"So it'll be soon. I hope that it's okay if I come?"

"Oh, sure, Sook," Jason said, and hugged me. "We ain't eloping or anything. We just don't want a big church thing. We'll have a party out at the house afterward. Right, honey?" He deferred to Michele.

"Sure," she said. "We'll fire up our grill, maybe Hoyt can bring his over, too, and we'll cook whatever anybody brings. And other guests can bring drinks or whatever, vegetables and desserts. That way no one will worry and we'll all have a good time."

A potluck wedding. That was very practical and low-key. I asked them to let me know what I could bring that would be most helpful. After lots of mutual goodwill had been exchanged, they left, still holding hands and smiling.

India said, "Another one bites the dust. How you feeling about this, Sookie?"

"I like Michele real well. I'm so happy!"

Sam called, "They engaged?"

"Yeah," I called back, a few happy tears in my eyes. Sam was making an effort to sound upbeat, though he was still a little worried about his own romantic situation. Any irritation I'd felt about the Jannalynn episode simply melted away. Sam had been my friend for years, while significant others came and went. I went up to the bar and leaned against it. "Second time around for both of 'em. They're real good together."

He nodded, accepting my tacit reassurance that I wasn't going to bring up Jannalynn's little outburst of jealousy. "Crystal was all wrong for your brother; Michele is all right."

"In a nutshell," I agreed.

Since Holly called in to say her car wouldn't start but Hoyt was working on it, I was still at Merlotte's when JB came in about ten minutes later. My friend, the secret stripper, was looking handsome and hearty as always. There's something about JB, something warm and simple that's really appealing, especially when added to his nonthreatening good looks. He's like a great loaf of homemade bread.

"Hey, friend," I said. "What can I get for you?"

"Sookie, I saw you last night." He waited for my big reaction.

"I saw you, too." Just about every inch of him.

"Tara was there," JB told me, as though that would be news. "I saw her as she was leaving."

"Uh-huh," I agreed. "She was."

"Was she mad?"

"She was real surprised," I said cautiously. "Are you seriously telling me you-all have not talked about last night?"

"I got in pretty late," he said. "I slept out on the couch. When I got up this morning, she'd already gone to the store."

"Oh, JB." I shook my head. "Honey, you got to talk to her."

"What can I say? I know I should have told her." He made a hopeless gesture with his hands. "I just couldn't think of any other way to earn some extra money. Her shop's not doing so great right now, and I don't make a lot. We don't have good insurance. Twins! That's gonna be a big hospital bill. What if one of 'em's sick?"

It was so tempting to tell him not to worry about it-but there was every reason for him to be concerned, and it would be patronizing to tell him he didn't need to be. JB had made a clever move, for JB; he had found a way to use his assets to make extra money. His downfall had been in not informing his wife he was taking off his clothes in front of many other women on a weekly basis.

We talked off and on while JB nursed a beer at the bar. Tactfully, Sam pretended to be so busy that he was deaf to our intermittent conversation. I urged JB to cook something special for Tara that night or to stop off at Wal-Mart and buy her a little bouquet. Maybe he could give her a foot rub and a back massage, anything to make her feel loved and special. "And don't tell her how big she is!" I said, poking a finger into his chest. "Don't you dare! You tell her she's more beautiful than ever now that she's carrying your children!"

JB looked exactly as though he were going to say, "But that's not true." He was sure thinking it. He met my eyes and clamped his lips shut.

"Doesn't make any difference what the truth is, you say she looks great!" I told him. "I know you love her."

JB looked sideways for a minute, testing that statement for its truth value, and then he nodded. "I do love her," he said. Then he smiled. "She completes me," he said proudly. JB loved movies.

"Well, you just complete her right back," I said. "She needs to feel pretty and adored, because she feels big and clumsy and uncomfortable. It's not easy being pregnant, I hear."

"I'll try, Sookie. Can I call you if she doesn't soften up?"

"Yeah, but I know you can work this out, JB. Just be loving and sincere, and she'll come around."

"I like stripping," he said suddenly, as I was turning away.

"Yeah, I know," I said.

"I knew you would understand." He took a last sip of beer, left Sam a tip, and went to work at the gym in Clarice.

"This must be couples day," India said. "Sam and Jannalynn, Jason and Michele, JB and Tara." The thought didn't seem to make her particularly happy.

"You still dating Lola?" Though I knew the answer, it was always better to ask.

"Naw. It didn't work out."

"I'm sorry," I said. "Maybe some day soon the right woman will just walk in the door of the bar, and you'll be all fixed up."

"I hope so." India looked depressed. "I'm not a fan of the wedding industry, but I sure would like a steady someone. Dating makes me all confused."

"I never was any good at dating."

"That why you go with the vamp? To scare off everyone else?"

"I love him," I said steadily. "That's why I go with him." I didn't point out that human guys were simply impossible for me. You can imagine reading your date's mind every minute. No, it really wouldn't be any fun, would it?

"No need to get all defensive," India said.

I thought I'd been matter-of-fact. "He's fun," I said mildly, "and he treats me nice."

"They're ... I don't know how to ask this, but they're cold, right?"

India wasn't the first person who'd tried to find a delicate way to ask me that. There wasn't any delicate way.

"Not room temperature," I said. I left it at that, because any more was none of anyone else's business.

"Damn," she said, after a moment. After a longer moment, she said, "Ew."

I shrugged. She opened her mouth, looked as though she wanted to ask me something else, and then she closed it.

Fortunately for both of us, her table gestured that they wanted their bill, and one of Jane Bodehouse's buddies came in drunk off her ass, so we both had things to do. Holly finally arrived to relieve me, complaining about her no-good car. India was working a double shift, so she kept her apron on. I waved a casual good-bye to Sam, glad to be walking out the door.

I just made it to the library before it closed, and then I stopped by the post office to buy some stamps from the machine in the lobby. Halleigh Bellefleur was there on the same errand, and we greeted each other with real pleasure. You know how sometimes you just like someone, though you don't hang around with them? Halleigh and I don't have much of anything in common, from our background to our educational level to our interests, but we like each other, anyway. Halleigh's baby bump was pronounced, and she looked as rosy as Tara looked wrecked.

"How's Andy doing?" I asked.

"He's not sleeping well, he's so excited about this baby," she said. "He calls me from work to ask how I am and to find out how many times the baby kicked."

"Sticking with 'Caroline'?"

"Yeah, he was real pleased when I suggested that. His grandma brought him up, and she was a fine woman, if a little on the scary side." Halleigh smiled.

Caroline Bellefleur had been more than a little on the scary side. She'd been the last great lady of Bon Temps. She had also been my friend Bill Compton's great-granddaughter. Halleigh's baby would be three more greats away.

I told Halleigh about Jason's engagement, and she said all the right things. She was as polite as Andy's grandmother-and a hell of a lot warmer.

Though it was good to see Halleigh, when I got back into the car with my stamps I was feeling a little blue. I turned the key in the ignition, but I didn't put the car in reverse.

I knew I was a lucky woman in many respects. But there was life being created all around me, and I wasn't ...

I shut down that line of thought with a sharp command to myself. I would not start down the self-pity path. Just because I wasn't pregnant and wasn't married to someone who could make me that way, that was no reason to feel like an island in the stream. I shook myself briskly and set off to complete the rest of my errands. When I caught a glimpse of Faye de Leon coming out of Grabbit Kwik, my attitude adjusted. Faye had been pregnant six times, and she was around my age. She'd told Maxine Fortenberry that she hadn't wanted the last three. But her husband loved to see her pregnant, and he loved kids, and Faye allowed herself to be used "like a puppy mill," as Maxine put it.

Yes, attitude adjustment, indeed.

I had my evening meal and watched television and read one of my new library books that night, and I felt just fine, all by myself, every time I thought about Faye.

Chapter 3

There were no great revelations at work the next day, and not a single outstanding incident. I actually enjoyed that. I just took orders and delivered drinks and food, pocketing my tips. Kennedy Keyes was at the bar. I worried that she and Danny were still quarreling, though he might be at his other job at the home builders' supply place. Kennedy was subdued and dull, and I was sorry; but I didn't want to find out any more about her relationship problems-anybody's relationship problems. I had enough of my own.

It's a conscious effort to block out the thoughts of other people. Though I've gotten better at it, it's still work. I don't have to try as hard with the two-natured, because their thoughts are not as clear as human thoughts; I catch only a sentence or emotion, here and there. Even among humans, some are clearer broadcasters than others. But before I learned how to shield my brain, it was like listening to ten radio stations at a time. Hard to act normal when all that's going on in your brain and you're still trying to listen to what people actually say with their mouths.

So during that little period of normality, I achieved a measure of peace. I convinced myself that the meeting with Felipe would go well, that he would believe either that we hadn't killed Victor or that Victor's death was justifiable. I was in no hurry to face him to find out.

I stayed gossiping at the bar for a few minutes, and on the way home I filled up the car with gas. I got a chicken sandwich from the Sonic and drove home slowly.

Sunset was so late in the summer that the vamps wouldn't be up for a couple of hours yet. I hadn't heard a word from anyone at Fangtasia. I didn't even know when I was supposed to get there. I just knew I had to look nice, because Eric would expect it in front of visitors.

Dermot wasn't in the house. I'd hoped Claude might have returned from his mysterious trip to Faery, but if he had, there was no sign. I couldn't spare any more concern for the fae tonight. I had vampire problems on my mind.

I was too anxious to eat more than half my sandwich. I sorted through the mail I'd picked up at the end of the driveway, throwing most of it into the trash can. I had to fish my electric bill out after I tossed it along with a furniture-sale flyer. I opened it to check the amount. Claude had better return from Faery; he was a reckless energy user, and my bill was almost double its normal size. I wanted Claude to pay his share. My water heater was gas, and that bill was way up, too. I put the Shreveport newspaper on the kitchen table to read later. It was sure to be full of bad news.

I showered and redid my hair and makeup. It was so hot that I didn't want to wear slacks, and shorts would not suit Eric's sense of formality. I sighed, resigned to the inevitable. I began looking through my summer dresses. Luckily, I'd taken the time to shave my legs, a habit Eric found both fascinating and bizarre. My skin was nice and brown this far into the tanning season, and my hair was a few shades lighter and still looked good from the remedial trim the hairdresser Immanuel had given it a few weeks previously. I put on a white skirt, a bright blue sleeveless blouse, and a real broad black leather belt that had gotten too tight for Tara. My good black sandals were still in pretty fair shape. My hand paused over the drawer of my dressing table. Within it, camouflaged with a light dusting of face powder, lay a powerful fairy magical object called a cluviel dor.

I'd never thought of carrying it around on my person. Part of me was afraid of wasting the power of the cluviel dor. If I used it recklessly, it would amount to using a nuclear device to kill a fly.

The cluviel dor was a rare and ancient fairy love gift. I guess it was the fae equivalent of a Faberge Easter egg, but magical. My grandfather-not my human one, but my half-human, half-fairy grandfather, Fintan, Dermot's twin-had given it to my grandmother Adele, who had hidden it away. She had never told me she had it, and I had only just discovered it during the attic clean-out. It had taken me longer to identify it and to learn more about its properties. Only the part-demon lawyer Desmond Cataliades knew I had it ... though perhaps my friend Amelia suspected, since I'd asked her to teach me about what it could do.

Up until now, I'd hidden it just like my grandmother had. You can't go through life carrying a gun in your hand just in case someone wants to attack you, right? Though the cluviel dor was a love gift, not a weapon, its use might have results just as dramatic. Possession of the cluviel dor granted the possessor a wish. That wish had to be a personal one, to benefit the possessor or someone the possessor loved. But there were some awful scenarios I'd imagined: What if I wished an oncoming car wouldn't hit me, and instead it hit another car and killed a whole family? What if I wished that my gran were alive again, and instead of my living grandmother, her corpse appeared?