Peace, Blood, and Understanding
Page 22
Dick opened his mouth to protest, but then pinched his lips shut. “OK, I concede your point.”
“So you’re staying long-term?” I asked.
“As long-term as you’re willing to let me stay,” he said. “And I’d really like to move out of the Lucky Clover.”
“I happen to know of a vacant apartment nearby,” I said.
“No!” Dick exclaimed. “We just got rid of him!”
“For me, please?” I asked, making my best “adorable” face at him.
“Dang it, now you’re using the beautiful doe eyes at me?” Dick muttered. “Fine, but I’m doubling the rent.”
15
No matter what path you follow, remember that it’s much easier to follow that path when you’re surrounded by people who love you.
—Peace, Blood, and Understanding: A Living Guide for Vampires Embracing Pacifism
For the first time since I’d opened, in-store sales for the month outweighed my relatively healthy online sales at Everlasting Health. Coffee had become a very unpopular option at the office after the creamer incident—Sammy had adjusted to a more juice-based menu to compensate—and people wanted to make the teas they enjoyed at work in their own homes. And Katarina Delgado had swept into my store on a “jaunt” across the bluegrass the week before and bought out half of my stock. She was now a voracious drinker of all things Everlasting Health and had promised regular orders.
I ran the numbers multiple times. If sales continued at the rate they had this quarter, I would have more than enough to run the shop without my income being supplemented by working in the archives. I was absolutely confident that I could quit that job and focus entirely on the shop. I wrote up a grateful, sincere letter of resignation for Dick and Jane… and then I sat on it for two weeks.
It wasn’t that I was afraid of their reaction. I knew they would be sad, not angry. I knew they would be reasonable and accept. I told myself I wanted to make sure the archive was in absolutely perfect and pristine shape before telling them… which was also a bit of a dodge as the archive was always in pristine shape. I supposed I just wanted to prevent another huge change in my life after recent events had thrown it into so much turmoil. It was silly, and unlike me, but I supposed I deserved a little silliness after the multiple murder attempts. It was all about balance.
And so I found myself waiting outside Jane’s office, actively twitching and thoroughly annoying Lainie, which turned out to be an excellent way of shortening my wait time.
Jane turned her chair toward me and grinned as I walked in. “Meadow, light of my office life and my favorite coworker—though if you ever tell any of our coworkers about that, I will feebly deny it—what can I do for you?”
“I quit,” I told her, cringing with each word.
“Very funny.”
When Jane realized I wasn’t laughing, her mouth dropped open. “Oh, come on.”
“I know.”
“But everything is finally back to normal!”
“I’m sorry, Jane, it’s nothing personal. I love my coworkers, and as much as I adore my newly saged space down in the archive, I can’t stay. The shop is finally making enough money to support my lavish lifestyle.”
“You mean living in a one-bedroom apartment and not having a savings account?” she asked dryly.
I snickered. “Exactly.”
Jane sighed. “But the archive is so orderly and calm with you in charge!”
“And I will help my replacement—or Lotte, should she ever return from her honeymoon—to follow my systems.”
Jane grumbled. “Damn you and your logical arguments. Is Weston making you quit because you should focus on one career to be efficient? Because—I say this with as much civility as I can manage—he can suck it.”
“No, he was actually looking forward to working in the same office for a while.”
“So you could make out in my elevator again?”
I nodded. “Mostly. Seriously, Jane, I love it here, but the shop is my passion. I appreciate you giving me a job when I needed one. But I really need to focus my efforts at the shop if I want to make it successful.”
She sat back in her chair and sighed. “I still get tea-tasting Tuesdays, right?”
“And I’ll even teach Sammy to blend teas to serve here, because everybody seems to be afraid of coffee right now.”
“Poor Sammy.” Jane sighed. “I tried to drink one of his bloodychinos very pointedly in front of everybody, but so far, the coffee has taken a distinct backseat to sandwiches and juice.”
“It’s hard to forget a mass food poisoning,” I said.
“But if I know Sammy, he’ll think of tea training as some new evolutionary adventure. He’s very philosophical that way,” Jane said, coming around the desk. “Well, as tempted as I am to simply refuse your resignation and hold your employment hostage, I will just hug you and wish you the best of luck. And tell you that you are welcome back anytime.”
I sagged into the promised hug, welcoming the warm citrus smell coming from burying my face in Jane’s shoulder. I would miss daily contact with my “Jameson-centric” family, but I had confidence that they wouldn’t let me fall out of their orbit. They were generous that way, my chosen circle, refusing to let any of the members drift away on their own. I belonged to them in a way I’d never belonged in my birth family, because they’d accepted all of me. It was much easier to see that now, on the other side of that awful video chat with my parents. Jane and her family offered much and demanded almost nothing, while Graham and Eleanor…
Jane paused mid–back pat. “By the way, you saged the archive?”
I pulled away slightly, but remained in her embrace. “I was almost murdered there, so yes.”
Dick walked into Jane’s office without bothering to knock. “Hey, Hippy-Dippy, are you handing out hugs? Because I sure could use one.”
He stopped midstride when he saw the serious expression on Jane’s face. “Aw, hell, what now? Who’s dead? Who’s undead? Who’s trapped in a well?”
“There’s no crisis. But Meadow is quitting to work at her shop full-time,” Jane informed him.
“What?! No!” He pulled me out of Jane’s arms and into his own fierce hug. “This is because you’ve been spending too much time with Weston. I don’t like that boy.”
Pulled back to my earlier musings about chosen family, I realized that my father figure was a vampire named Dick Cheney, and pressed my face into his “Bad Ideas Offered for Free” T-shirt.
“I’ll still come by the shop and see you,” I promised. “It’s not like I’m moving.”
“You will come to dinner at our place on Sundays,” he said, holding me by the shoulders. “Andrea is a master at calling just the right restaurant for takeout.”
“You mean the one restaurant in town that caters to our diet?” Jane said.
Dick nodded. “Yes, I do. My wife is a wonder.”
* * *
Though Dick did try to keep me in Jane’s office in some sort of misguided panic, I finally escaped with the excuse of needing to write detailed instructions for my replacement. On the way to the elevator, I passed the newly established Office of Accountability. For once, Weston was sitting at his desk, going over paperwork. He was smiling as he worked, as if working through the puzzle of the Council’s annual petty cash expenditures was the most satisfying thing since chocolate.
He was a very strange man to be in love with, and yet, here I was.
I was seriously considering getting him one of those little green banker visors and an old-fashioned crank adding machine to complete the look. It could lead to some interesting role-play opportunities.
Maybe I was the strange one in this scenario…
He finally noticed I was standing there watching him. He sprang up from his chair with a big grin on his face. “Hey, how did Jane and Dick take the news?” he asked. “Did Dick cry?”
“Why would Dick cry?” I asked.
“Because it would be funny.”
“We did establish that he didn’t kill your sire,” I reminded him.
He jerked his shoulders, straining the seams of his tailored blue shirt. “Doesn’t mean I like him.”
“Are you ready to go home now?” I asked him.
“I still have an hour of work to do.”
“Studies show that taking occasional breaks increases productivity over the following week by two hundred percent,” I said, toying with his tie.
“Cite your sources,” he said, squinting at me.
I pursed my lips. “Wishful thinking?”
“If only you weren’t so adorable.” He pulled me into a kiss and squeezed me tight against his chest. “Come on.”
He slung his ever-present bag over his shoulder, and we walked toward the elevator, with his arm around my shoulder. “Good night, Lainie!” I called toward Jane’s corner of the floor.
There was no response.
“Yeah, she’s never going to like me,” I said.
“I don’t think she likes anyone.”
As the elevator doors slid closed, I said, “I would like to put her on the next list of Council contacts who are suspected of doing underhanded, awful things. Surely you can do that as the head of the Office of Accountability.”
“It’s probably better that you’re not working here anymore to prevent those little conflicts of interest.”
“Probably,” I admitted.
“Wanna hit the emergency stop button and relive some happy memories?” he asked.
I laughed and let his arms slide around my waist. “I don’t think we can get away with that twice. We didn’t really get away with it once. Dick and Jane know everything. Also, I don’t think that cowering in a rogue elevator car while a ghoul rampages through the building counts as a happy memory.”
“I think that’s a matter of some debate,” he countered, walking us across the elevator car as he smacked the emergency stop button. “We should talk about this right now.”
I giggled as he nudged me into the corner and kissed me soundly. The emergency alarm screamed over our heads as we sank to the floor together.
I laughed against his lips. “This is not an efficient use of the elevator.”
“I disagree.”
I could hear the speaker crackle to life and Dick’s voice say, “Um… Meadow…?” But he didn’t seem to know what else to say because the rest was just static. Or maybe I just couldn’t hear it with Weston peeling my shirt over my head.
My life was as uncertain as it ever was. I didn’t know if my shop would be successful in the long run. I didn’t know if Weston and I would be happy ever after. I didn’t know what the future would bring.
But for the moment, I was going to enjoy the elevator ride.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to all the readers who have contacted me over the years, asking me when there would be a new Half-Moon Hollow book. I appreciate your patience. Even more gratitude to Abby Zidle and Natanya Wheeler, for their continuing support of this series.
More from this Series
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Book 2
Nice Girls Don't Live…
Book 3
Nice Girls Don't Bite…
Book 4
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Gimme Some Sugar
A Few Pecans Short of a…
About the Author
Molly Harper is the author of two popular series of paranormal romances, the Half-Moon Hollow vampire novels and the Naked Werewolf shifter trilogy. She is also the author of two contemporary series, Southern Eclectic and the Bluegrass ebook series. A former humor columnist and newspaper reporter, she lives in Michigan with her husband and children. Visit her on the web at mollyharper.com.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Molly-Harper
SimonandSchuster.com
BOOKS BY MOLLY HARPER
THE HALF-MOON HOLLOW SERIES
Peace, Blood, and Understanding
Accidental Sire
Where the Wild Things Bite
Big Vamp on Campus
Fangs for the Memories
The Single Undead Moms Club
The Dangers of Dating a Rebound Vampire
I’m Dreaming of an Undead Christmas
A Witch’s Handbook of Kisses and Curses
“Undead Sublet” in The Undead in My Bed
The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires
Driving Mr. Dead
Nice Girls Don’t Bite Their Neighbors
Nice Girls Don’t Live Forever
Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men
Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs
THE SOUTHERN ECLECTIC SERIES
Gimme Some Sugar
A Few Pecans Short of a Pie
Ain’t She a Peach
Peachy Flippin’ Keen
Save a Truck, Ride a Redneck
Sweet Tea and Sympathy
THE NAKED WEREWOLF SERIES
How to Run with a Naked Werewolf
The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf
THE BLUEGRASS SERIES
Snow Falling on Bluegrass
Rhythm and Bluegrass
My Bluegrass Baby
ALSO
Better Homes and Hauntings
And One Last Thing…
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Molly Harper White
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First Gallery Books ebook edition October 2019
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ISBN 978-1-5011-5138-5 (ebook)