AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“OK, I heard about the bear trap. Did something happen to your eye?”
“No, I’m considering a career as a pirate,” Zeb snarked as he gingerly adjusted the patch strap. He winced when it snapped back into place over his eye. The elastic had given him a quailish cowlick in the middle of his dark blond crown. “Some of the boys out at the farm were shooting off bottle rockets a few days ago. Jolene’s cousin Vance wanted to show them how to use them to knock cans off the fence, and somehow one of the rockets went astray.”
“You got hit in the eye with a bottle rocket?”
“No, I got hit in the eye with the bottle. Vance wasn’t watching where he tossed it when they were running from the bottle rocket.”
“So, that combined with bear trap is why you’re doing the full-on Dean Martin routine?” I asked, looking at the bottle between them.
“I’ve been evicted,” Zeb said, turning away two fingers of very nice bourbon.
Gabriel huffed and slugged it back himself. Considering the average vintage in his wine cellar, I wasn’t surprised he wouldn’t let it go to waste.
“This has not been your day, huh?”
“My landlord left me a notice today,” Zeb said, making a face when Gabriel held up a bottle of vodka with a Cyrillic label. “I was supposed to renew my lease next week.”
“He can’t do that! Jolene worked so hard to leave her mark on that place,” I exclaimed. Gabriel gave me a cringing, questioning look. “With throw pillows and paint, I mean. Nothing gross.”
“I went to sign the papers with Mr. Dugger, but he’s decided to rent to another family,” Zeb said, his pale face stretched in tight, miserable lines. “He said Jolene’s fixed the place up so nicely he can charge more than we can afford. And somehow, Jolene’s uncle Deke just happened to call today to remind her that her plot of land on the pack compound is still available. He even offered us a brand-newish trailer as a wedding gift.” Zeb sighed, planting his face in his hands as Gabriel stood to pour him a scotch. “I don’t know how they did it, but they got to Mr. Dugger.”
“I think you might be giving them a little too much—yeah, you’re probably right,” I agreed, slipping an arm around his shoulders. “What are you going to do? Starting with, will you please pry the crying werewolf out of my shop? She’s starting to disturb the customer. Emphasis on customer; we only have one.”
“You saw Jolene?” Zeb grimaced. “She was crying?”
“Um, you kind of broke off your engagement. That can bring out the emotion in a gal.”
“I know, I need to apologize,” Zeb said. “But I’d like to have a home to offer her when I beg and plead.” He took a sip of Gabriel’s liquor, blanched, and coughed. “Seriously, that’s what it tastes like?”
“Zeb can only drink stuff that tastes a little like alcohol and a lot like fruit punch,” I told Gabriel.
“I’ll start keeping some around,” Gabriel said. “Until then, try to finish the expensive single-malt I just poured for you. Peasant.”
“I would insult you back, but you seem to own or know about all of the good rental properties around town.” Zeb snorted.
Giving new meaning to the words “saved by the bell,” Gabriel’s cell phone began singing. His face when he saw the caller ID stopped me from making a joke about voice mail, which Gabriel didn’t know how to use. Without a word, he left the room and said hello quietly into the receiver as he walked out onto the back porch.
For lack of something better to say, I told Zeb, “I wish I could help.”
“Aw, I appreciate that,” he said, leaning his head against mine. “But you’re, you know, broke.”
My jaw dropped. “You know about that?”
“I’m your best friend,” he said. “And you haven’t had a full-time job in months. I can do math above the kindergarten level. Besides, I would never take money from you. We’ve never mixed money into our friendship before.”
“We never had money before,” I pointed out.
“And so far, that’s worked out for us,” he said. “Besides, if we’re not going to take that kind of ‘help’—emphasis on the sarcastic invisible quotation marks—from Jolene’s family, it would be hard to justify taking help from you.”
“You have a well-thought-out and emotionally mature argument,” I admitted. “Dang it. On an unrelated note, here’s an interesting tidbit: Your mama kept trying to get me to eat at the funeral, which would have ended in my vomiting publicly. She does know that I’ve been turned, right? I assumed she has just refused to mention it because it interferes with her version of reality. But you did tell her, right?”
Zeb winced. “Every time I try, she repeats something stupid she hears on talk radio, like vampires should be rounded up and forced to live in communities far away from humans.”
“Still, you’re marrying into a werewolf clan, and you’re worried about telling her there’s a vampire bridesmaid? If anything, you could use me to take the heat off Jolene and Company.” I gasped as realization slowly dawned. “She still doesn’t know you’re marrying into a werewolf clan, does she?”
“No,” he admitted, covering his face with his hands. Whether it was from shame or to protect his eyes from my vampire death glare, I have no idea. “You know her. You know what she does with announcements like this. We’re talking Valium and screaming, taking to her bed for weeks at a time. I knew there was no way she’d accept you, much less Jolene and her family. I’m just trying to get through the wedding without her making a scene. I saw what it did to Jolene when my parents threatened not to come. Can you imagine how she would handle Mama’s werewolf meltdown? How much that would hurt her? Once we’re married, Jolene will realize that she’s better off with my family not liking her anyway.”
“Don’t you think your family will notice something’s off when the bride’s side mows through the buffet?” I asked.
