“Yipe!” I cried, ducking out of the way. “Hey, you left the kids at home to limit the number of items thrown at my head tonight. And giving me a fork-related head contusion will not change the fact that our color scheme is white and blue.”

“Actually, we left the kids at home because we’re spending the evening in a construction zone,” Zeb said. “A construction zone with a bar in it.”

“Just give the green a chance!” Jolene begged.

”Are you going to be this stubborn about everything?” I groaned.

I shot a pleading look at Zeb, Jane, Gabriel, Dick, and Andrea, who were sitting at the bar, watching the exchange gleefully. Apparently, whatever instinct they may have had to protect the “new girl” in the group had evaporated over Halloween, when I beat Jane at quarters while dressed as Wonder Woman. Vampires seemed to take drinking games very seriously.

My eyes narrowed. “Oh, you guys are no help whatsoever.”

“Just be glad it’s not peach,” Gabriel said.

Jane cackled when she saw my confused expression. “Someday, I’ll show you pictures of the bridesmaids’ dresses from Jolene and Zeb’s wedding.”

“I didn’t even pick out that color!” Jolene retorted. “That’s not fair.”

“I’m just here for the free eats,” Dick said, raising a shot glass full of the Blood Creek Barbecue Sauce. Although Faux Type O technically owned the recipe, the company was so impressed with my plan to open a vampire-friendly restaurant that they’d let me keep the rights to serving it. We were calling the special menu Southern Comforts Blood Shots, to prevent confusions with the liquor menu or the human menu. My resident vampire friends were helping me tweak the recipes with another taste-testing.

Chef Gamling, who had agreed to work part-time in my kitchen when the restaurant opened, was leading them through the “appropriate tasting process” and recording their comments.

Since he didn’t drink blood, Zeb was content to sample the various pie concoctions we’d come up with—caramel apple, peppermint cream with a crushed Oreo crust, and a mixed fruit involving strawberries, cranberries, and raspberries. And, of course, he enjoyed my attempts to control his wife’s horrendous decorating skills. Is there a color-sense equivalent to being tone-deaf?

With the endless details I was juggling, I worried that I would be too busy to maintain my newfound connections with the group. But they simply wouldn’t let me quietly fade into my work as I had in Chicago. Jolene was with me at every step of setting up shop, whether I wanted her opinions or not. Dick had offered to help me find dishes and equipment through his “connections,” while Gabriel stood behind him and shook his dark head vehemently. Jane had offered her advice on starting a small business in the Hollow, the chief of which was to avoid the local Chamber of Commerce like the plague. Andrea’s help had been invaluable while I waded through the complicated licensing process for blending and serving human donor blood. I supposed it shouldn’t be easy to serve human blood to an unsuspecting public, but the red tape was a serious pain in the ass.

“Isn’t it premature to start picking paint colors when you have so much structural work to do around here?” Gabriel asked, a concerned expression wrinkling his brow.

“Why don’t you just ask Sam to help you?” Jane asked.

“You know why,” I shot back, making her raise her hands defensively.

“I tried to help Tess find a contractor,” Dick protested. While the girls tried to nurse me through my confused post-Sam feelings with ice cream and Jane Austen movies, Dick’s method was taking me to The Cellar and getting me hammered. Which made Dick my new favorite guy ever.

I shot my new drinking buddy the stink-eye. “Dick, it only took me two ‘laying pipe’ innuendos from your handsy plumbing guy to decide that I will only use contractors I find through the Yellow Pages.”

“Hey!” Dick exclaimed. “That wasn’t my guy, that was a cousin of my guy. Doesn’t count! And didn’t he come back to apologize?”

“Yes, black and blue, he came back to apologize, which meant I ended up feeling guilty because you beat the tar out of him.”

“Gabriel helped!” Dick protested. “If I knew he would go in for a boob grab in lieu of a handshake, I never would have recommended him. The beatin’ was deserved.”

Dick turned as the battered cowbell above the door jangled and Sam stepped through.

Well, I could at least take comfort in the fact that he looked as bad as I felt. The last two weeks of radio silence had not been kind to Sam Clemson. He looked as if Dick and Gabriel had gotten a piece of him, too—dark bruiselike circles under his eyes, paler-than-usual cheeks, and thin, pinched lips. Something seemed lodged in my throat, a weighty lump that kept me from breathing or swallowing.

Seeing him, all wretched and drawn, made me feel a bit ridiculous for being so angry with him. He hadn’t hurt me intentionally. The f-word he’d used wasn’t an insult. And he wasn’t the first guy to have lingering feelings for his ex-wife. Don’t get me wrong. The fact that I seemed to feel more for him than he felt for me still hurt. But I didn’t feel the urge to damage him or my drywall, which felt like progress.

I finally choked out a profound “Sam?”

The awkward silence continued for a few more agonizing seconds before Jane announced, “Well, kids, I think we should be going now.”

“But we’ll miss the fireworks,” Dick protested, then saw Andrea’s stern expression. He sighed. “Fine.”

Jane edged Gabriel off his stool while Andrea bumped Dick out the door. Jolene was so busy glaring at Sam that Zeb had to walk around the bar and literally drag her out. Chef Gamling gave Sam a long, speculative look before following the thundering herd out the door. I heard it shut just as Dick said, “If she throws knives and we miss it, I’m going to be pissed.”

Sam looked around the ruins of the dining room. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

“Well, I’ve had a little trouble finding reliable contractors,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest protectively. I wanted to round the bar, sit next to him on the stools. But I needed space. I needed a physical barrier to keep from making a complete fool of myself.

He nodded and picked up a shot glass from Andrea’s plate. He smiled. “You’re really going through with it, huh? The vampire menu?”

“I don’t see why not. I want to feed people. Whether they have a pulse is irrelevant,” I said, fidgeting with a dishtowel.

“So, I’ve been callin’ you. A lot.”

“I know.”

He frowned. “Oh, so there wasn’t some tragic fire that destroyed your phone… which means you’ve just been ignorin’ me. That makes me feel better.”

“I haven’t been ignoring you. I’ve been giving you space,” I countered.

“The difference is that when you give someone space, you tell them ahead of time. Otherwise, it’s just ignorin’ them. Look, I know you overheard me talkin’ to Lindy. I don’t know what I said that upset you, but I take it back. I take it all back. I just want you to talk to me again. I tried stayin’ away… after the eighth straight day of you not returnin’ my calls. But the house is just empty without you. There’s no light, no music, no weird smells coming from the kitchen. I can’t take it anymore.”

“You told Lindy I was just a friend. You told her you felt sorry for me. You said you didn’t hate her.”

And yes, I did realize how lame that last bit sounded, but I wasn’t about to weaken my position with logic.

“Well, I don’t hate her. I never hated her. I just don’t want to be married to her anymore.” Sam rounded the bar, advancing until his hand ghosted down the length of my arm, never quite touching. He smirked down at me. “Besides, what was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Lindy, I know we still have a real estate and divorce settlement pending, but I want to let you know that I just had awesome sex with that woman who whacked you with a cast-iron pot. Yes, the same woman who helped me swipe the house out from under you, ruining your plan to sell it and keep the money for yourself. And by the way, I also think she’s prettier and far more interesting than you’? Lindy was already ranting and raving like a crazy woman about you, saying you’d ruined her plans to sell the house to some doctor from Louisville. The last thing I wanted to do was give her more reasons to hate you. The fact that I couldn’t wait to get back downstairs because your skin was soft and warm and smelled like honeysuckle was definitely going to make her hate you.”

I glared up at him, but inside, I was doing the tiniest victory dance. “But what about ‘You know I do’?” I asked.

He blinked a few times, as if trying to operate on the same insane wavelength as my brain. “You mean the part where she said, ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this divorce?’ And yes, I do. It was just like her to ask that right before the divorce was final. This is just another case of Lindy getting what she wanted and then not wanting it anymore. So, am I glad the divorce is final? Yes, I am. Am I glad the bank papers are signed and the house is mine? Yes, I am. And am I willing to call Lindy right now and describe our awesome sex in detail? Yes, I am.”

My lips twitched as I squinted up at him. “You know, when I was a little girl and I dreamed of a man declaring his love for me, it did not involve the words ‘Let’s call my ex-wife and give her details about our awesome sex life.’”

“I didn’t say I was declaring my love for you.”

“Oh, please.” I snickered, rolling my eyes. “I’ve owned your ass since the moment you kissed me.”

He pulled me closer, settling his hands at the small of my back. “Oh, you mean the night you tainted my food supply with a dangerous substance?”

“Uh-huh,” I said, grinning, pressing my lips to his. His whole body seemed to relax, to sag against mine as he pulled me closer. I murmured against his chest, “I think you need some time to be alone, to get over Lindy. I don’t want to be that rebound girl who helps you heal up for your next ‘real relationship.’”

“Honey, it doesn’t get any more real than the girl who pepper-sprays my insides and drips hot candle wax on me while I sleep. Frankly, I have to make up with you. I’m afraid of what would happen if you were angry at me much longer. I don’t need to get over Lindy. We were over a long time ago. I’ve been ready for a new life for a while now. I just needed everything else to catch up.”

“I don’t want you to rush.”

“We won’t,” he promised. “We’ll take it slow.” Then he added under his breath, “As soon as we move your stuff back in.”

“What?”

“I was thinking, it’s pretty silly for you to live here, in a crappy little apartment, when there’s plenty of room at the house. Besides, we should do it just to prove Lassiter wrong.”

“So we should live together to break a hundred-year-old curse? That’s a line I haven’t heard before.” I rolled my eyes at him. “So have you told Lindy I’ll be moving in?”

He ducked his head. “Not important.”

“She hit you with cookware, too, didn’t she?”

“Not important,” he insisted.

“Can I hit her with cookware?” I asked.

“If you keep doing that to people, someone’s going to file charges against you.” He sighed into my neck. “We’re not going to do anything to Lindy. She’s not an issue for me anymore, and she shouldn’t be one for you. We’re not going to devote any more energy to her. And swinging that wok of yours takes a lot of energy.”