Free Save the Last Vamp for Me by Gayla Drummond

living room. By pre-arrangement, it was empty but didn’t stay that way long. Shrill barking heralded the arrival of the Chihuahua Brigade, basically shouting what translated to “ The nice animal people are here !”
    I laughed. “They like you guys.”
    Terra squatted down, trying to pet each little round skull as the dogs pushed and shoved each other. Logan bent to scoop up two: Speck and a kind of brindled little female who followed Speck around in order to boss him. I’d named her “Squishy” because she was slightly overweight and felt squishy.
    “I thought you must be back,” Mom said, holding the swinging door to the kitchen open. “Good morning.”
    “Morning, Sunny.” Logan smiled at her while his cousin hastily stood.
    “Hi, Mrs. Jones.”
    “Call me Sunny. I have fresh cookies waiting to be gobbled in here.” She let the door go, disappearing from sight.
    “With a mountain of work right behind them,” I whispered before heading toward the kitchen. The two shifters followed, Chihuahuas dancing and prancing and generally making walking an interesting adventure.
    “Where are the big dogs?” I asked, noticing they weren’t in the kitchen.
    “Back yard with Tonya. Here.” Mom handed over a plate of warm, chocolate chip cookies. “Have a few and then we’ll get things set up. I have milk, coffee, tea, or soda. Which do you want?”
    Twenty minutes later, and more than a few cookies consumed, we moved to the dining room. Boxes stood stacked along the two longer walls, and Mom had already set up a second, long table next to the dining table. A stack of dark purple gift bags waited at the end of one table, near the windows looking out over the back yard. I could see Red and Bone wrestling over a tug o’ war toy rope, while Diablo snoozed in a patch of sunlight.
    Mom handed out box cutters. “Open one box from each stack, so that I can decide where each goes.”
    It didn’t take long to set up the assembly line. Long familiar with Mom’s methods, I grabbed a gift bag and opened it while Mom and Tonya set up a card table. “We start here, and just work our way around the table, putting one of each thing in the bags, and then hand the bags off to Mom or Tonya. They’ll line them up against the wall after they do the finishing touches.”
    “We’re going to run out of room fast,” Terra said, picking up a gift bag.
    “We’ll load the cars and transfer them to the center once we have full loads.” Smiling, Mom waved a package of orange gift tissue paper and a spool of inch-wide, white ribbon decorated with a conga line of ghosts and skeletons. “All right, go team!”
    I made another round of the table, Terra and Logan following, before Mom asked, “So how was yesterday?”
    The instant scowl on my face raised her eyebrows. I forced my scowl away. “Um, interesting?” Noticing the two shifters looking at me, I added, “I met Nick’s parents and spent the day with them.”
    “You say ‘interesting’, but your face said something way different,” Tonya said, tying a bow on the handles of a bag.
    “His dad is a control freak. Would you believe he has a spot picked out to build us a house on? I mean, okay, it’s a pretty spot, but still. Who does that?” Before anyone respond, I plunged ahead. “Oh, and get this. He said ‘accommodations can be made’ for the dogs, and got a big frowny face when I told him they lived inside. Said it would be up to Nick if they did there.”
    Logan laughed, choking it off when Terra elbowed him in the ribs. “Sorry.”
    “Why was that funny?”
    “It wasn’t, but imagining the look on your face while he was talking? That was funny.” He coughed, his lips twitching. “What did you say to him?”
    “None of the stuff I really wanted to.”
    His shoulders quivered, and Terra elbowed him again. “Quit laughing.”
    “I can’t.” The words were strangled. “I can only imagine what she did say.”
    I adopted a lofty tone. “Since I was a