Read Online Confessions of a Vampire's Girlfriend by Katie Maxwell - Free Book Online

saying over my shoulder, “I’ll ask my mom about the ride in the morning. She’s not too happy with me tonight. At least she won’t be until I start—” I stopped. It was just so easy to talk to Ben, I forgot that I didn’t need to blab every thought I had to him.
    â€œUntil you start what?”
    He followed me around to the front of the horse trailer, where Soren told me they kept Bruno’s grain. I measured out the amount he’d mentioned, dumping it into a bucket. “Here, you carry this.”
    Ben took the bucket, watching as I frowned at a bale of hay. “How much is a flake? Soren just said a flake. Half, do you think?”
    â€œNo, look, you can see the natural divisions in the bale. That’s a flake.”
    â€œHow do you know so much about horses?”
    He did a half smile. “I told you—you’re not the only one who likes them.”
    â€œOh. Have you had one? I mean, like, long ago? You know, when everyone had horses?” He looked so normal (an understatement if there ever was one) that it was hard to remember that he was walking around a couple of centuries ago, before they had cars, before they had electricity, before stuff like penicillin and anesthetic. I wanted to ask him about a gazillion questions, but figured that would have to wait.
    â€œYeah, I’ve had horses.”
    â€œI guess you would have to, huh? Did you take care of them yourself?”
    His half smile got a bit quirkier. “No. I had grooms.”
    â€œGrooms? Like servants?”
    He nodded.
    I just stood there with my mouth hanging open like a big dumb girl. “Are you royalty or something?”
    He laughed and chucked me under the chin, just like you do to a little kid. “No, I’m not royalty, Fran. You don’t have to look so appalled.”
    I turned away, yelling at myself for being such a boob as l pulled loose a chunk about six inches wide and carried it over to the opposite side of the trailer, where Bruno was munching down on his dinner. Ben set the bucket down, then went and fetched a second with water for the horses while I brought Tesla over and tied him on a long lead to the trailer. “Din-dins! Bon appetit.”
    â€œFran? What is it you have to start?”
    I turned and faced Ben. Just what I needed in my life, a vamp with a one-track mind. “It’s nothing, okay? Just a little project I have to do for my mother. Something I had to agree to in order to keep Tesla. So you can stop prying and leave me alone.”
    Sometimes I’d like to kick myself. Other times I just want to step out of my skin, point to my body, and say, “I’m not with her.” This was one of the times when I wanted to do both.
    â€œSorry,” Ben said, and without giving me anything more than a quick glance, he turned around and walked off.
    Crap, crap, and double crap! Could I be any more stupid? The cutest guy in the whole universe—okay, he’s a bloodsucker, but no one’s perfect—and I have to snap at him until he goes off to talk to smaller, shorter, prettier girls, girls he doesn’t have to pretend to like just because they can save his soul.
    â€œMy life totally sucks,” I told Tesla. He twitched his tail aside and pooped. “Thank you. I so needed that.”
    I scooped the horse poop out of the way, made sure Tesla was okay for a while, then figured, as long as I was miserable and unhappy and depressed, I might as well be really miserable and unhappy and depressed.
    Fran Ghetti, the Nancy Drew of the twenty-first century.
    Not!

CHAPTER FIVE

    â€œ M iranda says you have agreed to find the thief who steals our money. She vill not tell me how it is you are to do this. I am naturally curious. You vill tell me now.” Absinthe set her overnight bag down next to her trailer, and turned to bark something in German to Karl, who had picked her up from the train station. Imogen says that Karl is