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Jolene’s powers of emotional concentration would have been more impressive had she not been staring me down while turning her van into a dry cleaner’s parking lot. I was trying to treat the still-tingling nerves of my lips and tongue with a strawberry milkshake from the Dairy Freeze. I was starting to suspect that it was more than just physiological, because nothing was working. It wasn’t even unpleasant anymore, just a lasting, warm tingle over my skin. This couldn’t be normal. “I thought you were goin’ home to prevent your pranks from ‘goin’ off’ on Sam.”
“I tried to stop it,” I said lamely, clutching the door frame for all it was worth, so I wouldn’t smack my face into the window. “And then he took apart my pans and said mean things to me, and I sort of stopped myself from stopping it.”
“So he slipped down the basement steps?” she said, cringing as she pulled to a screeching stop.
“I forgot about that,” I said. “It would explain the loud thump I heard before bed.”
Jolene gave me a withering look.
“What?” I grumped, crossing my arms.
“Have you thought about the fact that under the fangs and the bluster, there’s a person with feelings?”
“I don’t really care how he feels, Jolene,” I protested. “I’m sorry for what he’s going through. But he’s not the only one out there in pain. I—what is it we’re doing here, again? I thought we were going to Jane’s shop.”
“I need to make a quick stop first. I work part-time for a vampire concierge service here in town. My boss, Iris, asked me to pick up some of her clients’ dry cleaning. Vampires are hell on clothes, let me tell you. I’ll just be a minute. Do you want to come in?”
I glanced around the busy corner of Main Street, right off the memorial square of downtown Half-Moon Hollow. There was a classic white gazebo in the center, flanked by golden ginkgo trees and statues of Civil War soldiers. There was a huge plastic banner stretched across the street, advertising “Burley Days! Food, Frolic, and Family Fun!” starting in two weeks.
“No, I’ll just wander around, if that’s OK. I’ll meet you back here in a bit.”
She glanced down the street at the small-town oasis drawing me in and grinned broadly. I was stunned for just a moment by the sheer brilliant expanse of that smile. There was a fierce quality to Jolene, something not quite human rippling under that beauty. I started to wonder whether the reason she was so comfortable with the supernatural was that she was something supernatural.
Not that I’d let something like that get between us. Other than Chef and George, Jolene was the only real friend I’d made in years. I was determined not to care about it. If she felt like it, she would tell me in her own time.>“What? Why?” Jolene’s surprised expression morphed into wary resignation. “What did you do?”
I cringed, thinking of the various traps I’d left around the house for Sam. Suddenly, Jane burst out laughing and clapped her hand over her mouth.
My own jaw dropped. Could Jane read my mind?
Jane winked at me and nodded.
I would worry about that later.
I dug my keys out of my bag. “Someone may have sprayed down the basement steps with high-viscosity cooking spray, making them superslick.”
Jolene sighed as Jane struggled to cover her snickers with her hand. “Tess.”
I held my hands, defenseless. “No, I said someone.”
“Don’t you think you’ve taken this prank thang a little too far?” she asked. “I mean, some of these tricks are sort of stupid and juvenile, not to mention sort of mean.”
I dashed toward the door. “This was really the least stupid or juvenile idea I had. You should have seen what I had planned with a can of Sterno and a jar of pineapple jelly.”
Jolene slapped her palm over her face as I opened the door. Over the tinkle of the little cowbell above the door frame, I heard Jane say, “I really like her.”
—
After driving across town in record time, I dashed into the house just as Sam opened the microwave. The house was still standing, which was a good sign. Sam was in the kitchen, apparently uninjured, also a good sign. What was not good was that he was making his dinner, tossing a warmed bag back and forth between his hands to settle the red cells.
“Look, I’ve had a bad night at work, and I really don’t want to deal with you right now.” He sighed, his shoulders sagging underneath his faded John Deere T-shirt.
Stalled midwarning, I raised an eyebrow. Work? Since when did Sam work? And where? Was that where he was all those nights when the construction noises didn’t start until the wee hours? I thought he was slow-playing me, depriving me of sleep with the anticipation of torture. Had he been out on a job? This new perspective changed the way I’d looked at a lot of the stunts I’d chalked up to Sam’s mean temper. Maybe he was leaving the chores around the house half-finished because he didn’t have the time he needed, not because he wanted to the leave the house unlivable. Then again, that didn’t explain the Saran Wrap. Or the stove.
“Sam, you really don’t want to do that,” I cautioned as he reached toward the cabinet where we kept the coffee mugs. In my haste, I bumped into a saucepan I’d set on the stove. The handle came away in my hands, and the metal bowl clattered to the floor. I gasped in horror as the pieces of my dismantled darling came clattering to a standstill. I shot him a murderous look. He smirked at me, his dark eyes twinkling. I jerked open the drawer where I kept my pots and pans. Everything I touched came apart in my hands. Somehow Sam had managed to remove the rivets from my pans.
I whirled on him. “You no-good, undead douche!”
“You know, with those dulcet tones, it really is surprising that some lucky man hasn’t snatched you right up,” he said, smirking.
