The Single Undead Moms Club (Half Moon Hollow series Book 4) (6 page)

“No more freak-outs,” I promised.

“Good. Now, get your stuff together, because your in-laws’ truck is coming down the road.”

A few seconds later, Les and Marge’s F-250 pulled up in the driveway. Danny was home. He was about to run out of that truck smelling like woodsmoke and bug repellent, and the first thing he was going to do was throw himself at me and tell me all about his weekend. The panic welled up inside me like lava. Oh, God, what if I couldn’t do this? What if I hurt him? What if—

“Did you just tire me out so I wouldn’t have the energy to bite anybody? Like you’d do with a puppy?” I asked Jane.

“I regret nothing,” she told me, shaking her head.

The truck door flew open, and my son came barreling across the lawn, a short fireball of crackling blond energy. And even at his insane first-grader’s speed, my vampire eyesight could track every movement he made as if it was a freeze frame. And he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Even in the moonlight, I could see every wavy blond hair on his head, every golden eyelash. I could see every tiny freckle on his sun-kissed skin. And my eyes, my own blue-green eyes, looking back at me, expectant and absolutely sure of my love.

My Danny.

Deep in my soul, beyond my consciousness and my heart, I knew with absolute, concrete certainty that I would never be able to hurt my son. And that little bit of fear, at least, melted away into nothing as he launched himself through the air at me.

“Hey, Mom!”

I caught him and cradled him against me as gently as if he was made of spun glass. I looked at Jane, who was all smiles, leaning against the door frame, arms crossed, as if she had no cause to leap across the porch at any second to stop me from biting Danny.

I buried my face in Danny’s hair and discovered that my darling boy did not smell as beautiful as he looked.
Phew
. Sweat, sunscreen, citronella, smoke, fried fish, singed sugar, and an undercurrent of exhaust. Danny stank to high heaven, something I wouldn’t have noticed before. Human mothers had to overlook a lot of interesting odors. It was going to take time to adjust to my vampire nose.

“Hi, baby,” I said, putting all the strength I had into not recoiling.

Danny shivered. “Your cheek is cold, Mom.”

“Sorry,” I said, leaning back and looking at him, taking in every detail all over again. “It’s the air-conditioning. You’re a big, tough outdoorsman now. You’re not used to modern conveniences.”

“You’re so weird,” Danny huffed, though he was grinning broadly. I laughed and pressed my forehead to his as the last sliver of fear evaporated from my chest. I made Danny smile. He called me weird. This was a very normal interaction for us. We were going to be OK.

“Danny, get down!” Marge yelped as she climbed out of the truck. “You know your mama’s not strong enough to hold you like that.”

Oh, right, because I was supposed to be seriously ill. I made a big show of struggling under Danny’s weight, letting my knees buckle as I wobbled and set his feet gently on the ground.

“Did you have fun with Papa and Mamaw?” I asked, grinning at him.

“Yeah, we went fishing and made s’mores and went riding on Papa’s four-wheeler.”

Well, that explained the smell of exhaust.

I gave Les Stratton the extreme side-eye. My father-in-law was still a strapping man at sixty, with a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair and Rob’s brown eyes. If I ever wondered what my husband might have looked like if he’d survived to old age, all I had to do was look at Les.

That was a rather gross thought.

“Les, I’ve asked you not to put him on an ATV. He’s small for his age. It’s not safe,” I told him.

Les dismissed my concerns like he always did. “Ah, Robbie and I used to do it all the time at his age. It’s fine. Trust me. When you’ve been at parenting as long as I have, you’ll be able to tell the difference between real danger and worrywartin’. Besides, I have to teach the boy how to be a man.”

It struck me that Rob had learned much of how to be a husband from Les. Dismissal. Condescension. And when that failed, falling back to the old “I’m a man and therefore know better than you, silly woman” stance. There were times I really wanted to punch my father-in-law in the kidneys.

Of course, if I did that now, I would probably kill him. Still, something to consider.

At the moment, I simply wanted them away from the house before they figured out that there was something different about me. So I was willing to let his mansplaining go . . . for now.

“What do you say to Mamaw and Papa for taking you camping?” I prompted Danny.

“Thank you!” Danny picked up his backpack and ran into the house, going past Jane without a second look. He’d gotten used to all sorts of people coming into the house to help care for me. We were going to have to do something about his stranger awareness.

Marge patted my cheek, and I was overwhelmed by the scent of White Shoulders. White Shoulders and blood—warm, delicious, sweet blood that would taste like the cinnamon Marge always sprinkled on top of her coffee. I could sense it, pulsing through her veins, throbbing at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. My mouth watered at the thought of sinking my fangs into her neck and drinking deep. I could almost feel the warm tide of it slipping past my lips.

“Libby,” Jane said in a warning tone. It seemed that Jane did not appreciate the violent slide show going on in my head.

My fangs dropped. My mouth clamped shut, and I took a tiny step back. An expression of hurt crossed Marge’s features. I concentrated on unappetizing thoughts and willed my fangs to go away. Roadkill. The smell of Danny’s sandals at the end of the summer. James Franco’s paintings.

“You must have gotten your rest while we were gone,” Marge said. “You’re looking much better. Still a bit peaky, mind, but better. Your skin doesn’t look so dull. And did you do something new to your hair?”

“I had it done,” I said, nodding, letting the buttery waves bounce around my face. I couldn’t help it. Marge had been after me to “spruce myself up” for months. Because “you’re looking a little frumpy” is just what someone with a terminal disease wants to hear. “Do you like it?”

“Was it Tammy, over at the Beauty Mark?” Marge asked, peering closer at my face, as if she was trying to figure out what sort of moisturizer I was using to give my skin that flawless undead porcelain glow. If I said yes, that my new look was the result of Tammy’s work, Marge would be in her chair the next day, grilling my poor hairdresser.

“You using a new makeup, too?”

“Uh . . .”

But I was saved by the nosy father-in-law. Les gave a sort of chin nod at Jane, who was hovering by the front door. “Who’s this?”

It made sense that Les was giving Jane the “I think I recognize you from church, but I’m not quite sure” look most Hollow residents did when we ran into someone new. Heck, I barely recognized Jane when I crawled out of my grave. She was a few years ahead of Rob and me in school. And Jane’s appearance had changed quite a bit since she’d dropped out of the Hollow’s “daytime” social circles.

“Oh, this is Jane, from the PTA. We’ve got the Pumpkin Patch Party coming up, lots to plan,” I explained airily. It seemed that once you had no pulse or blood pressure, lying came a lot easier. Yay for me and my already slippery morality.

“School hasn’t even started yet,” Les noted. “And you haven’t been able to help at the school in months.”

“PTA business never stops,” Jane supplied helpfully. “And Libby has been feeling better lately. I’ll bet in the next few weeks, you’ll see a real turnaround. Right, Libby?”

I stared at Jane, who was smiling as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth—which, given her lower body temperature, was plausible. She seemed to be enjoying this just a little too much.

“It’s not fair to give her false hope,” Marge admonished Jane.

“I
am
feeling better,” I told Marge, and before she could object, I called after Danny. “Honey, come tell Mamaw and Papa good-bye, and then it’s time for bed!”

“I can stay, give him a bath and help put my baby down to sleep,” Marge offered, still eyeing Jane.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “I need to get used to doing things on my own again.”

My mother-in-law edged toward the truck, wearing her suspicious face, but for once in our relationship, she chose discretion over interrogation. Vampirism might have some benefits I hadn’t even considered yet.

“You know, it’s at times like these that I’m grateful my in-laws died a century before I met their son,” Jane said, waving cheerfully as the truck backed out of my driveway. “Next time, marry an orphan, sweetie.”

“No one likes a gloater, Jane.”

Vampirism adds an additional layer of challenge to parenting, an already challenging prospect. As your child develops from a baby to a toddler to the child who makes you cringe when he gets near a microphone in public places, so you must develop, too.

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

I
t’s going to sound super-creepy, but I spent my first night with Danny watching him curled up on his bed in his Spider-Man pajamas. I sat on the floor with my hand on his chest, watching it rise and fall. It was as if I’d never seen my son before, and I couldn’t stop looking at him.

Jane was just down the hall, going over some inventory reports for her shop, keeping one ear open for any suspicious “bite-y” sounds. But really, sitting there in the dark, quiet home, listening to my son breathe, it felt like any night before I died. It felt strange to me that my life had changed in such a major way, but Danny hadn’t noticed a difference. I wondered if it was the blessing of being so young or if I had managed to cling to the most stubborn parts of my humanity. I hoped that was it.

What if no one else saw the change in me, either? Part of me wanted that, like somehow I could pretend nothing had happened and keep people from finding out that I was a vampire now. That was reasonable, right?

OK, no, no, it wasn’t. I knew that I was going to have to tell them eventually. But I wanted to get Danny settled into our new routine, get him in school, and demonstrate that I could take care of him even with my new “condition.” So when my maternal fitness inevitably came into question, I would have some parental street cred built up. My son was never going to have a normal life. First he was poor Danny whose father had died. And now he was poor Danny whose mother was a monster. I contemplated starting a savings account for his therapy as soon as there was some extra money in the budget.

Besides, I knew how Half-Moon Hollow residents talked about their neighbors who’d been turned. Like it was something the new vampires brought on themselves. Like it was something that could never happen to
them
. Frankly, it was the same way my classmates whispered about girls who got pregnant in high school. I didn’t want the whispers to affect Danny. I didn’t want people to stop talking when I walked into the same Walmart aisle.

I supposed there was some advantage to gaining a reputation as a creature of the night. There wasn’t much about my appearance that was intimidating to vampires or humans. My wardrobe consisted mostly of jeans, weather-appropriate cardigans, and Keds. Would it damage my position if the other vampires saw me dressing that way? Would they not take me seriously? I mean, Jane wore pretty dresses, but she was still somehow quite intimidating. And Dick dressed in jeans and smartass T-shirts, but there was still this edge of menace, as if no matter the time of night, he would know exactly how and where to hide your body.

Should I go out and buy leather pants and boots? I didn’t want to be picked off because other vampires perceived me as weak.

No. Moms should not wear leather pants, even when they had a good reason.

I watched my son’s chest rise and fall. Our usual babysitter, Kaylee Dickson, would come over early in the morning as planned to keep Danny all day. I’d left her a note stating that I’d had a particularly bad reaction to a treatment and would probably sleep most of the day. That was the story I planned to stick with for most of the first week. There was no reason to freak her out.

Kaylee was a sweet girl, sixteen and possessed of all the scatterbrained, optimistic charm that involved her not asking a lot of detailed questions about why I only needed her during the day. But she was also fiercely protective of Danny, was an excellent storyteller, and had gone on a vegan health-food kick after reading
The Jungle
for her advanced English class, so Danny couldn’t con so much as a Fruit Roll-Up out of her. He’d survived the whole summer on Tofurky and carob cookies.

I’d timed my turning carefully, just as summer was ending but before Danny started school, so I would have some time to adjust before his classes began. Kaylee was already coming over in the mornings to help him with breakfast and getting dressed. She’d agreed to keep doing that after school started and then drive Danny to the elementary school.

Wait.

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket, ignoring the multitude of missed calls and e-mails that had come in while I was underground, and checked the calendar. I opened my Internet browser and pulled up the school’s Web site.