“Just then the door flew open, and Ambrose burst through, yelling like a madman and swinging a battle-ax in one hand.”

“Over two hundred years," Jeanne said, finishing his sentence as she shoveled a mountain of scrambled eggs onto Ambrose's plate. Her gave her a ravishing smile, and said "Marry me, Jeanne" leaning over to kiss the hand holding the serving spoon. "In your dreams," she laughed...”

“I saw a picture of you and Vincent in a 1968 newspaper that said you died in a fire," I said, turning to Ambrose.He nodded at me with a little smile, urging me on."So how can you be here now?""Well, I'm glad we're starting with the easy questions," he said, stretching his powerful arms and then leaning toward me. "The answer would be ... because we're zombies!" and he let out a horrible groan, stretching his mouth open and baring his teeth as he curled his hands into claws. Seeing my terrified expression, Ambrose began cracking up and slapping his knee with his hand. "Just kidding," he cackled, and then, calming down, looked at me sedately. "But no, seriously. We're zombies.""We are not zombies!" said Charlotte, her voice rising with annoyance.”

“All this yummy muscleness first thing in the morning is almost too much for me to take,” she cooed, and gave him a playful wink as she scooted herself into the front seat. I shook my head. If “Flirt” qualified as a foreign language, my sister and Ambrose would both have PhDs in it.”

“He leaned forward and opened his door, politely standing aside to let me by before following me in. There are some advantages to dating a guy from another era, I thought. Though I am a big believer in gender equality, chivalry scores high in my book.”

“Natural talent!" crowed Vincent, sweeping my sweaty self up into his arms and pacing across the room, holding me like a trophy. "Of course my girlfriend's got it. In truckloads! How else could she have slain a giant evil zombie, single-handedly saving my undead body?”

“Kate, I admit that we aren’t in the easiest of situations. But are you always this . . . complicated?”I opened my mouth to say something, but Vincent shook his head, grinning. “Actually, don’t answer that. Of course you are. I wouldn’t be so totally into you if you weren’t.”