"Charlaine Harris - Sookie Stackhouse 03 - Club Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harris Charlaine)

could just about live at Merlotte's, if Sam could use me. I sure needed the money.

I tried real hard not to be bitter as I drove away from Belle Rive. I went south out of town and
then turned left onto Hummingbird Road on my way to Merlotte's. I tried to pretend that all was well;
that on his return from SeattleтАФor whereverтАФBill would be a passionate lover again, and Bill would
treasure me and make me feel valuable once more. I would again have that feeling of belonging with
someone, instead of being alone.

Of course, I had my brother, Jason. Though as far as intimacy and companionship goes, I had to
admit that he hardly counted.
But the pain in my middle was the unmistakable pain of rejection. I knew the feeling so well, it
was like a second skin.
I sure hated to crawl back inside it.




Chapter Two



I tested the doorknob to make sure I'd locked it, turned around, and out of the corner of my eye
glimpsed a figure sitting in the swing on my front porch. I stifled a shriek as he rose. Then I recognized
him.
I was wearing a heavy coat, but he was in a tank top; that didn't surprise me, really.

"ElтАФ" Uh-oh, close call. "Bubba, how are you?" I was trying to sound casual, carefree. I failed,
but Bubba wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. The vampires admitted that bringing him over, when he'd
been so very close to death and so saturated with drugs, had been a big mistake. The night he'd been
brought in, one of the morgue attendants happened to be one of the undead, and also happened to be a
huge fan. With a hastily constructed and elaborate plot involving a murder or two, the attendant had
"brought him over"тАФmade Bubba a vampire. But the process doesn't always go right, you know. Since
then, he's been passed around like idiot royalty. Louisiana had been hosting him for the past year.
"Miss Sookie, how you doin'?" His accent was still thick and his face still handsome, in a jowly
kind of way. The dark hair tumbled over his forehead in a carefully careless style. The heavy sideburns
were brushed. Some undead fan had groomed him for the evening.

"I'm just fine, thank you," I said politely, grinning from ear to ear. I do that when I'm nervous. "I
was just fixing to go to work," I added, wondering if it was possible I would be able to simply get in my
car and drive away. I thought not.

"Well, Miss Sookie, I been sent to guard you tonight."

"You have? By who?"
"By Eric," he said proudly. "I was the only one in the office when he got a phone call. He tole me
to get my ass over here."

"What's the danger?" I peered around the clearing in the woods in which my old house stood.
Bubba's news made me very nervous.
"I don't know, Miss Sookie. Eric, he tole me to watch you tonight till one of them from Fangtasia