“Lasses?”
“—but think about the poor, dentally challenged zombie in his stained rags. How much harder he has to work to lure a woman to his bed.”
I had to admit it: Sam, with his two-day stubble and his nose still red from the flu, was a damned sexy zombie.
“I never thought about that,” I admitted. “I mean, I didn’t even know zombies had beds.”
“Zombies might not sleep, but they have needs,” Sam said.
“Uh . . . gross.”
“See. Exactly my point.”
Before the demands of the clinic and Sam’s job and the kids, it had often been like this. A small part of me resented that the old Sam had resurfaced on a morning I didn’t have time for it.
“Another thing they have to overcome—the language barrier. You know—you want to tell a woman how bewitching she looks, but all that comes out is a grunt.”
I found myself yielding to the insistency of his hands despite my distractions, and this time, I returned his kiss, flu be damned. “I’d say that’s also true of some human males.” I traced his mouth with my index finger. “But I see what you’re saying. A vampire can tell a ‘lass’ he wants to drink her blood, and it sounds hot because of the accent.”
“Exactly! Women love exotic men. Plus, some women find the smell of rotting flesh a turnoff.”
“That does seem unfair. But I don’t think you’re making much of a case for the sexiness of zombies.”
“Well—” Sam wrapped his arms around my waist and bent to kiss my neck. After seventeen years, he still got to me. “To overcome all these obstacles, a zombie has to be persuasive.”
He kissed the other side of my neck. Plastic teeth scraped the skin.
“Attentive.” His hands shifted to my lower back. “When a woman can so easily outrun you, you have to put so much more effort in the chase.”
“Mmmm. I thought zombies were more the ‘take by force’ type?”
Sam pulled me closer, away from my distractions. I wished I hadn’t promised Leo I would take him to school early.
Sam whispered in my ear, “Not the smart ones.”
“I didn’t know there were smart ones.” It had been a while. A week? Ten days?
“See the prejudices they have to overcome.”
“Mo-om.” Leo added an extra syllable as he yelled through the door. “Can we go?”
I yelled back, “Pretty impatient for someone who canceled trick-or-treating plans on his six-year-old sister.”
On the other side of the door, Leo grunted.
“I think Leo might be part zombie,” I said.
Sam’s phone trilled. His attention snapped from me to his screen, whatever had been happening between us suddenly as dead as any zombie.
“You have to go?” he asked, his tone pushing me toward the door.
I met his eyes—tried to read them—and crossed my arms. “I’ve got a few minutes.”
The call rolled into voicemail, but the phone immediately started ringing again.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I have to take this.”
Sam opened the door for me, waiting for me to walk through it before he answered the call.
5
One of the oldest schools in the state, Santa Rosa High’s brick exterior proclaimed its history. In an hour, the parking lots would be clogged, but I was able to drop Leo at the front steps.
After I left my son, I had my vet tech, Zoe, also my closest friend, reschedule my morning appointments so I could call the bank and stop by the pharmacy. Then there was the longest part of the morning: the DMV. A couple of times while waiting on those cheap plastic seats, I signed on to the local newspaper’s website from my phone to check if there was anything about the attack, or the victim’s condition. The incident likely happened too late to make that morning’s print edition, but I thought there might be something online. Nothing. Probably still too early.
When I finally pulled into my clinic’s parking lot toward the end of the lunch hour, my first thought was of Sam. I had met him here a month into my internship, when tragedy struck: Princess Jellybean had gotten sick. Sam, working as a substitute teacher in Mrs. Hawking’s kindergarten class, had been frantic to get the guinea pig back on his pellets and greens before the kids noticed. (Yes, Princess Jellybean was a male guinea pig who had been named by a group of five-year-old girls.)
The vet I had been working with at the time had prescribed antibiotics and a special diet that required Sam to hand-feed Princess Jellybean. Even now, I smiled at the memory of him hunched over the rodent with a syringe.
A few weeks later, Sam and the guinea pig had returned. Princess Jellybean had seemed fine, a little chubby even, but Sam had claimed the rodent could benefit from some acupuncture. It took him another month, and several appointments, before he got up the nerve to ask me out.
I thought of Sam now because of the phone call. After seventeen years of marriage, we didn’t have secrets. Or so I had believed, until he had rushed me out that morning to take that call.
When I entered the clinic, Zoe was stationed behind the front desk with Smooch, an orange tabby with one eye, nestled in the basket beside her. Smooch blinked in greeting before returning to her nap. Cats.
Zoe jumped up, and I braced myself. My lavender-haired friend was six feet of muscled curves and bleached-smile exuberance. She was also a hugger. That morning, though, her embrace was tentative, as if she were afraid anything stronger would break me.
“You okay?” she asked. No smile for me today.
“I’m okay.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Zoe vibrated with curiosity but switched into business mode. “Daryl’s on his way in with Lester.”
Before I could ask why, the front door jerked open. Usually, Lester careened into a room, all crossed paws, blocky head, and thrashing tail. But that day, he stumbled in, dropping in a pile onto the floor. When I approached, the Labrador whimpered and peered at me from beneath the rim of his surgical collar, but, except for his eyebrows, he didn’t move. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen slack in Lester’s leash.
I knelt to scratch the Lab behind one floppy ear. “What’s going on with our boy here?” I asked.
Though Daryl shared his dog’s coloring and easy temperament, in motion they were normally opposites. With Lester splayed at his feet, though, Daryl seemed to absorb Lester’s unspent energy. His shoulders jerked, unaccustomed to the lack of resistance on the tether.
“He’s gotten worse since last night’s surgery,” Daryl said.
Concerned, I ushered Daryl and Lester into the exam room. We lifted the Labrador onto the stainless-steel table, and I checked the dressing on the wound. There were no signs of swelling or discharge.
“When was the last time he ate?” I asked.
“Breakfast. He was fine last night, then this morning, he started acting like he’d scarfed down a whole plate of pot brownies.”
“There’s no chance he did?” I asked. “Eat any pot brownies?” This was Lester. I had to ask.
“Nah,” Daryl said. “At first, I thought it might be the drugs.”