The cracking of my unhinged jaw echoed in the empty kitchen as Mama Ginger resumed munching her dessert. She shrugged and chewed. “I mean, if you don’t have children, what’s the point of being a woman?”

I think I deserve some sort of karmic reward for not using my vampire strength to pull Mama Ginger’s lip over her head. Obviously, kids weren’t an option. That door closed the moment I swallowed vampire blood. In general, vampires do not make great parents. Our night hours are incompatible with healthy human sleep patterns. It’s hard to discipline a child when they can just run out into the daylight to escape you. And then there’s the whole “never aging and outliving your children by hundreds of years” thing.

Parents who have been turned while their children are still minors have to fight fang and nail to retain custody, even when there’s a living parent in the home. And the last legislator who brought an undead adoption-rights bill before Congress was literally laughed out of office.

Gripping the countertop in a way that left moon-shaped dents in the surface, I counted to ten and said, “That’s just—”

Mama Ginger dropped her fork dramatically and cut me off, “Honey, I just can’t stand it. I have to tell you. A mother’s heart can’t bear to see her son in such pain.”

“Zeb’s in pain?”

“Well, sweetie, isn’t it obvious? He only went after Jolene when you hooked up with this Gabriel character. He said he doesn’t see you nearly as often since you met Gabriel, and I know it’s just breaking his heart. Jolene’s just his rebound girl. He’s not in love with her. He’s trying to get back at you.”

“For what?”

“For not loving him back!” Mama Ginger cried.

“Zeb doesn’t love me. He loves Jolene,” I said in a slow, deliberate tone one might use with someone who was very dim or slightly drunk. Or both.

“But you’re the perfect match, you always have been. You have such a long history together. You can’t just throw that away. Hot pants and hormones do not make a marriage. Believe me, honey, I should know. I married for lust, and look what happened to me: a husband who doesn’t talk and in-laws who talk too damn much. What you have, friendship and companionship, that’s what makes a solid, lasting marriage. That’s what is going to make my boy happy.”

“Please, God, let that be the last time you ever say ‘hot pants’ in front of me.”

“It’s always been you and Zeb, in my head.” Mama Ginger paused to press her fingers to her temples, as if she were about to peer into a future where I was somehow living and bearing her lots and lots of little Lavelles. “Whenever I pictured Zeb’s wedding, it was always you walking down that aisle.”

“You’re just not making sense right now,” I told her. “If you’d just get to know Jolene, you’d see why Zeb loves her so much.”

“She’s not you! When you and Zeb are married, we’ll be the perfect, big happy family. You and Zeb can come over for dinner every other night. We’ll go to flea markets on the weekends. And I’m sure Mamaw or Daddy Lavelle would be dead by the time you and Zeb started having babies, so you could move right into one of the trailers behind the house.”

I think I might have sprained something trying to keep a straight face in response to that. “But if you really want a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship like that, Jolene would be more than willing to do all of those things with you. She wants to be close to you.”

“But it won’t be the same. That’s not the way I pictured it.”

“But it would be the way Zeb pictures it. I don’t want Zeb. And he doesn’t want me. He wants Jolene. Isn’t it important to let him have some say in choosing his wife?”

“Oh, he’s a man, he doesn’t know what he wants.” She snorted. “If I didn’t help him figure out what’s best for him, what kind of mother would I be?”

The kind of mother whose son doesn’t dodge her calls?

“You’re going to see things my way soon enough,” Mama Ginger insisted.

“What does that mean?”

“I just want to help you and Zeb figure some things out, honey,” Mama Ginger said, standing up and hitching her bag over her shoulder. “Well, this was fun, but I’ll just let myself out. I have to go meet with Jolene’s mama over at the Bridal Barn to talk about dresses for the wedding, like I need fashion advice from that dowdy thing. Vonnie’s making some big deal about keeping the shop open late.”

I stared after her as she toddled toward the back door. She smiled beatifically at me. “If you ever want to talk, give me a call.”

I sat at the counter, staring at the untouched oozy layers of pastry on my plate, my head spinning. Aunt Jettie appeared next to the sink, her lips quirked into a sneer.

“What is that?” she asked, pointing at the remains of Mama Ginger’s cobbler. “It’s like an autopsy with fruit.”

“Mama Ginger came calling, to set the alarm on my biological clock. Oh, and to remind me that there’s no point to me being a woman if I never have children.”

“Well, if that’s true, I wasted a hell of a lot of money on panty hose and lipstick.” Jettie snorted.

“I don’t know where this is coming from. Why would she say something like that? And why am I letting it bother me? It’s not like I can just decide to turn my lady parts back on.”

“Oh, honey, don’t you think I heard the same thing my whole life?” she said, stroking her cold, insubstantial fingers down my back. Her voice pitched up two octaves. “ ‘Don’t you know you’re wasting your life? You’re going to end up alone with no one to take care of you when you get old. What makes you think you’re too good to get married and have babies like you’re supposed to?’ Most of that was just your grandma Ruthie. You have to ignore them.”

“But don’t you ever regret it?” I asked. “Not having children of your own?”

“I didn’t need to have children of my own.” She grinned. “I had you. I cared for you, taught you, learned from you. I may not have carried you in my womb, but I always carried you in my heart.”

“If I wasn’t thinking about your womb right now, that would have been such a sweet sentiment,” I said, leaning my forehead against her ghostly noggin.

“Do you feel better now?” she asked.

“Eh.” I waffled my hand. “I’d feel better if I could eat about a gallon of Ben and Jerry’s without vomiting.”

When Gabriel finally called three days later to let me know he was back in town, I decided it was time for me to take some initiative. With my ever-present fear of being a needy childe, I usually waited around for him to call. But I figured a little manufactured romance was just the thing to get me out of my Mama Ginger-induced funk. I slipped into a silky red T-shirt and jeans and marched out the door to see him. Or at least I would have, had I not opened the door to find Adam Morrow standing on my porch. And because I had a bit of momentum going, I ran smack into him and, in my panic, lifted him by the armpits to move him out of my way.

“Adam!” I shrieked.

He made a gurgling sound as I dropped a limp pile of veterinarian onto my porch.

“Adam, I’m so sorry,” I said, picking him up and settling him back on his feet.

“It’s OK,” he said, clutching a squashed box, which I could now smell was flowers. “It was kind of cool.”

“What are you doing all the way out here?”

“I wanted to see you,” he said, uncrumpling the box and straightening the shiny red bow attached. “And I see now that surprising a vampire is not a good idea.”

I stared at him, my mouth open, gaping like a suffocating goldfish.

“Yeah, I figured out the vampire thing,” he said, a sheepish blush coloring his cheeks. Oh, man, even in the dark, that just made him cuter. “At the visitation that night, I didn’t see you eat anything. And, well, no one sees you during the day anymore. You don’t have to worry. I won’t tell anyone. I just wanted to—I just wanted to see you. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. And I’ve never known a real vampire before.”

I laughed. “I’m so glad I could be the first.”

“These are for you,” he said, offering me the mangled box. “It’s jasmine. I thought you might like it. It’s night-blooming.”

“That was thoughtful,” I told him.

Adam Morrow brought me flowers. On the checklist of “Teenage Daydreams That Will Probably Never Happen to Me,” that was number one. Now, all I had to do was make out with one of the straight members of ‘N Sync and star in a movie with Hugh Grant.

Unsure what to do with the box, I opened the door. A boulder of fur flew at us, giving me a full-on tongue bath. After deeming me sufficiently licked, Fitz turned his attentions to Adam, a strange man in dark clothes standing on our porch. Fitz is adorable in his own hideous way, but as a security system, he’s pretty much useless.

“Hey, boy.” Adam grinned, rubbing Fitz’s muzzle as I led them into the living room. “You’re just a whole bunch of breeds, aren’t you?”

Adam was not my vet, because the idea of spazzing out in front of him every time Fitz needed a checkup was not a happy one. Fitz proved to be a fascinating Mendelian model for him. I guess Adam had never seen a dog with eyes and ears that were each a different color. Fitz leaned into the scratching and let his tongue loll out to full length, useless and prideless.

“So, you’re not weirded out at all by this?” I asked, drawing my lips back from my fangs.

“No,” he insisted. “Like I said, it’s really interesting. You’ve changed a lot since high school.”

I snorted. “That’s an understatement.”

Aunt Jettie appeared behind Adam and gave me a big thumbs-up. With Adam concentrating on Fitz, I mouthed, “I know!” and shooed her away. Jettie grinned and vanished.

“What’s it like? What’s it like to be a vampire?” he asked.

“Weird,” I said, looking at him. “Powerful, exciting, and occasionally humiliating, confusing, and painful. It’s sort of like going through puberty all over again. Nothing about my life is the same. But there are some good things. Awesome night vision, for one. I’m still trying to balance things out. I mean, when we were taking those aptitude tests on Career Day, vampirism was not something that came up. I never could have predicted my life turning out this way, but I’ll have the best story at our class reunion.”

Adam looked up and blurted, “I was wondering if you might want to go to dinner sometime?”

“I don’t really eat,” I said.

“Oh, right,” he said, slapping his forehead. “Well, what about coffee? Or we can stay in and watch a movie if you’re more comfortable with that. I’m up for anything. Just—I would like to spend time with you. What are you doing tonight?”

“I was actually heading out to see my friend. The friend I mentioned at the funeral. The … man friend.”

Adam’s face fell a little bit. “You’re not making this easy for me, are you, Jane?”

“I don’t think I’m supposed to make it easy for you,” I said. “In fact, when I was a teenager, my mother gave me several lectures on why I shouldn’t make this easy for you.”

He laughed. “Well, you can’t blame me for trying. Anytime you want to hang out, even if it’s just as friends. I mean, I don’t want to be just friends with you, but I’ll take what I can—I’m not saying this right.” He backed away from me, negotiating the steps without even looking down. “Just call me sometime, please.”

Giddy little butterflies danced around my belly. I brushed my cheeks with my fingertips and found a big silly grin stretched across my face.

“Adam Morrow wants to date me,” I told Aunt Jettie, who stood next to me as I watched him drive away. “That’s weird.”

“That’s one very sweet boy.” Jettie nodded. “Respectful, thoughtful, and kind. His mama raised him right.”

“I know.” I sighed, taking the flowers into the kitchen and putting them into one of Jettie’s favorite pressed-glass vases.

Jettie nodded. “Nice ass, too.”

“Gross.” I shuddered.

She smirked. “I’m dead, not blind, honey.”

“And still, I say, ew.” I grabbed my purse and slipped into my coat. On a whim, I grabbed Jettie’s old wicker picnic hamper out of the front closet. “I don’t have time for this. I need to go be confused by the man I’m actually dating.”

As it turned out, Gabriel was the one confused.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he opened his front door before I could even knock.

It was more than the weary tone that had little alarm bells going off in my head. Gabriel’s face was drawn and pinched. His eyes were a dull slate color and lacked the spark I’d come to expect. He looked almost ill. This was more than just traveler’s stress. Something was wrong. But I could tell by his guarded expression that asking would leave me without answers and alone on a perfectly good date night.

“Nothing,” I said, smiling to hide my worries. “Absolutely nothing.”

“You never come to see me unless you’re angry or something has gone wrong.”

I gasped, feigning hurt. “That’s not true.”