my mouth fall open. Alcide slept in those long drawstring pants, period. Whoa. If he’d been shirtless thirty minutes before, the timing might have seemed just perfect.

“What do you want, Eric?” Alcide asked, much more calmly than I had done.

“We need to talk,” Eric said, sounding impatient.

“If I let him in now, can I rescind it?” Alcide asked me.

“Sure.” I grinned at Eric. “Any moment, you can rescind it.”

“Okay. You can come in, Eric.” Alcide took the screen off the window, and Eric slid in feetfirst. I eased the window shut behind him. Now I was cold again. There was gooseflesh all over Alcide’s chest, too, and his nipples . . . I forced myself to keep an eye on Eric.

Eric gave both of us a sharp look, his blue eyes as brilliant as sapphires in the lamplight. “What have you found out, Sookie?”

“The vampires here do have him.”

Eric’s eyes may have widened a little, but that was his only reaction. He appeared to be thinking intently.

“Isn’t it a little dangerous for you to be on Edgington’s turf, unannounced?” Alcide asked. He was doing his leaning-against-the-wall thing again. He and Eric were both big men and the room really seemed crowded all of a sudden. Maybe their egos were using up all the oxygen.

“Oh, yes,” Eric said. “Very dangerous.” He smiled radiantly.

I wondered if they’d notice if I went back to bed. I yawned. Two pairs of eyes swung to focus on me. “Anything else you need, Eric?” I asked.

“Do you have anything else to report?”

“Yes, they’ve tortured him.”

“Then they won’t let him go.”

Of course not. You wouldn’t let loose a vampire you’d tortured. You’d be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. I hadn’t thought that through, but I could see its truth.

“You’re going to attack?” I wanted to be nowhere around Jackson when that happened.

“Let me think on it,” Eric said. “You are going back to the bar tomorrow night?”

“Yes, Russell invited us specifically.”

“Sookie attracted his attention tonight,” Alcide said.

“But that’s perfect!” Eric said. “Tomorrow night, sit with the Edgington crew and pick their brains, Sookie.”

“Well, that would never have occurred to me, Eric,” I said, wonderingly. “Gosh, I’m glad you woke me up tonight to explain that to me.”

“No problem,” Eric said. “Anytime you want me to wake you up, Sookie, you have only to say.”

I sighed. “Go away, Eric. Good night again, Alcide.”

Alcide straightened, waiting for Eric to go back out the window. Eric waited for Alcide to leave.

“I rescind your invitation into my apartment,” Alcide said, and abruptly Eric walked to the window, reopened it, and launched himself out. He was scowling. Once outside, he regained his composure and smiled at us, waving as he vanished downward.

Alcide slammed the window shut and let the blinds back down.

“No, there are lots of men who don’t like me at all,” I told him. He’d been easy to read that time, all right.

He gave me an odd look. “Is that so?”

“Yes, it is.”

“If you say so.”

“Most people, regular people, that is. . . they think I’m nuts.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right! And it makes them very nervous to have me serve them.”

He began laughing, a reaction that was so far from what I had intended that I had no idea what to say next.

He left the room, still more or less chuckling to himself.

Well, that had been weird. I turned out the lamp and took off the robe, tossing it across the foot of the bed. I snuggled between the sheets again, the blanket and spread pulled up to my chin. It was cold and bleak outside, but here I was, finally, warm and safe and alone.

Really, really alone.

THE NEXT MORNING, Alcide was already gone when I got up. Construction and surveying people get going early, naturally, and I was used to sleeping late because of my job at the bar and because I hung around with a vampire. If I wanted to spend time with Bill, it had to be at night, obviously.

There was a note propped up on the coffeepot. I had a slight headache since I am not used to alcohol and I’d had two drinks the night before—the headache was not quite a hangover, but I wasn’t my normal cheerful self, either. I squinted at the tiny printing.

“Running errands. Make yourself at home. I’ll be back in the afternoon.”

For a minute I felt disappointed and deflated. Then I got a hold of myself. It wasn’t like he’d called me up and