Vampire Blood Read Free Page B

was barely seven o’clock. In this heat, her father liked getting an early start.
    “Morning, Dad, Sis. Up early, huh?” Joey was placing cups of steaming coffee in front of them before they even asked. He seemed glad to see them.
    “The early bird gets the worm, remember?” Jenny winked at her brother, a tall, ruggedly handsome guy with long dark hair he wore tied back in a ponytail. He had light green eyes the color of her peridot birthstone.
    “Besides, we had to get up early. We have the Albers’ monstrosity to paint. We figure it’ll take about two years, at least,” she said with feigned dislike, throwing her hand up against her forehead dramatically. “We thought we’d better get a punctual start.”
    Joey chuckled. “Whew! The Albers place. You gonna paint all of it?” He had turned to gaze at his father, who was sipping his coffee and sighing with pleasure. “All twenty floors, huh, Dad?” Joey played along.
    “Nope,” the old man retorted with a perfectly straight face, but with a twinkle in his eyes. “Just the first fifteen.”
    “Ha, ha. Still a joker, huh?” Joey slipped away and served coffee to someone who’d requested it then he came back. “Well, you guys must want something, or you wouldn’t be in a dump like this,” he teased. “I just finished a fresh batch of biscuits, hot from the oven. You two want the usual?”
    “Why not?” Jenny shot back. “Biscuits and gravy it is.” Their dad bobbed his head in agreement and disappeared towards the restrooms in the back.
    Joey leaned over the counter. “How’s he doing?”
    “Oh, he’s doing okay, I guess. This job has really lifted his spirits. We need the money. I just hope he hasn’t bitten off more than he can chew. He’s been pretty tired lately.” Jenny shook her head.
    Joey’s head cocked to one side, his eyebrows raised.
    “I mean the Albers’ house is a big house, and you know how Dad is on the high places?” A frown shadowed her face.
    “Yeah, I know, Sis. You’ve told me, but he’s a grown man, and he never listens to us anyway. He’ll do what he wants.”
    “Always,” Jenny sighed, knowing he was right.
    “How about that breakfast? I’m hungry, Brother.”
    “In a sec.” He hesitated, unsure, and threw in, “How about yourself, Jenny Penny, how are you doing these days?”
    The childhood nickname made her smile; her face transformed, and she was pretty. “Fine as frog hair. No complaints.” Her fingers brushed her bangs away from her eyes.
    Jenny was the kind of woman who didn’t need makeup; she had a natural beauty that glowed from deep inside her. She always wore the same tiny diamond pierced earrings, a long-ago gift from her first husband and today they reflected the red of her sleeveless T-shirt.
    “You working on anything?” he probed.
    Jenny’s smile faded, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck go up. When would they stop asking? Stop making her feel guilty? “Yes, a two-story Victorian house, starting today.”
    Joey’s green eyes grew serious. “You know what I mean.”
    Yes, she knew what he meant. “Drop it. Just leave me alone, Joey. I will someday. When I’m ready,” she snapped at him, and he drew back like she’d burned him.
    “Sorry. Excuse me for living. Just asked. You know it has been a couple of years since your last book. You can’t run away from it forever.”
    Jenny glared back at him and clanged her spoon against her cup’s saucer. He shut up.
    A couple of years?
    More like ten.
    It seemed like a hundred. At times, Jenny couldn’t believe that she’d ever written those three novels sitting on her dusty bookcase back at the trailer, or that she had ever been that stupid nitwit who’d wasted hours, days, months, hunched over that typewriter creating all those pages and pages of ... meaningless words. That nonsensical distraction that had deprived her of what had later turned out to have been the short, but precious, time she could have had with her