The Single Undead Moms Club (Half Moon Hollow series Book 4) (11 page)

“No, n— What? That’s just freaking rude. I’m not going to take that from someone who has the name of his favorite motorcycle on his arm,” I shot back.

He frowned in confusion and glanced down at his forearm, where he had “Harley” tattooed in flowing, elaborately shaded script. His arms were a mishmash of styles. Golden Japanese koi swam in and out of the crease near his elbow. A bit of cursive peeked out from under his sleeve, but I couldn’t make out what it said. A vintage pinup mermaid curled up on his other forearm. I couldn’t help but wonder where else he had ink and felt sort of sad that I would never find out.

“That’s not my— That’s my son’s name!” he exclaimed.

“You named your son Harley? Please,
please
tell me his middle name isn’t Davidson.”

“It’s Wade,” he deadpanned. And suddenly, I remembered seeing the name “Wade” stitched on the front of his shirt at school.

“After you,
of course
. And do you also have a daughter named Chlamydia because it sounded pretty?”

Anger flashed across Wade’s handsome features, but instead of lashing out, he just shook his head. “Were you always this bitter? Or did ya get that installed with your new plastic-surgery fangs?”

“Look, jackass, you don’t even know me. And every time you talk to me, you just spout more hostile bullshit. Why don’t you just stay on this side of the school-supplies aisle, and I’ll stay over there, and we can avoid each other. I don’t know how much more of your
charm
I can take.”

He grinned, showing surprisingly bright and even teeth. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to smack that beautiful smile off his face or yank him close so I could kiss it away. These were not normal thoughts. He was not my type. And I was already conflicted enough with all the naked sire dreams. I did not need this.

“Oh, it’s not charm. I just don’t like ya much,” he drawled.

“Trust me, I’ve deciphered your subtle social cues,” I shot back, pushing my cart toward the notebooks and folders. I turned on the heel of my sensible Keds and called, “By the way, you do realize that I could literally reach down your throat and hand you your own spleen, right?”

A horrified expression dawned on his face, as if he had not, in fact, considered that.

“Just making sure,” I said, smiling just enough to let my dropped fangs show. “You know, so your mouth doesn’t write a check your ass can’t cash.”

“Lunatic,” he muttered under his breath.

“I heard that!” I called as he stalked off.

I managed to recover most
of my dignity as I checked off the rest of Danny’s lengthy school-supplies list. I was still trying to figure out what it was about Wade the Angry Janitorial Engineer that set my fangs on edge so easily. Was it because he reminded me so much of my childhood? Because he was the first person to express real and honest reactions to me in years? Or because he was the first person who seemed to be able to take it when I snapped at him?

I didn’t think any of those reasons painted me in a particularly positive light.

I checked out and walked out of the store a ridiculous amount poorer. But the good news was that I was no longer afraid to walk across a dark parking lot by myself. There was an extraordinary amount of freedom in that. I was practically skipping to my van, even with the enormous number of shopping bags I was carrying. Despite its being a relatively nondescript gray, I was able to find the van easily, thanks to the decal on the back that read “I like big books and I cannot lie.” It helped separate my car from all of the other mom-vans with stick-figure families on the back. I had briefly thought about getting a zombie stick family, but considering the whole dead-husband-slash-vampire-mom thing, that was probably unseemly.

And while I found the van easily enough, I also found that there was a motorcycle parked incredibly close to my driver’s-side door. As in, I couldn’t open the damn door. It was a beautiful bike, a sleek black classic Harley-Davidson with a swirling silver pinstripe along the gas tank. But while I could appreciate the aesthetics, I also wanted to drive my car home as opposed to jogging. I loaded the grocery bags into the back hatch and considered using my vampire strength to pick up the Harley and move it. But I’d read somewhere that touching a man’s bike was a big no-no in the motorcycle world, and the last thing I needed to do was piss off a random Hells Angel in a Walmart parking lot.

I would not crawl to the driver’s seat from the back gate of my van. I wasn’t sure my skinny jeans would hold up to the strain. I could crawl in from the passenger’s seat, but I wasn’t actually sure that I could back out of the space without hitting the bike. And while I wasn’t so worried about being beaten up by a biker, I probably couldn’t afford to replace a vintage Harley.

Wait. Harley. Oh, crap.

“Whatever crazy-ass evil thing you’re planning to do to my bike, just back away and do somethin’ else. Crack my kneecap or do the spleen-rippin’ thing, but just leave my bike alone.”

“I wasn’t going to hurt your precious bike,” I shot back as Wade dropped the backpack into a saddlebag slung over his bike’s seat.

“You were thinkin’ about it,” he said, pointing his finger at me.

“I—I was not,” I insisted. “I couldn’t afford to replace it, so I was fighting down the urge.”

He quirked an eyebrow and actually smiled at me. A real, sincere, mockery-free smile that actually made me want to smile back. I bit back the urge, but it was there. “So why are you standin’ here, eyein’ my bike in a suspicious fashion?”

“Because you parked it so freaking close to my van that I couldn’t even get into it.”

“Well, I only parked so close because I got distracted by the ‘big books’ sticker!” he exclaimed.

“What?” I cried.

“It was funny!”

I laughed, pinching the bridge of my nose and trying really hard not to like the cranky redneck. When I looked up, he was still grinning at me. I let loose a shocked gasp. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I accused. “You
enjoy
winding me up, like some sort of backward, backwoods form of flirting. You’ve got one of those weird fetishes where you can only get turned on by the sound of a woman yelling at you while pelting you with balloons filled with banana pudding.”

Wade went pale, and his full mouth fell open. “I’m tryin’ to come up with a smartass comeback, but my brain seems to have gone ‘TILT.’ ”

I snickered. “That’s not the first time I’ve had that effect on a man.”

“I don’t doubt it,” he drawled.

A smoother, more cultured voice sounded behind me. “Is this man bothering you, miss?”

I turned to find a tall, dark-haired man standing behind us, giving Wade a strong case of side-eye. He was certainly the kind of guy you’d want coming to your rescue—handsome and well dressed in dark jeans and a navy dress shirt rolled at the elbows. His eyes were dark, and his features were even and sort of dignified in that old-fashioned matinee-idol way. Given that I was pretty sure he was a vampire, it was entirely possible he
was
an old-fashioned matinee idol. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him.

He looked vaguely familiar and yet so out of place in the Hollow. But somehow I was glad that he’d stopped to check on me. It gave me hope for the male gender. How wrong would it be for me to play injured party so this gentlemanly vampire would slap Wade around a little bit?

Pretty wrong.

Wade’s face, roguishly handsome though it might have been, could not stand up to a vampire whooping. So instead, I asked, “Do I know you?”

Wade had stepped between me and the newcomer and interjected, “Hell, no, I’m not botherin’ her.”

Mr. Gentleman gave Wade a withering stare. “I think I’ll let the lady answer that.”

“It’s fine,” I assured him. “Just a minor parking disagreement between fellow PTA members.”

Wade’s brows rose, as did the vampire’s. “Really?”

“Look, buddy, we’re not lookin’ for an audience, so keep walking,” Wade told him, making a shooing motion with his arm.

I ignored Wade’s rudeness, saying with saccharine sweetness, “My friend here was just asking me if I thought that his huge motorcycle could be considered a sign that he might be overcompensating for something. And I told him, ‘Don’t be silly, everybody knows that Corvettes are the classic compensation vehicles. Motorcycles are more of a midlife-crisis sort of purchase.’ ”

Wade cleared his throat. “And I told her that she was right, it was way more interestin’ to ride around town in a van that could carry a freakin’ basketball team. I mean, you have
one kid
, but really, drivin’ a barge is the smart thing to do.”

“Don’t pick on my van,” I retorted.

“Don’t call my bike an overcompensation. I don’t need to compensate for anything.”

“You sound a little defensive there.”

“I swear, woman, you are the most frustratin’ person I have ever met.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” the vampire asked.

“We’re fine,” Wade and I chorused, glaring at each other. And it seemed that we were back to square one in terms of hostilities. It was nice to know we could agree on something, even if it was how much we irritated each other. The vampire stared for a few more beats and then walked away, frowning.

“Just let me back out, and you can climb into your mom-mobile,” Wade sniped, slinging his leg over his bike. I sincerely wished that wasn’t as sexy as it was. Maybe he would have one of those dorky full-face shield helmets that made him look like Darth Vader. Nope, no such luck. The half-helmet, black with a flaming motorcycle wheel painted down the side, just made him look hotter.

“It’s always a pleasure to see you,” I told him, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “Remember, red lights are for quitters.”

Wade backed out of the space with the Fred Flintstone shuffle, then started his bike. Under the roar of his engine, he was muttering some rude words he thought I couldn’t hear. I smiled, waving as I opened my door.

I sighed, starting my own engine. I wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened, but it made me smile. I
never
talked to people like that, much less attractive men. I was not a firecracker. One of the things my late husband had liked most about me was what he called my “sweet nature,” which boiled down to me not complaining about his shenanigans and letting him do whatever he wanted. I did not simultaneously flirt with and insult attractive men on motorcycles. It was Wade’s fault, I told myself. Becoming a vampire couldn’t have changed my nature this much. There was something “special” about his personality that activated the rude, reckless bits of my DNA.

Maybe I should have let that chivalrous vampire slap him around after all.

You will have to find a way to make compromises with your child’s living relatives. It’s a difficult process, but remember, one day those difficult relatives will be dead, and you will not.

—My Mommy Has Fangs: A Guide to Post-Vampiric Parenting

I
was probably the first vampire ever to say this, but God bless the World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead. By the time I arrived home, Jane had already heard about Kaylee’s defection through the Hollow gossip mill and had sent a trusted Council-approved sitter to my house to wait for Danny to wake up. Petite, with chicory-colored skin, wide brown eyes, and a cloud of dark, perfectly spiraled curls framing her face, Kerrianne Union was the divorced mom of a fifth-grader at Danny’s school. Her mother, Diana, lived with her, so she was free in the mornings to come over and help Danny get ready for school, then carpool both kids.

I’d met Kerrianne in passing at a few school events, but I’d always been in such a rush that I hadn’t made time to get to know her. But now, sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee clutched between her hands like a predawn lifeline, Kerrianne was brusque and no-nonsense, like Mary Poppins in a “Purple Rain” T-shirt.

“I won’t be starting this early every day,” she told me. “But I figured you’d feel better goin’ to bed knowin’ who’s taking care of your baby.”

“You’re not wrong,” I told her while I packed up. “I really do appreciate your coming over at the last minute.”

“Well, a job is a job, and the Council is a good employer to have,” she said, stirring her coffee even as I leaned away from the brew. I was sure it smelled heavenly to her human nose, but to me it smelled like Danny’s socks marinated in raw sewage. “They don’t trust anybody, so once you pass their crazy stringent background checks, you’re golden. They pay a fair wage, and they pay on time. I earn enough from part-time work that I can take care of my daughter.”

“And you don’t mind working for vampires?”

“Aw, hell.” Kerrianne snorted. “They’re not any more evil or violent than the average human. At least they’re up front about what they want. And did I mention they pay on time? That’s a big priority for me.”

“You mentioned,” I said, laughing softly as I taped up a box of kitchen stuff.

“I don’t mind working for you. I figured you seemed pretty nice at those PTA meetings, and you’d probably carry that through to your unlife. From what I’ve seen, people who were assholes when they were alive stay assholes when they’re vampires. Besides, we’re on the prize solicitation committee for the Pumpkin Patch this year, so we might as well get to know each other.”