Even Vampires Get the Blues: A Deadly Angels Book by Sandra Hill Page B

her daughter. It was none of his business, of course, but that didn’t mean he had to willingly expose himself to such condescension.
    “You’re up early,” he heard a voice say behind him.
    He half turned to see Camille standing in the doorway, holding a mug of coffee to her chest like it was the Holy Grail. Where was the beauty of last night? This creature was barefooted, like himself, wearing shorts with a matching tank top of a bright neon green color that hurt his tired eyes. No bra as far as he could tell, and he could tell things like that, not because he was a vangel, but because he was a man, a Viking man. Men had supersonic vision when it came to even the hint of a female nipple. Her makeup was smeared, creating a raccoon effect about the eyes and a smudged red, bruised effect on her lips. Her hair was a tangled mess, lopsided, where she must have been sleeping. She still wore one dangling silver earring. The other was in his suit pocket; she’d dropped it in one of the bars they’d visited in the French Quarter.
    The last he’d seen of her, she’d still been wearing the sexy red dress, and she’d been plastered face-first on her bed where he’d delivered her about two a.m. She’d been deep in what they called in the old days “alehead madness.” In other words, schnockered.
    “You’re up early, too. I thought you’d stay in bed all morning. You’ve only had three hours’ sleep,” he replied, watching as she managed to sink down into the chair next to him with a groan, being careful not to spill her coffee. She eyed the half-eaten beignet on his plate with distaste, and groaned when a bird chirped in a nearby tree.
    Can anyone say hangover?
    “Pfff! I have to be at the dressmaker’s by eight to have a first and final fitting for my bridesmaid dress.” Her upper lip curled with disgust as she added, “It’s pink.” She informed him of the color as if that should have some meaning to him.
    It didn’t.
    “Actually, its color is described as blush, but it’s been my experience that blush is just a bridal shop’s way of luring a customer into a putrid pink bridesmaid-from-hell confection. They have a surplus of these monstrosities they’ve been trying to unload for a hundred years. Just like celery means baby-poop green, and tangerine means screaming Halloween orange.” She sipped at her coffee after expounding that bit of female wisdom, which meant absolutely nothing to him. “I think Inez has lost her mind, having such a big wedding. At one point she even wanted a Southern belle theme. Hoop skirts, mint juleps, the works. Really, weddings turn even the most intelligent women into dingbats. I told her that, if she thought my brother was suddenly going to morph into Rhett Freakin’ Butler, I had a plantation called Tara I could sell her. Luckily she saw reason. The wedding reception will still be a bigass extravaganza, but at least I won’t have to wear hoops. Just pink.”
    Camille’s woozy spiel amused Harek. She was probably still a little bit drunk.
    “Well, you could go back to bed after the fitting, couldn’t you?”
    “Are you kidding? I intend to be out of here for the rest of the day. My mother has lined up hairdressers, manicurists, makeup artists, a masseuse, and God only knows who else coming to the house to prepare us for the wedding. Did I tell you there are three hundred invited guests for the reception? I could puke.”
    “Please don’t.”
    “I already did.”
    Too much information. “Where will you go?” Maybe she has a hideaway, like I do.
    “I could take you sightseeing in Nawleans or on a swamp tour.”
    Her offer was made so reluctantly that he had to laugh. “No need to entertain me. I intend to go visit my brother at his plantation outside Houma. Don’t worry. I’ll be back in time for the festivities.”
    She looked at him with such yearning that he asked, “Would you like to go with me?”
    “Yes! Could you wait ’til after my fitting? I’ll be