Dead as a Doornail

spoken this soon, without us being together more, but you need a place to live right now. I have a condo in Shreveport. I want you to think about staying with me.”
    If he’d whomped me upside the head with a two-by-four, I couldn’t have been more stunned. Instead of trying so hard to stay out of people’s heads, I should consider getting back into them. I started several sentences in my head, discarded them all. The warmth of him, the attraction of his big body,was something I had to fight as I struggled to sort my thoughts.
    “Alcide,” I began at last, speaking over the background noise of Terry’s sledgehammer knocking down the boards of my burned kitchen, “you’re right that I like you. In fact, I more than like you.” I couldn’t even look at his face. I looked instead at his big hands, with their dusting of dark hair across the backs. If I looked down past his hands, I could see his muscular thighs and his . . . Well, back to the hands. “But the timing seems all wrong. I think you need more time to get over your relationship with Debbie, since you seemed so enslaved to her. You may feel that just saying the words ‘I abjure you’ got rid of all your feelings for Debbie, but I’m not convinced that’s so.”
    “It’s a powerful ritual of my people,” Alcide said stiffly, and I risked a quick glance at his face.
    “I could tell it was a powerful ritual,” I assured him, “and it had a big effect on everyone there. But I can’t believe that, quick as a flash, every single feeling you had for Debbie was uprooted when you said the words. That’s just not how people work.”
    “That’s how werewolves work.” He looked stubborn. And determined.
    I thought very hard about what I wanted to say.
    “I’d love for someone to step in and solve all my problems,” I told him. “But I don’t want to accept your offer because I need a place to live and we’re hot for each other. When my house is rebuilt, then we’ll talk, if you still feel the same.”
    “This is when you need me the most,” he protested, the words spilling out of his mouth in his haste to persuade me. “You need me now. I need you now. We’re right for each other. You know it.”
    “No, I don’t. I know that you’re worried about a lot ofthings right now. You lost your lover, however it happened. I don’t think it’s sunk into you yet that you’ll never see her again.”
    He flinched.
    “I shot her, Alcide. With a shotgun.”
    His whole face clenched.
    “See? Alcide, I’ve seen you rip into a person’s flesh when you were being a wolf. And it didn’t make me scared of you. Because I’m on your side. But you loved Debbie, at least for a time. We get into a relationship now, at some point you’re going to look up and say, ‘Here’s the one who ended her life.’ ”
    Alcide opened his mouth to protest, but I held up a hand. I wanted to finish.
    “Plus, Alcide, your dad’s in this succession struggle. He wants to win the election. Maybe you being in a settled relationship would help his ambitions. I don’t know. But I don’t want any part of Were politics. I didn’t appreciate you dragging me into it cold last week at the funeral. You should have let me decide.”
    “I wanted them to get used to the sight of you by my side,” Alcide said, his face stiffening with offense. “I meant it as an honor to you.”
    “I might have appreciated that honor more if I’d known about it,” I snapped. It was a relief to hear another vehicle approaching, to see Andy Bellefleur get out of his Ford and watch his cousin knocking down my kitchen. For the first time in months, I was glad to see Andy.
    I introduced Andy to Alcide, of course, and watched them size each other up. I like men in general, and some men in specific, but when I saw them practically circle each other as they sniffed each other’s butts—excuse me, exchanged greetings—I just had to shake my head. Alcide was the taller by a good four inches, but Andy Bellefleurhad been on his college wrestling team, and he was still a block of muscle. They were about the same age. I would put even money on them in a fight, providing that Alcide kept his human form.
    “Sookie, you asked me to keep you posted on the man who died here,” Andy said.
    Sure, but it had never occurred to me he’d actually do it. Andy did not have any very high opinion of me, though he’d always been a big fan of my rear end. It’s wonderful being telepathic, huh?
    “He