The Single Undead Moms Club (Half Moon Hollow series Book 4) by Molly Harper Read Free Book Online Page A

Marge’s F-250 pulled up in the driveway. Danny was home. He was about to run out of that truck smelling like woodsmoke and bug repellent, and the first thing he was going to do was throw himself at me and tell me all about his weekend. The panic welled up inside me like lava. Oh, God, what if I couldn’t do this? What if I hurt him? What if—
    “Did you just tire me out so I wouldn’t have the energy to bite anybody? Like you’d do with a puppy?” I asked Jane.
    “I regret nothing,” she told me, shaking her head.
    The truck door flew open, and my son came barreling across the lawn, a short fireball of crackling blond energy. And even at his insane first-grader’s speed, my vampire eyesight could track every movement he made as if it was a freeze frame. And he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Even in the moonlight, I could see every wavy blond hair on his head, every golden eyelash. I could see every tiny freckle on his sun-kissed skin. And my eyes, my own blue-green eyes, looking back at me, expectant and absolutely sure of my love.
    My Danny.
    Deep in my soul, beyond my consciousness and my heart, I knew with absolute, concrete certainty that I would never be able to hurt my son. And that little bit of fear, at least, melted away into nothing as he launched himself through the air at me.
    “Hey, Mom!”
    I caught him and cradled him against me as gently as if he was made of spun glass. I looked at Jane, who was all smiles, leaning against the door frame, arms crossed, as if she had no cause to leap across the porch at any second to stop me from biting Danny.
    I buried my face in Danny’s hair and discovered that my darling boy did not smell as beautiful as he looked. Phew . Sweat, sunscreen, citronella, smoke, fried fish, singed sugar, and an undercurrent of exhaust. Danny stank to high heaven, something I wouldn’t have noticed before. Human mothers had to overlook a lot of interesting odors. It was going to take time to adjust to my vampire nose.
    “Hi, baby,” I said, putting all the strength I had into not recoiling.
    Danny shivered. “Your cheek is cold, Mom.”
    “Sorry,” I said, leaning back and looking at him, taking in every detail all over again. “It’s the air-conditioning. You’re a big, tough outdoorsman now. You’re not used to modern conveniences.”
    “You’re so weird,” Danny huffed, though he was grinning broadly. I laughed and pressed my forehead to his as the last sliver of fear evaporated from my chest. I made Danny smile. He called me weird. This was a very normal interaction for us. We were going to be OK.
    “Danny, get down!” Marge yelped as she climbed out of the truck. “You know your mama’s not strong enough to hold you like that.”
    Oh, right, because I was supposed to be seriously ill. I made a big show of struggling under Danny’s weight, letting my knees buckle as I wobbled and set his feet gently on the ground.
    “Did you have fun with Papa and Mamaw?” I asked, grinning at him.
    “Yeah, we went fishing and made s’mores and went riding on Papa’s four-wheeler.”
    Well, that explained the smell of exhaust.
    I gave Les Stratton the extreme side-eye. My father-in-law was still a strapping man at sixty, with a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair and Rob’s brown eyes. If I ever wondered what my husband might have looked like if he’d survived to old age, all I had to do was look at Les.
    That was a rather gross thought.
    “Les, I’ve asked you not to put him on an ATV. He’s small for his age. It’s not safe,” I told him.
    Les dismissed my concerns like he always did. “Ah, Robbie and I used to do it all the time at his age. It’s fine. Trust me. When you’ve been at parenting as long as I have, you’ll be able to tell the difference between real danger and worrywartin’. Besides, I have to teach the boy how to be a man.”
    It struck me that Rob had learned much of how to be a husband from Les. Dismissal. Condescension. And when