Read Online Dead Ever After: A True Blood Novel by Charlaine Harris - Free Book Online Page B

naturally wiry, he looked as though he’d lost ten pounds. He’d showered, at least; maybe Bernie had insisted. When I’d evaluated Sam, I looked around at the living room, as best I could. The sharp contrasts of light hurt my eyes.
    “Can I open the curtains?” I asked.
    “No,” he said, his voice sharp. Then he seemed to reconsider. “Well, okay, one.”
    Moving slowly and carefully, I pulled back a curtain over the window mostly shaded by an oak tree. Even so, as light brightened the trailer, Sam winced.
    “Why does the sunshine bother you?” I asked, trying to sound absolutely calm about it.
    “Because I died, Sookie. I died and came back.” He didn’t sound bitter, but he sure didn’t sound happy.
    Okayyyyy. Well, since I hadn’t heard a word from Sam, I’d figured he wasn’t dancing in the streets over his experience, but I guess I’d thought he’d at least be, I dunno, pleased about it. That he would say something along the lines of, Gosh, you wonderful woman, now that I’ve had time to rest and reflect, I thank you for altering your life forever by bringing back mine. What an amazing gift.
    That’s what I’d figured.
    So. Wrong again.

Chapter 4
    Sam’s mom scratched at the door. Since Sam was still standing in his “tense and tortured” pose, I obliged. Bernie walked in on four paws, nosed at Sam’s leg for a second, and went into the little corridor leading to the bedrooms.
    “Sam,” I said, to get his attention. He looked at me, but I wasn’t getting a lot of expression from him. “You got a bar to run,” I said. “You got people depending on you. After all the stuff you’ve been through, don’t flake out now.”
    His eyes seemed to focus on me. “Sookie,” he said, “you don’t understand. I died. ”
    “You don’t understand,” I retorted with some heat. “I was there. I had my hand on you when your heart quit beating. And I brought you back. Maybe that’s what you should be thinking about, huh? The ‘brought back’ part?”
    If he said “I died” one more time, I was going to slap him silly.
    Bernie, in woman form, entered into the living room dressed in khaki shorts and a blouse. Sam and I were too locked in our conversation to speak to her, though I sort of waved my hand in her direction.
    “You had a cluviel dor,” Sam said. “You really had one.”
    “I did,” I said. “Now it’s only a pretty thing that looks like a compact.”
    “Why did you have it with you? Did you expect what was going to happen?”
    I shifted uneasily. “Sam, who could expect that? I just figured there wasn’t any point in having something like that if you didn’t have it on you to use. Maybe Gran wouldn’t have died if she’d kept it on her.”
    “Like a fairy Life Alert,” Sam said.
    “Yeah. Like that.”
    “But you must have had a plan for it, a use. I mean, it was a gift . . . to keep. Maybe to save your own life.”
    I looked away, getting more and more uncomfortable. I’d come over here to find out what was happening in Sam’s head, not to raise questions (or answer questions) that might lay a burden on him he shouldn’t have to assume.
    “It was a gift, which means I could use it as I chose,” I said, trying to sound brisk and matter-of-fact. “And I chose to start your heart again.”
    Sam sat down in his dilapidated armchair, the only item in the trailer that looked as though it needed to be kicked to the curb.
    Bernie said, “Have a seat, Sookie.” She came farther into the room and stared down at her oldest son, the only family member who had received the shifter gene. “I see you looking at the old chair,” she said conversationally, when Sam didn’t speak. “That was my husband’s. It was the only thing of his I gave away when he died, because it just reminded me of him too much. Maybe I should have kept it, and maybe if I’d looked at it every day, I wouldn’t have married Don.”
    Maybe Bernie’s problem wasn’t so much marrying Don as not