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“I figured you might want them the next time you get into a bar fight, ” he said. “I didn’t want to say anything last night, but you hit like a girl, Stretch.”
I gave him my best “don’t underestimate me” look and muttered, “A vampire girl.”
He sauntered over to the swing and made himself comfy, despite my objections when he stretched my legs over his ancient jeans. Not bothering to adjust the “I Know Tricks” T-shirt that rode over some impressive abs, he took particular pleasure in examining my brand-new cotton-candy-pink pedicure. “I do admire a woman who pays attention to her toes. So, what do you have planned for the evening? And where is that tasty friend of yours?”
I tossed the brass knuckles into his lap, drawing a wince from him. “She’s not here, and she won’t date you.”
He grinned, splitting the rugged planes of his face with brilliant white fangs. “She might if she knew me.”
“She does know you, and that’s why she won’t date you.”
He gave me his best panty-dropping smile. “I guess I’ll have to settle for you, then.”
Unable to decide whether that was an insult, I ignored him.
“There’s something familiar about you,” he said. “I can’t quite place it. But you’re different.”
“It’s my shampoo,” I said, a smidge too loudly. “It smells like mangoes, very memorable.”
“No, that’s not it,” he said, then squinted at me and gave up. He poked my side, instinctively aiming at my most ticklish places. “How come we haven’t met before? How old are you? What do you do when you’re not losing fights and quipping me half to death?”
“I grew up around here,” I said, slapping his hand away. “I was just turned last week. I’m a librarian.”
He stilled, as if I’d just told him I was the inventor of the tube top. “I watched a movie about a librarian once. Well, she was a librarian by day, a call girl by—”
I stopped him with a quick lift of an eyebrow. “If you finish that sentence, we cannot be friends.”
“You don’t talk like a librarian,” he said.
“I know,” I admitted. “I’m proof that just enough education can be dangerous. In the right setting, I can argue Faulkner and James Joyce with the best of them. But I think it’s going to take a couple of centuries to polish the Hollow off me. My sire’s pretty urbane. Maybe he can send me to vampire charm school or something.”
“I kind of like it.” He smirked and turned his attentions to the gardens. “I knew your family, growing up. Came to a couple of parties here at River Oaks. I was, uh, friendly with your several-times-great-aunt Cessie.”
I glared at him. Dick glossed over the subject. “The gardens were never this pretty, though. My mother used to have a garden like this. She liked to leave it kind of wild, but you could see the thought she put into it. She loved her roses.”
“So did my aunt Jettie,” I said. “I’m barely keeping them alive. I ’m better at reading about gardening than the actual gardening itself. But Jettie liked it when I would tell her what the roses meant. You know, white roses mean purity. Red roses mean passionate love. Oddly enough, blue roses signify mystery, the real mystery being that there is no such thing as a naturally blue rose.
Roses can’t produce a chemical called delphinidin, which makes flowers blue. So florists have to dip them in chemicals to turn them blue.”
Even as I was talking, a voice inside my head was yelling, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”
Dick seemed impressed but a little frightened. “You must really like flowers.”
“I like finding symbolic meanings in everyday things, ” I said. “You know, the meanings in some Victorian floral guides conflicted, so sometimes couples sent each other mixed messages. I like the idea of some proper English lady breaking her parasol over a suitor’s head because he sent her yellow carnations, thinking it meant affection, but in her book it meant rejection and disdain.”
Dick stared at me a long time before saying, “You’re—”
“Jane?”
My head snapped up. Gabriel closed the fifty yards to my front door in a few strides. He did not look happy. And he was carrying my purse. My feet dropped to the porch. Fitz lifted his head and let out a huff but didn ’t move. Dick remained in his casual, cozy pose, a smug grin spreading like molasses.
“Well, if it isn’t my good friend Gabriel. How are you, son?”
“What are you doing here?” Gabriel demanded.
Dick squeezed my shoulder in a chummy gesture. “We’re writing a vampire children’s book, See Dick and Jane Bite. What do you think?”
If looks could kill…well, Dick was already dead, so nothing would happen. But Gabriel was not laughing.
