The Vampire Diaries: Trust In Betrayal (Kindle Worlds) (In Time We Trust Trilogy Book 3) Read Free

smile.
     
    “Better?” Cali asks, turning to Jeremy and tilting her head up for his inspection.
     
    Jeremy’s thumb rubs softly over her throat, taking away the last traces of blood. “Better,” he agrees.
     
    “Well, is everybody ready to eat?” Elena asks, a little too brightly.
     
    “Now that the human’s all patched up and freshly refilled.” I flare my eyes in Cali’s direction. “I don’t mind if I do.”
     
    Jeremy gives me an annoyed look. “Not cool, man.”
     
    “Just try it, Sparky,” Cali says dryly. “I’d kill you just for that car, and at least this way we can call it self-defense.”
     
    She balls up her bandages and makes a three-pointer with nothing but net in the trash can beside the entrance, and then pulls open the door and heads inside with Jeremy following along behind.
     
    I frown, letting go of Elena and taking a quick step forward so I can smack him in the side of the head for his lack of manners.
     
    “Ow,” he complains. “What was that for?”
     
    I just shake my head. “Kids these days.”
     
    Caroline waves her hands to draw our attention to where she’s had the staff set up three tables end to end to make room for all nine of us.
     
    “Did it go okay?” she asks Cali. “I know it can be a little…icky.”
     
    Cali smiles wryly and drops into the seat next to her. “It wasn’t the way I was hoping to lead into breakfast.”
     
    “Here,” Caroline says, digging in her purse for a breath mint. “It’s citrus, not mint.” She drops her voice. “Covers up the copper flavor a little better.”
     
    Cali takes it with a bemused look. “And I thought my friends were strange.” She pops it into her mouth anyway. “Thanks.”
     
    Elena grabs a spot on the end and tugs me down next to her. Stefan takes the seat between me and Katherine without comment, which is probably for the best. Jeremy sprawls into the chair across from his sister and next to his little girlfriend, still looking irked at my impromptu lesson in chivalry.
     
    “Is it really safe to stop here?” Matt asks, his eyes bouncing nervously around the too-bright dining room.
     
    “A better question,” Cali says, nabbing a menu from the stack in the middle of the table, “would be is it safe to go any further without providing Cali with pork products. And the answer? Definitively not.”
     
    Katherine gives her a disgusted once over that looks like it weighed her out at five pounds over the limit even though I’d bet that little pixie is a digit or two beneath Katherine’s own dress size.
     
    I rap a knuckle so Donovan will lean forward enough to see me at the other end of the long table, and then I point to where a stout, grey-haired waitress is lowering the shades so we won’t be blinded by the sun starting to peek over the horizon.
     
    “None of our little friends last night were wearing rings,” I tell him. “Which means our drive time just got switched to night shift for the duration of this road trip.”
     
    “A lack of bling,” Cali mutters into her menu. “Tragic.” Jeremy snickers, and she shoots him a look from underneath her eyelashes. “Bacon or ham steak?” she proposes. “I’m fresh out of coins to flip.”
     
    He looks at her like she’s out of her mind. “Both.”
     
    She smiles and snaps her menu shut, folding her hands on top of it, the rings on her fingers clicking together decisively as she trains the stripped-down intensity of her pale blue eyes on me.
     
    “Look, I told you about my grandma’s situation, and I really appreciate you guys offering to set up care for her, but it’s just not that easy.”
     
    “I already did,” Elena interrupts, her brown eyes soft. “While you were getting clothes for us earlier. It’s Compassionate Care, the best agency in town. They’re staffed twenty-four hours a day and you can call whenever you want with more specific instructions. They had her, um, on file already and they said her insurance will