“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—”
“Wearing something on top of that is a waste of your God-given gift of cleavage,” he insisted. “It’s practically blasphemy.”>“Oh, how the hell am I supposed to keep up with all your weird human rituals?” She grunted, prying the lid off Ben and Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Cookie and digging in. “If this was a werewolf thing, we’d just go pee on his front porch so no other females would come near him for months.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted.
I surveyed Andrea’s outfit of artfully worn jeans and what was obviously one of Dick’s T-shirts, advertising the joys of Hot Springs, Arkansas. “I thought you said you were getting rid of Dick’s tacky T-shirts.”
“Oh, this isn’t tacky, this is vintage,” she said, turning proudly to show off the way the shirt hugged her curves. “I put a seam here and there. It’s a little more tailored, so instant classic.”
I peered down at my own happy-face pajama pants and a baggy T-shirt advertising the annual 4-H Hog Call. “I hate you. What’d you bring?” I examined the stack of videos. “ Steel Magnolias and Beaches ? Are you trying to comfort me or get me to commit suicide?”
Jolene shrugged. “When I want an excuse to cry, I watch Steel Magnolias .”
“What about this one?” I held up a copy of 9 to 5 .
“I think Jolene got confused about the theme,” Andrea said. “But still, female empowerment, dosing your boss with rat poison. It could work.”
“I’m your boss,” I reminded her.
“That does pose a problem,” Andrea agreed as my eyes narrowed.