damn time.”

“The pair of us?” I asked suspiciously. “You’ve been talking to him, too? Damn it, Dick!”

“We agreed you wouldn’t speak to the enemy camp!” Andrea yelled.

“All I did was go over to his house and threaten to kick his ass on your behalf,” Dick said defensively. “It was after the store opening, and when I saw how hurt you were, I couldn’t stand it. I went over there and told him he was getting the beat-down he’d deserved since 1878. And then he cried!”

“He cried?” I asked.

Dick’s teeth ground together, his expression disgusted. “Yes! He took all the fun out of it. How am I supposed to kick a man’s ass when he’s bawling like a baby? It was horrifying. I found myself comforting the jackass.”

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“I told him that whatever he was going through, you were worth— No! No, I am not going to do this,” Dick said, standing and waving the pair of us off. “I don’t want to get caught in the middle of all this. And Gabriel swore me to secrecy … which puts me right in the middle of this. Dang it, he’s better than I thought.” He pulled his beer hat back into place and yelled, “I am Switzerland, do you hear me? Completely neutral. Work this stuff out yourselves. Now, could everybody please be quiet, so I can watch Macho Man Randy Savage beat the crap out of somebody?”

“But, Dick—” Andrea cried.

“Shh!” Dick shot back, turning back to the wrestling match with a determined air.

Andrea and I watched Dick with bemused expressions. “That’s my boyfriend,” Andrea said, sort of meekly.

“At least yours didn’t drop you on your ass,” I pointed out.

10

The best way to get over a messy break-up is to spend time with a supportive group of friends. The best way to chase off a supportive group of friends is to talk constantly about your messy break-up.

—Love Bites: A Female Vampire’s Guide to Less

Destructive Relationships

To say I had some pent-up anger would be like saying Britney Spears had minor impulse-control issues. Love Bites encouraged me to channel those emotions in a positive direction, so I decided to pay Zeb’s contractor a visit.

The minute there was enough twilight shadow for me to move unscathed to the future site of Casa Lavelle, I ran through the trees at full speed. Zeb said that Buster, who was known for high-quality carpentry work before his interest in a perpetual buzz outstripped his desire for a growing clientele, took off at exactly five P.M. every day, leaving a pile of empty beer cans in his wake.

The battered green Dowdy Construction truck was parked in the shade of a huge elm tree, where Jolene had talked about hanging a tire swing for the kids. Buster was dozing with his mouth open, his old faded Cardinals cap perched over his eyes. Long and lanky, he looked like a young Don Knotts, complete with droopy eyes and a twitchy lip.