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  “Kate,” he said again. “Can’t you try? Try to trust me just a little bit? This is going to be a hell of a difficult trip if you can’t.”

  I took a deep breath, making sure I expanded my diaphragm, held it and counted to ten. Then I let it out slowly, counting backwards to one. I had taken exactly one Yoga class before I decided contorting myself into new and interesting shapes on a mat for relaxation wasn’t for me. The breathing thing was what I got out of it and it was worth the twenty-five dollars and fifty cents the class cost me just to learn that.

  “Kate?” Michael sounded doubtful.

  “All right,” I said at last. “But can you drive a stick?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  It took me a while, but I finally felt myself drifting off to sleep in the passenger’s side seat. The sun shining through the windows blanketed me in warmth, caressing my arms and legs and chest—all the parts of me that were usually kept covered by the suit— like a gentle, affectionate hand and it was just too much to resist. At first I kept jerking awake and glancing at Michael, but he was always looking straight ahead, driving quietly and competently. He didn’t even squint in the bright sunlight.

  I had found a pair of sunglasses in my dash and offered them to him but he only shook his head.

  “Nah, don’t need ‘em,” he’d said, so I put them on myself. Talk about an atypical vamp—maybe he was something new. But the empty water bottles rattling around in the back seat of the Charger sounded like the clicking of bones.

  It made me nervous.

  But nervous or not, I couldn’t help succumbing to the warmth of the sun and the steady rhythm of the car. I was absolutely exhausted both emotionally and physically. More than anything else, the shock of The Monsignor’s betrayal had sapped my strength. I couldn’t remember feeling so hurt and worn down since the night of my Uncle Harry’s death, four years before.

  The next time I woke up it was almost six o’clock and Michael was shaking me gently and calling my name.

  “Huh?” I sat up, awake all at once and ready to kick ass. I reached for my Glock, only to discover it wasn’t in its usual holster at my side. In fact, the holster was gone too. And so were my clothes. I looked down to see that instead of my black vinyl slayer suit, I was wearing somebody’s idea of a sick joke—a pink sundress.

  Then everything came rushing back to me at once. I was dressed like Strawberry Shortcake and riding in a car with a vampire who I was currently on the run with because my former boss and mentor had betrayed me and now wanted me dead. Talk about your life taking a ninety degree turn for the worse.

  Michael had stopped the car at a place called “Billy Pig’s Barbeque Shack” a few miles off the interstate. There was a huge pink pig on the sign above the door with a big stupid grin plastered across his face. He seemed to be inviting you in to have a bite of his less fortunate relations.

  “You all right?” Michael was looking at me a little anxiously.

  “Fine.” I stretched and rubbed my eyes. “Just stiff. And sore.” I looked down at my skin and groaned. “Crap—I think I’m burned.” It was true—my usually corpse white epidermis was almost as pink as the dress I was wearing. My transformation to Strawberry Shortcake was complete.

  Michael took my arm and looked at it critically for a moment. “You got a little more sun than you’re used to, I guess. Sorry, I should have noticed that.”

  “Did you burn at all?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I always just tan.”

  Great, I was riding with a vampire and I was the one that got sunburned.

  Irony anyone?

  I took off the sunglasses and flipped down the visor to catch a look at myself in the mirror. Sure enough—I looked like a reverse raccoon with white circles around my blue eyes, highlighting my pink cheeks.

  Red, white, and blue. My, my, wasn’t I patriotic.

  “Does it hurt?” Michael asked.

  I shrugged and winced. “It’s not great but I’ve had worse. Mainly I just need to get something to put on it.”

  “Well, I think this is a convenience station as well as a restaurant. Maybe you can get some aloe vera gel while I gas up the car. Are you hungry?”

  I gave him a level stare.

  “Are you?”

  He shrugged, obviously trying to appear unconcerned.

  “I could eat.”

  We would see about that.

  “Where are we, anyway?” I asked, as I eyed the Barbeque Shack with distaste. I’m not a big fan of covering an honest piece of meat up with sauce so you can’t see what the hell you’re eating.

  “Somewhere in Georgia,” Michael told me, already going around to the gas tank. He reached in the pocket of his jeans and tried to hand me a traveler’s check. “Tell them we need twenty on pump five.”

  I waved him off. “I’ve got it,” I said, producing two twenties.

  He grinned. “All right, but I’m paying next time. We can’t go Dutch forever.”

  “Ha-ha,” I said, irked by his implication that this was just one big long cross-country first date.

  I sauntered into the convenience store part of the Barbeque Shack and paid for the gas first so Michael could pump before going to peruse the pitiful selection of over-priced first aid products. What little they had was right next to a huge rack of dried meat strips that appeared to come from a local dealer. It didn’t take me long to lose interest in the aloe gel as I stared in disgust at the meat.

  Now, I’m not knocking the South. I was born right in St. Joe’s hospital in Tampa and I’ve lived south of the Mason Dixon line all my life. But I am a city girl, not a country one. I have a low tolerance for pick-up trucks, country music, and men who chew tobacco. Uncle Harry had taught me to appreciate the beauty of a fine Cuban cigar on occasion but that was as far as I went. Putting that stuff in your mouth is disgusting.

  But chewing tobacco would have been a hundred times better than some of the dried meat I saw hanging from the rack. It looked like a selection of shrunken heads from a culinary conscious witch doctor.

  There was rattlesnake and alligator. Okay—I’m from Florida where people eat gator, I could deal with that. But then I saw something that still had a tail on it—a long, skinny naked tail. My God—was it even legal to sell something like that in a public place?

  “That there’s ‘possum,” said a voice from behind me.

  I turned to see a tall man with squinting, faded blue eyes and a sweat-ringed NASCAR ballcap parked on his bullet head. He was wearing worn jeans that had seen better days and what had been a long-sleeved red and white plaid shirt. Both sleeves had been cut off it, revealing slab-like arms and the front of the shirt was stretched tight over his protruding belly. Either he was eight months along or he really liked his beer.

  “’Possum?” I asked, incredulous. “Are you serious?”

  “Yup. It’s good for what ails ya.” He grinned, revealing teeth that plainly showed he didn’t share my reservations about chewing tobacco. Or else maybe he just didn’t like toothbrushes. Either way, his breath was enough to knock me over. I thought about asking if a big bite of ‘’possum’ would cure that, and thought better of it. Maybe that was what had caused it in the first place.

  “Well, it’s certainly…different,” I said diplomatically and went pointedly back to my perusal of the sunburn gels. I picked one that looked the least sticky and studied the ingredients.

  “Whatcha got there?” ‘Possum Breath asked, leaning over my shoulder. Apparently he was feeling talkative.

  “I got a sunburn so I’m getting some gel for it,” I said. He was beginning to really annoy me. I wished I had on my suit, which is full of nasty little surprises for idiots like him as well as vamps. I felt naked and unprotected as a clam without its shell in the stupid pink sundress.

  What I really needed was a t-shirt to put over it. I spotted a rack of souvenir tees, three for ten dollars and headed for it, hoping my redneck friend would take the hint and leave me alone.