“That seems … fair,” he said dejectedly. “Could you talk to her—”

“No,” I said, firmly enunciating each word very carefully. “I’m her friend, not her pimp. Put your big-boy pants on and deal with this yourself. Maybe you could ask her to Zeb and Jolene’s wedding.”

He chuckled. “Speaking of the Gormless Wonder, I got this in the mail today.”

He took a cornflower-blue envelope out of his back pocket and slid it across the counter.

“Wow.” I marveled at the Lavelle-McClaine wedding invitation. I’d been trimmed from the invite list when Zeb and Jolene realized I was honor-bound to attend most of the wedding events anyway, so we didn’t need to bring engraved stationery into the deal. “I’d heard about them, but … there are no words.”

Jolene and Zeb were having a Titanic-themed wedding. Personally, I think centering your nuptials around one of history’s greatest maritime disasters is kind of creepy, but Jolene has a serious Kate-and-Leo complex. I guess I shouldn’t judge. When I was a little girl, I dreamed I would get married in an ancient English castle and ride away in a horse-drawn carriage. And my sister would be tied up in the dungeon. Of course, I also thought I’d be marrying Mark-Paul Gosselaar from Saved by the Bell, and we can all see how that turned out.

Jolene’s theme was a mix of the morbidly historical and old Hollywood glamour. Her wedding ensemble consisted of a rhinestone copy of the Heart of the Ocean and a slightly-too-flattering-to-be-true-to-period costume. Zeb just barely managed to talk her out of having decorative life preservers made up with their names and wedding date. She was, however, using a model of the Titanic to serve chips and salsa. The boat was split in two, the salsa in one side and the chips in the other. She ordered this monstrosity online, along with her wedding ensemble and the invitations with an embossed iceberg on the cover and the words “Struck by Love.” If you looked closely enough at the crags in the pressed-relief iceberg, you could make out Jolene’s and Zeb’s initials.

Some people should not be allowed access to the Internet.

“What exactly are the rules for bringing dates to werewolf weddings?” I asked. “I didn’t get an invitation per se, so I can’t exactly send back a response card with a ‘plus one.’ Then again, Gabriel is a groomsman, so I assume they know he’s coming. You, on the other hand, got an invitation, but it’s addressed to you alone. Are you allowed a ‘plus one’?”

“I haven’t been invited to a wedding in about ninety years,” Dick admitted. “I’m still trying to figure out what those little pieces of tissue between the envelopes are for.”

“Zeb said you guys are doing some sort of manly bowling-drinking-bonding thing this weekend. Do I have to give you the ‘Allow my friend to be hurt by one of your less-than-reputable acquaintances, and you’ll wake up with my foot lodged in your nether regions’ speech?”

“No,” he said, grinning broadly.

“Good, because the title gives away the ending.”

Dick muttered, “See if I help you escape certain death again.”

“Well, do you have any other homicidal ex-girlfriends who might try to frame me for murder?”

He made a rude hand motion I choose not to describe here. It was enough to bring Mr. Wainwright out from the shelves to scold Dick for his lack of chivalry.

“In my day, gentlemen didn’t make gestures like that at ladies,” he said, drawing himself to his full height. All five feet and six inches of him. Osteoporosis had not been kind.

Dick grinned lazily, unashamed. “Once you spend more time with her, Gilbert, you’ll understand.”

Mr. Wainwright’s eyes narrowed, staring. “Do I know you?”

“Yes,” Dick said. He winked at me. “See you later, Stretch.”

“Do you know him?” I asked after Dick left.

He shook his head. “I have no idea. I have a much better memory for books than for people.”

“You’re probably better off,” I assured him.

“I couldn’t help but overhear you talking about Zeb’s upcoming nuptials, Jane. I think I have a book that might help you.” He held up a soft-cover volume titled Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were.

I opened to a section titled “Human-Werewolf Relations” and read aloud: “The best way for a suitor to win over a female werewolf’s father is to present him with a fresh carcass. The larger the game, the more impressive the suit. Deer and elk make a bold statement. Squirrels and rabbits will get you laughed out of the pack.”

I kissed the top of his balding pate. “A book for every problem. I love you, Mr. Wainwright.”

He flushed with pleasure, squeezing my hands. “The feeling is mutual, dear.”

3

Because of their natural animalistic leanings, were-creatures are more connected to their sexual instincts than the average human. Because premarital relations are frowned upon in the were community, were honeymoons generally last three or four times as long as human honeymoons.

—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were

Other than a new career, new hours, new diet, new friends, and a slightly unhealthy sire-childe relationship, not much had changed in the months since I’d been turned.

No, wait, I was going broke. That was new.

My part-time paychecks weren’t enough to fund my “extravagant” lifestyle. Thanks to the wonders of vampirism, I’d been able to cut little extras such as food and medical insurance. But the taxes on River Oaks were coming due soon. The water heater was making weird noises, and there was a suspicious and expensive-looking sag in my roof just over Aunt Jettie’s old room. I had a 200-pound dog to feed and an expensive dental regimen to maintain. And the payment people at Visa were starting to ask questions. The financial juggling was becoming a little more than I could keep up with.

Complicating matters was the delay in my “triumph settlement.” Earlier that year, I’d fought Missy the Evil Realtor to the death after she’d framed me for a series of crimes, all in an effort to obtain River Oaks—or, rather, the property River Oaks stood on. My sprawling old family farm was the keystone plot in a tacky undead condo development she had planned. Frustrated by Aunt Jettie’s refusal to sell, Missy had decided to use the World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead’s laws governing vampire behavior to yank the property out from under me. So I didn’t feel too bad about running her through with one of her own realty signs.

In the vampire world, if you kill another vampire in battle, you get all of his or her stuff. And since Missy had spent years amassing property and swindling vampires out of their homes, that amounted to quite a bit of stuff. But after months of red tape and delays, I wasn’t holding my breath for the council to fulfill its promise to fork over Missy’s holdings anytime soon. Of course, holding my breath wouldn’t really matter one way or the other, but …

I hadn’t told anyone about my financial woes, not even dearly departed Aunt Jettie. There was nothing I could do. I was stuck. I was too fond of Mr. Wainwright to leave Specialty Books. Even though I was basically an unglorified sales clerk with two advanced degrees, I’d gotten the distinct impression that Mr. Wainwright had come to depend on me. He was doing less and less at the shop, opening later, going to bed earlier in his little apartment over the store, and leaving me to close. I couldn’t abandon him.

If I told my parents I was having money problems, Mama would, well, I don’t think she would insist I move back in with them now. But I’m sure my life, liberty, and pursuit of healthy boundaries would be infringed upon in some way. And while Gabriel had made repeated offers to help me out financially, that just wasn’t relationship baggage I wanted.

Most sire-childe relationships are not as complicated as ours. Gabriel is dark and intense, obsessive to the point of being just this side of creepy. Some guys bring you flowers and candy; others exact biblical revenge by pushing trees on top of the drunk hunter who fatally shot you. I’m more of a crunchy-granola-pacifist vampire, so I found this rather disturbing. OK, it was a tiny bit hot but mostly disturbing.

I knew Gabriel was not evil. For that matter, neither was I. Vampires have the same capacity for good and evil that humans do. To be fair, people can lose some notions of etiquette when they’re no longer answering to the moral constraints of human society … and they thirst for human blood. The bottom line is that if you had evil leanings in life, you’re probably going to embrace them wholeheartedly once you’re undead. If you were a decent person, say a former librarian who loves America and puppies, you’re probably going to be an upstanding, almost vegetarian vampire.

It took Gabriel and me weeks to work through the weird feelings that followed his murdering Bud Mc-Elray. As a human, I’d never been in love. I’d been in deep, abiding like with several of my boyfriends, but I’d never had that feeling, that “Wow, this is a person I could spend the rest of my life with” feeling. And even though Gabriel was one of the few people I could spend the rest of my long, long life with, I couldn’t think of being with him as a permanent situation. He’d saved me. He’d killed for me. But I couldn’t accept that someone like him could be interested in me.

Gabriel was everything I was not. Sophisticated and complicated and able to color-coordinate a room like you wouldn’t believe. I craved him with a bone-deep lust I’d once reserved exclusively for Godiva truffles. I was fixated, not just in the physical sense—though that was an obvious, and occasionally distracting, bonus—but with what he thought, how he saw the world, how he saw me. It was addictive to see myself reflected in his liquid silver eyes as strong, beautiful, intelligent, interesting, though slightly exasperating. Even when we were together, all I could think about was the next time we could be together.

I needed order. I needed constancy. But being with Gabriel was like standing in the center of a swirling eddy, the dark water surrounding you, dizzying, powerful, and beautiful. But all the while, you can’t help but feel those churning walls closing in, threatening to crash in on you and crush you under their weight.

I couldn’t seem to find my footing in this relationship. It didn’t help that Gabriel kept leaving town on business trips like this current one, the third excursion in as many months. Now that he wasn’t keeping constant “Keep Jane alive and out of trouble” vigils, Gabriel was spending some time catching up with his various business interests. He was the proprietor of three radio stations in the Southeast, plus a hotel in Atlanta, a seafood restaurant in New Orleans, and a mini-golf course in Biloxi. And those were just the ventures in this country. I know it sounds like Tony Soprano’s investment portfolio, but to be fair, he had more than 100 years to diversify. Older vampires are heavily invested in human real estate, medical research, music, publishing, and media. It’s what has helped maintain our cover for two millennia. It’s not a conspiracy or anything, we’re just trying to keep you people from setting us on fire in our sleep. If we controlled everything, do you really think the Lifetime network would have had a vampire detective show?

So Gabriel floated in and out of my world, letting me think I could handle life without him, only to show up after a few weeks and make me crazy all over again. I was frequently left to wallow and wonder where he was and what he wasn’t telling me. I excelled at wallowing and wondering. If I called, it went to his voice mail. If he called, it was always just before dawn, as I was falling asleep and didn’t have the mental capacity to ask him much. This combined with a painfully active imagination led to scenarios that would have done that Lifetime show very proud.

And, of course, he had to come home from his latest trip on a Tuesday night to find me wearing my “housework” sweats and a dirty bandanna around my head.