by Молли Харпер
He shrugged, pulling the bandanna from my head and shaking my hair loose. “All’s fair.”
We were both grinning loopily as we stripped each other, tossing clothes carelessly across the room. Gabriel continued to put my sensitive nerves to good use as he stroked the line of my back with his long fingers.
I never stopped kissing him, deep, sweet, hot kisses that left me confused about where his lips started and mine ended.
One of the drawbacks of living in a Civil War home is knowing that no matter what you do there, it’s already been done before. You’re never the first. Well, I’m pretty sure I’m the first Early to do any of those things on the “grand staircase” once featured in the HalfMoon Hollow Historical Society’s Spring Tour of Homes.
On an unrelated note, I was really glad I’d taken those yoga classes with Andrea.
Without them, I might not have had the strength and flexibility required to balance on the stairs with my arms while Gabriel raised my hips and sank deep inside me. I threw my head back, sighing, contented. How could I have forgotten how good that was? How complete and full he made me feel? I hardly noticed that with each thrust, I landed one step closer to the top of the stairs. I arched my back, grinding down until he nudged against that sensitive little bundle of nerves. I wrapped my arms around his neck on impulse, landing hard on my back without their support. The force knocked both of us down two steps, the impact of each bump sending shockwaves through my body. Gabriel groaned, the hum of his voice against my collarbone sending me over the edge. I clenched around him, crying out as red starbursts exploded behind my eyelids.
Seeing my face as I climaxed had some strange effect on Gabriel. Moaning softly in my ear, he begged me to open my eyes. I obeyed and found him watching me, memorizing every detail of my face. I turned my face into his cradling palm and bit down on the tender skin between his thumb and forefinger with my blunter teeth. He yowled, surprised, and grinned obscenely just before he shuddered over me. We slid down the stairs one at a time as he came.
We slithered to a stop on the third step. I sighed. “I missed you.”
“That’s what a man likes to hear,” he said, pulling me onto his chest and nuzzling the curve of my throat.
I blew out an unnecessary breath. “This is just like our first time, without all the hitting and bleeding. I know we haven’t addressed this, but I totally won that fight.”
“I admire your competitive nature and optimism, but there’s no way you would have beaten me in a fair fight.”
I smirked. “Would it make you feel better if I went all traditional and asked what you’re thinking in some soft, hesitant voice? Because right now, all I’m thinking is ‘woo,’ and if I might add, ‘hoo.’ “
“It saddens me that I don’t know whether this is the stunning aftereffects of my technique or that you’re spending more time with Dick.
“So … what are you thinking?” he asked in that faux feminine voice again, pressing little kisses along my wrist. “Because I doubt very much that ‘woo’ and ‘hoo’ is all that’s going on in that massive, teeming brain of yours.”
I propped my chin on his chest. “Do you really want to know? Because at any given moment, when I’m with you, I have about a million questions bouncing around in my head. Stuff that, frankly, I’m a little ashamed I don’t know about you. For instance, why don’t you have an accent? You and Dick grew up together. He has a respectable drawl. But you sound as if you’re from the middle of nowhere, only with a slightly stuck-up British vernacular.”
He pushed my hair back from my face. “Well, you know what they say, ‘When in Rome…’ “
“Attempt to sound nothing like the Romans?” I countered.
“No, I was actually in Rome, and I was saying, ‘y’all,’ “ he said. “It was hard to blend into the crowd. While I was traveling, I did my best to get rid of my accent—and the use of‘y’all.’ Happy now?”
“No, there’s still stuff that I don’t know about you, like what was your dog’s name when you were a kid? What was the first book you can remember reading? What was your favorite food before you were turned? Did you like pancakes? What’s your favorite movie made after 1970? Don’t say Scarface. Please don’t say Scarface.”
“Bridges of Madison County.”
“What?”
“Fine, that was a lie. I enjoyed Edward Scissorhands.”
“Really, a loner with a dangerous condition that keeps him at arm’s length from most people,” I teased. “Don’t see that at all.”
“Would it have made you happier if I said Rocky?” he groused. “What’s your favorite movie, oh, protector of cinematic integrity?”
“Whatever is readily available and has Gerard Butler in it,” I told him. “Except for P.S. I Love You. Even I have standards. Well, the incompatible movie choices cinch it. Gabriel, as a couple, I’d say we’re doomed.” I shook my head sadly.
“I hope that’s not true,” he said, grinning. “I have long-term plans for you.”
“Really?” I asked, and immediately cringed at the astonishment in my voice.
“Of course I do,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “Don’t you think of me when you imagine where you’ll be in the next century or so? Don’t I factor into your plans?”
I ducked my head and concentrated on the patterns in the rug. “Yeah, but it’s different.
I’ve never been a vampire without you. But you, you’ve been at this for so long. You know how vampire relationships play out. I don’t. And you know how to get along without me. Sometimes I wonder …”
“Wonder what?”
“I wonder when you’re going to get tired of me,” I said. “I mean, this can’t last forever, right? For me, nothing this good lasts forever. And we don’t have any sort of … we haven’t really talked about the long term … I’m going to stop talking now.”
Gabriel opened his mouth to protest, then snapped it shut. After a few moments’ consideration, he blurted out, “Is this because I haven’t said that I love you?”
“No,” I said, caught off guard enough to gape at him a little. “Are vampires even capable of love?”
“Jane, that hurts me,” he said.
“It shouldn’t. I honestly have no idea. I love my parents, I love Zeb. I love Aunt Jettie.
But I had those emotions before I was turned. How do I know they aren’t just residual echoes of what I felt when I was human? I was never in love with a man as a human. I’m not sure I would recognize the feeling. I really like you. Does that help?”
He made a face.
“Have you ever been close to getting married?” I asked. “Do you want to get married?”
He grinned down at me. “Is that a proposal?”
I ignored him. “Are we even able to get married? Legally?”
“No, not yet,” he said. “If a vampire was married before being turned, and the spouse is still human, the marriage is still legal and valid. It took the council nearly two years of lobbying Congress to accomplish that. We’re still working on establishing after-death rights for vampires. We are technically dead, so the hard-line conservatives insist that we don’t have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Marriage, adoption, voting—” I gasped. “We can’t vote?”
“You didn’t notice that in November? During the election?”
“Of course I did, because I vote …” I protested. “OK, fine, I didn’t even try to vote. I forgot. I’m a horrible person.”
He shrugged, patting my head. “Well, you had to have flaws. You don’t vote or have tact or have control over most of your gross motor functions—”
“OK, stop that,” I said, pinching his arm. “And stop trying to get out of talking about your marriage feelings. Have you ever been close to getting married?”
“Yes,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Her name was Mary Louise Early. Her parents were dear friends of my parents. My father wanted access to their pasture land. It was a good match.”
“Wait
, so you were engaged to one of my ancestors?” I scooched away from him. “Ew.”
“This is why I don’t tell you about my past! I’m not enigmatic and secretive. I’m trying to keep you from doing—ow!” he cried as I pinched him again. “That. We were not officially engaged at the time of my death. We were promised, that’s all.”
“Did you sleep with her? Because that would just be weird.”
He seemed insulted that I was calling his before-death self a horndog. “Of course not! We were never left unchaperoned. She was wearing twelve layers of underwear at all times. And she had a laugh that made my ears bleed.”
“Hmmph.” I snorted.
Awkward silence.
“So how was Nashville?” I asked.
“The new manager is an idiot,” Gabriel said of the radio station employee he’d traveled to Tennessee to “meet” (translation: yell at in a scary vampire voice). “He’s a fan of Jethro Tull and wants to change the format to soft rock. I’m either going to fire him or make him believe he’s a nine-year-old Girl Scout.” He stroked my hair back from my face. “How’s the wedding planning going?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I groaned.
“The dress is that bad?” he asked. He was trying to look sympathetic, but vampire fangs tend to give away hidden smiles. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, at least you don’t have to go to the bachelor party. Zeb said Dick has made arrangements for us to visit the Booby Hatch on ‘Amateur Night.’ “ Gabriel grimaced at using the word “booby.”
“You’re telling your girlfriend that you’re going to a strip club,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Yes.”
“Do you know what happens at strip clubs?” I asked.
He laughed. “I’m sure it will be fine. We’ll have a few drinks, get him something to eat, and get him home.”
“You honestly don’t understand how strip clubs work, do you?”
Gabriel snorted. “So, how is Zeb’s wedding driving you into the abyss of madness?”
“It’s the whole thing,” I grumbled. “It’s not that I don’t like Jolene. In fact, I’m pretty sure I like her much more than I would have liked anyone else who married Zeb. With the exception of her constantly eating in front of me, I like everything about her. She’s nice and funny and obviously loves my friend. It’s just that—”
“She drives you crazy,” he offered.
“A tiny bit.” I sighed.
“I think that you’ve gotten used to being the female influence in Zeb’s life,” Gabriel said, squeezing me. “There’s nothing wrong with it. I think the friendship between you two is a beautiful thing. But he understood when you began spending time with me, and he’s made it easy for me to become a part of your life. I would be very disappointed in you if you weren’t able to do the same for him.”
“Fine. I will take the mature route. Even if you have to check me into some sort of vampire mental institution immediately after the reception.”
“Jane?” he said, winding his arms and legs around me.
“Letting it go.” I nodded, playing with the curling ends of his hair. “Now that I have your attention, I think we should test that vampire endurance I hear so much about.”
“To think you were this innocent little librarian when I met you.” Gabriel heaved a mock sigh. “I’ve created a monster.”
I grinned, my fangs extending over my lips. “In more ways than one.”
Well, I finally got my revenge for all those times I’d walked in on Fred and Jettie. She came home to find me sprawled on the couch wearing nothing but Gabriel’s shirt, sitting in a very naked man’s lap.
I’d always been disappointed that River Oaks doesn’t have a great ghost story attached to it. Of course, now it does. Aunt Jettie. Jettie was my own personal daytime security system. She woke me up when someone, such as grabby family antique enthusiasts Grandma Ruthie and Jenny, tried to get into the house. She also chased away door-todoor salesmen, meter readers, and evangelists with vague unease and spooky noises.
Unless you have some sort of psychic ability, ghosts decide when they want you to see them. Which is good, because I don’t think I’d want to walk around seeing dead people on every corner. Just when Jettie had decided to let Gabriel see her, she was seeing a whole lot of him. Ever poised, he wrapped an afghan around his waist and held a perfectly civil conversation with her. The utter mortification forced me to block most of it from memory. I know she brought up the phrase “steam cleaning” a lot.
Gabriel promised to call and made himself scarce. There was practically a Gabriel-shaped hole in the door.
“Where have you been?” I asked her, hands on bare hips. “I haven’t seen you for four days. And then you just waltz in without so much as a how do you do? Am I going to have to ground you to get you to spend time with me? It’s that boy you’ve been seeing, isn’t it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jettie huffed. “Your grandpa Fred is becoming an ass in his post-old age. We spent the last three days fighting. Do you know how difficult it is to win a conversation with a man who no longer fears death?”
I nodded. “As a matter of fact, yes, I do.”
“If we’re going to talk about boys, can we discuss the fact that Gabriel only wears pants on every other visit here?” Jettie asked.
“No. Instead, I will change the subject and announce to you that there is a new potential addition to Half-Moon Hollow’s ghostly population. Grandpa Bob died on Tuesday.
Grandma Ruthie said there was some sort of medication mix-up.”
“The hell there was.” Jettie cackled. “Fred says it’s all over the golf course. Bob Jessup died because he couldn’t quite make out the dosage on his ‘little blue tablets,’ and he took too many. Apparently, it was their anniversary, and Bob wanted to rise to the occasion.”
“Oh … oh, just, oh.” I shuddered, clapping my hand over my lips. “I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. Is Bob still wandering around out there?”
“Oh, no, he’s moved on. He just made a quick stop at his son’s house to say good-bye. He happened to run into Sago Raines, who’s been haunting the place for years. They talked for a bit before he went into the light. Sago was down at the golf course spreading the news faster than you can say ‘erectile dysfunction.’ “
“Lalalalalalala.” I sang, pressing my hands over my ears, but even that couldn’t keep me from hearing her.
“I just wish I could get to Ruthie long enough to tell her every dead soul in the Hollow knows her dearly departed had to have pharmaceutical help to—”
“Enough!” I cried. “First, you and Grandpa Fred, and now—just enough. I’d pierce my own eardrums, but they would just grow back.”
“Ageist.” Jettie sneered.
“Exhibitionist,” I retorted.
“I don’t think you can afford to throw any naked stones here, pumpkin.”
I nodded. “Touché.”
4
Because of the lifelong mating urge, werewolves do not adjust well to being widowed. In some cases, a surviving mate will die of mourning pains.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
Perhaps sensing that Bob’s could be her last grand-dame funeral, Grandma Ruthie wanted to bury Bob in style. NATO summits were less tense than the planning of this shindig.
Bob’s adult children claimed that Bob, an avid fisherman, wanted to be cremated with half of his ashes spread into Lake Barkley and the other half interred with his late first wife.
Grandma Ruthie, incensed that she might be upstaged, insisted that Bob’s intact remains be buried adjacent to her “compound” of husbandly burial plots down at Oak View Cemetery. She made such a scene at the funeral home that Bob’s shell-shocked offspring let her have her way, plus total control of the funeral program from the “Amazing Grace” opener to the “It Is Well with My Soul/Old Rugged Cross” closing medley.
There was only one place to host this weird-ass pa
rody of grief: Whitlow’s Funeral Home, where Grandma Ruthie had been mourning husbands since 1957. In fact, three generations of Whitlows had helped Grandma Ruthie bury her spouses. And apparently, none of them knew anything about decorating. Honestly, who finds dark wood paneling, blue velvet upholstery, and 3-D pictures of Jesus comforting?
With her “frequent flyer” status, Grandma Ruthie was treated like a queen from the moment she walked in the door. She never settled for the rattling Coke machine and sprung couch in the sadly worn family lounge. When the stress of public mourning became too much to bear, Grandma Ruthie retreated to the senior Mr. Whitlow’s private office, where he stocked her favorite brand of butter cookies and an ample supply of bottled sweet tea. Membership has its privileges.
Visitations were held on the evening before the burial, giving the community the chance to offer condolences to the bereaved and give their real opinion of the deceased outside the bereaved’s earshot. Grandma Ruthie was ensconced in the front row of the chapel, sending petulant looks at Bob’s children. She was still pouting over their last-minute refusal to let her take over the memorial video or the photo board. Somehow, they seemed insulted that Grandma wanted to focus on the last five years of Bob’s life, omitting his first marriage to their late mother and the existence of his children and grandchildren. She did get her vengeance by making a memorial Wheel of Fortune puzzle board spelling out
“Ruthie Loves Bob” and putting it in the lid of his casket. Bob was a huge Wheel fan.
Based on the craftsmanship, I suspected my sister, Jenny, had a hand in this.
Grandma Ruthie simply did not understand why she was not being given the authority and respect due a widow. She claimed to have given Bob some of the happiest years of his life.
The fact that Bob had been unconscious or hospitalized for most of that time seemed irrelevant.
Grandma Ruthie, and Jenny, for that matter, were a little miffed at Mama for her resolve that I be involved in the funeral. I would have been touched by Mama’s insistence on my having the opportunity to mourn Bob, but I’m pretty sure she just wanted help policing the buffet at the visitation. I didn’t eat, after all, so I wouldn’t mind keeping the platters full. The main problem was that Grandma insisted on using her good silver serving pieces (from Wedding No. 2), which were mixed in with stainless-steel pieces from the funeral home. You’d think by now I’d be able to sniff out metal that causes me to burn and itch, but every time I moved a utensil, it was like Russian roulette. So I stuck with plates.
