"Charlaine Harris - Sookie Stackhouse 04 - Dead to the World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harris Charlaine)

Damn straight.

If you'll talk to me face-to-face, come to the front door and let me in.

Yikes. I hadn't seen that one coming. I pondered for a minute. Deciding that while I didn't trust

Bill anymore, I didn't believe that he would physically harm me, I went back through the house to the

front door. I opened it and called, "Okay, come on in."

He emerged from the woods surrounding the clearing in which my old house stood. I ached at

the sight of him. Bill was broad-shouldered and lean from his life of farming the land next to mine. He was

hard and tough from his years as a Confederate soldier, before his death in 1867. Bill's nose was straight

off a Greek vase. His hair was dark brown and clipped close to his head, and his eyes were just as dark.

He looked exactly the same as he had while we were dating, and he always would.

He hesitated before he crossed the threshold, but I'd given him permission, and I moved aside so

he could step past me into the living room filled with old, comfortable furniture and neat as a pin.

"Thank you," he said in his cold, smooth voice, a voice that still gave me a twinge of sheer lust.

Many things had gone wrong between us, but they hadn't started in bed. "I wanted to talk to you before I

left."

"Where are you going?" I tried to sound as calm as he.

"To Peru. The queen's orders."

"Still working on your, ah, database?" I knew almost nothing about computers, but Bill had

studied hard to make himself computer literate.

"Yes. I've got a little more research to do. A very old vampire in Lima has a great fund of

knowledge about those of our race on his continent, and I have an appointment to confer with him. I'll do

some sight-seeing while I'm down there."

I fought the urge to offer Bill a bottle of synthetic blood, which would have been the hospitable

thing to do. "Have a seat," I said curtly, and nodded at the sofa. I sat on the edge of the old recliner

catty-cornered to it. Then a silence fell, a silence that made me even more conscious of how unhappy I