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“You’re not going anywhere, pregnant lady. You just stay here and keep your belly covered. Besides, someone has to keep Lushy here company. Lock the door behind me. Call Dick if things get weird.”
“When aren’t they weird?” Andrea grumbled as I walked out the front door. I crept around the house, bat on shoulder, to the den window. There was a fresh smear of scent on the air, a cold, angry presence. Someone had been standing outside my window, watching as we gorged ourselves and watched silly movies. Someone had intruded on what was supposed to be my sanctuary.
That just pissed me off.
The scent was emotional, unfamiliar, dark and red and desperate. I followed it to the tree line and, against my better judgment, walked into the dense grove of oaks that surrounded my house. Night is rarely quiet in Kentucky, especially in the hazy weeks of late summer. Mosquitoes buzzed near my head but apparently knew better than to try to graze on my undead skin. Bullfrogs croaked their love songs from the slow-moving creek that flowed into the long-abandoned pastures. Growth had given way to ripening and rot, a wet, sad smell that rose up to meet me with every step, covering the trail of the intruder.
I moved quickly through the trees, cringing with every acorn that crackled beneath my feet. A draft of icy, frigid air seemed to snake around my ankles, rising to twine around my body and squeeze at my chest. I froze, turning toward a bank of poplar trees on my left, the source of the strange sensation. I couldn’t see anything, anyone, even with my clear, inhuman vision. I closed my eyes and tried to search for the mind of whoever was out there. It was like scratching my fingers at a slick marble wall, cold, hard, and impossible to get a grip. Even with my limited psychic practice, I could tell that the clammy blast of air clinging to my skin wasn’t coming from whoever might be out there. It felt like an internal alarm, an organic warning even stronger than a sense of dread or foreboding. My body was trying to tell me that something bad was coming.
I took an instinctual step back toward the house, where I could lock several doors against this sense of impending doom. Instead, I locked my legs against the impulse to run. The time for running was over. Time to be proactive, I told myself.
Mustering up all the bravado I could, I yelled, “Hey! I know you’re out here. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care why you’re here. If you have something to say to me, you don’t skulk outside my window like a peeping Tom, understand? You come to my door and approach me like a grown-up evil being.”
I waited another few beats, but the only presence I felt was the frogs, their tiny hearts fluttering in the dark. “I thought so. Stay away from my house, you freaking coward!”
I turned on my heel, stepped into a mud slick, and went flying, landing on my back with a thud and whacking my head against a stump.
Through the lacy green canopy of leaves, the stars twinkled, mocking me.
“Oh, shut up,” I huffed, pulling myself to my feet. I was lucky I hadn’t impaled myself on my bat or some handy branch. Now fully sober and disgruntled, I trudged back to the house.
Jolene and Andrea, who had cleaned up the ice-cream mess in my absence, fired questions at me as I went upstairs to change out of my muddy clothes.
“I’m pretty sure there was someone out there, so I owe you an apology,” I told Andrea.
“Who do you think it was?” Jolene asked, rubbing her stomach nervously. “I cracked the door open just a little to get a sniff, but I couldn’t tell. Also, Andrea closed the door on my face.”
“She told us to stay inside,” Andrea said, as slowly and patiently as she could. “And some of us don’t have superpowers.”
“Do you think it was Gabriel?” Jolene asked.
“Well, it wouldn’t be completely out of character, considering he pretty much kept watch outside my house for the first few months I was a vampire. But it didn’t smell or feel like anybody I know. It smelled …”
“Angry,” Jolene finished for me. “And desperate and sort of like bug spray.”
“That’s about it.” I nodded. “So, who’s ready for Elizabeth to visit Pemberley?”
“Aren’t you going to call the cops?” Andrea demanded.
“And tell them what?” I laughed. “That I smelled an intruder? After several glasses of wine? And I chased after him in my pajamas with what is probably considered an illegal weapon? No. I’m going back downstairs, and I’m going to finish watching our movie. I’m going to drink that Hershey’s syrup straight from the bottle. And if peeping guy wants to come back, he’s getting a crotchful of my left foot.”
“What if it’s Gabriel?” Jolene asked.
“Especially if it’s Gabriel,” I muttered.
Andrea leaned over to Jolene and whispered, “Well, the good news is, she seems to have moved on to the angry stage.”
The next night, Dick greeted me at the door wearing a T-shirt that I can only guess he rescued from Andrea’s culling process. In blurry white letters, it read, “If you can read this, please put me back on my bar stool.”
“You are all class, my friend,” I told him.
“Come on, Stretch, we’re going out.”
“Andrea told you what happened the other night, didn’t she?” I grumbled.
“My lovely lady friend keeps no secrets from me. Come on. Andrea’s taking care of the shop tonight. We’re going out.” Dick hustled me up the stairs, where he threw open my closet door and selected a clingy red tank top that I normally wore as a camisole under other shirts. He tossed it at me, along with a black push-up bra that was hanging out of my underwear drawer. When he tried to open the drawer a bit to peek inside, I smacked his hand. I went to the closet to pick an overshirt, but Dick shook his head. “Just wear the tank top.”
“It’s not meant to—”
