“It’s Okay, Mom.” The little girl grinned impishly. “Max will be pretty with pink nails.”“Oh I brought my A-game,” the vampire snorted as he sat on the other couch.“Bout Time,” Janie retorted”

“Janie calls Cabel."Hi, uh, Mom," she says.Cabel snorts. "Hello, dear. Did you make it through the blizzard?""Yeah. Barely." Janie grins into the phone.”

“The door opened to reveal Janie gleefully putting the finishing touches of the bright pink polish on Max's hands."Nice timing," the solider said with a grimace.Talen snorted. "You're relieved, in case you need to powder your cheeks.”

“The landings were dirty and the walls were bare. This stairway brought me into the balcony, and I sat there in the dark, thinking that nothing now was going to save me, that no pretty girl with new shoes was going to cross my path in time.”

“Caeden grabbed my hand and grinned like a little boy in a candy shop. “Carnival time!” He drug me from the car and then behind him as he headed to a ring toss game. “I think I need to win my girl a prize,” he said.I laughed.“What?” he shrugged. “It’s like a rite of passage. Every boyfriend has to win his girlfriend a prize,” he winked, turning my stomach to jelly.”

“He could bring a six-foot tall pink rabbit in a bikini back home with him if he wanted to. It’s not my business. But if you’re asking me if I’ve brought any girls back here, the answer is no. I don’t want anybody but you.”