A Vampire's Promise by Carla Susan Smith Page B

been told about my best friend was true. Of course I intended to lie my ass off.
    She stood there staring at me. It didn’t take a genius to see her crying jag had been put on the back burner for the time being, and now she was madder than hell.
    â€œWell, I think that just about covers it, Rowan Harper,” she said in response to my slip of the tongue.
    Her voice was amazingly calm, and for a moment I was fooled into thinking I was mistaken. That she was here for some other, completely innocuous reason and her husband’s infidelity was still a secret. Regrettably her face hollered “fat chance.”
    It crossed my mind that I was being impolite by keeping her on the doorstep, and I was actually making a motion to invite her inside when my face exploded. Bells that would put Notre Dame Cathedral to shame went off inside my head, and I got a multicolored light show courtesy of the fist that connected with my right cheekbone. I had no idea the mother of two, a woman barely over five foot three—okay, five foot six in the hooker heels—could pack a punch that hard. My face hurt like hell.
    â€œDid you think I wouldn’t find out, you whoring bitch?” she exploded. The calm demeanor had been replaced by a shrillness that would have made any fishwife proud. “Did you think I’m so stupid you could flaunt it in my face and get away with it? Fucking my husband in your house in the middle of the day!”
    My hand flew to my face, and my vision blurred as hot tears threatened to spill. Damn it! I sure as hell didn’t want to give Suellen DuPree the satisfaction of knowing she’d made me cry. I took a step back into my hallway, horrified when it looked as if she was going to follow me. Alarmed, I held out a hand to stop her, but not before I got a glimpse of the bewilderment filling her own eyes. Guess hitting me hadn’t been part of her original idea. It was a safe bet that she was more surprised than I at the result.
    Taking advantage of her hesitation, I slammed the front door shut, which only enraged her further. She began pounding on the wood with her fist and screeching like a banshee. Thanks to my throbbing face, I only caught every third or fourth word, but judging from the workout she gave slut, bitch, and whore, I guessed her husband’s affair was no longer a secret. And confirmed Suellen had a limited vocabulary.
    In all fairness, I was partly to blame for her putting two and two together and coming up with five. Allowing Laycee and Jake to use my house for clandestine lunches might not have been such a good idea after all. I wouldn’t put it past Suellen to have had Jake followed, but whoever was spying for her had done a half-assed job. Seeing Jake, or more likely his cruiser, parked in my driveway, they had assumed I was the “other woman,” convincing Suellen her husband was sleeping with me. If my face didn’t hurt so much, I would have laughed myself silly.
    The sound of squealing tires told me my visitor had left. I sighed with relief and let the tears fall. My cheek was throbbing and my vision was going blurry, which meant my eye was starting to swell. Dropping my hand, I saw a smear of blood in my palm, which scared the crap out of me. I ran to the bathroom.
    Suellen loved costume jewelry, especially big clunky cocktail rings, and she had been wearing one on the hand she’d punched me with. It had caught me in just the right spot, opening the skin below my eye. Thankfully, the cut didn’t look too bad, and the bleeding had stopped by the time I got the first aid kit out from under the sink. My reflection in the bathroom mirror said a Band-Aid was only going to make me look worse. Some things Spongebob just wasn’t meant for.
    I rinsed a washcloth in some cold water and held it to my face. My eye hurt and the skin was already beginning to discolor, but the cool water felt good. Carefully I wiped the rest of my face. It seemed