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“And you? Why didn’t you want to go after Heskel? He’d turned me. He was a rogue. There was a bounty on him.”
Lettie cleared her throat. “I was dating Van by then and I wanted to go with him on hunts.”
“That was damn fast.” That’s another reason Jacqueline had been so irritated about it because they hadn’t let any time pass. It was like she had been turned, Van ended the engagement, and he was dating Lettie.
Lettie didn’t respond.
“Have you gone on many hunts with Van?” Jacqueline didn’t know why but she was even more pissed off about that than that he was dating her traitorous bestie.
“This was the first time. He brought his brothers also because he thought that Paine would have more rogue vampire friends there.”
Jacqueline hoped that Van wouldn’t like hunting with Lettie either and wouldn’t take her on his hunts. See how Lettie felt about that. “He didn’t know Heskel was there or that he owned the house?” She wanted to know the truth.
“No. Van had followed Paine to the house and that’s why the four of us went there.”
“So why are you calling?” What was the bottom line? Did Lettie want to clear her own conscience? Get Jacqueline to tell her she forgave her? Want to tell her she wanted to be her friend again?
“Van was angry that you were at the estate taking down vampires. I was kind of taken aback.”
Jacqueline wasn’t surprised. “Believe me, if you were turned, you would suffer the same fate, if I could call it suffering. Though I’m not glad that it happened, I realized once it had, Van hadn’t been the one for me. So I was relieved to be rid of him.” Jacqueline felt the same way about Lettie. That there was no sense in being friends with anyone who wouldn’t accept what she had become. At first, she thought she wouldn’t find anyone who would be there for her until Dane and his brothers showed up in her life. She couldn’t have been more grateful for their friendship.
“Yeah, well, I’m sure of that. You really don’t mind that I’m dating Van?”
“I don’t give a damn if you’re dating him.” Well, Jacqueline said it, but she hadn’t exactly meant to say it in that way. Yeah, she was still mad at her friend for dating him and not caring how she had been faring.
“My mother said you were at the restaurant where she was having lunch with your mother and their other friends.”
“Like Van’s mother? Yep.”
“Why?”
“We were celebrating. Why not?”
“You just happened to go to the same restaurant where you knew they were going to be.”
“What of it? If I hadn’t been turned, would it have been an issue for me to go to the restaurant at the same time?”
“It…they thought it was like you were trying to make them feel uncomfortable.”
Jacqueline scoffed. “Why should they feel uncomfortable? We were just eating and if they were bothered by something, it is their problem.”
“All right, well, I just don’t want things to get out of hand.”
“Why would they? You know, Lettie, I’m going to go where I want, when I want, just like I have always done. I’m not going to worry about whether you or any of my ‘old’ acquaintances are going to be at some of my old haunts. And I’m not going to stop going to them to appease you or anyone else like you.”
“You don’t mean you’re going to go to the Starlight Club for hunters,” Lettie said, as if she had to tell Jacqueline that’s who the club was for when she had been going there since she was old enough to legally drink.
Well, even before that if she was with a guy who got carded and not her. “Are you saying that I’m no longer a huntress? Really? Then how am I able to get bounties for taking down rogue vampires?”
“Vampires can take down rogues,” Lettie said.
Jacqueline sighed. “All right, that’s true. But vampires can’t take down hunters, and believe me, if one is a rogue, I can take him or her down legally.” Which suspected wasn’t true, but Lettie wouldn’t probably know that.
Lettie didn’t say anything in response to that.
“Okay, good talk.” Then Jacqueline hung up on her.
She suspected the real reason Lettie had called her was she was feeling guilty about having been her best friend and had started dating Van right away. But also that Lettie wanted to know why Jacqueline had gone to the same restaurant that their mothers had gone to at the same time. She figured she wanted to know if Jacqueline was going to continue showing up where Lettie and their acquaintances, family, and friends would frequent, and that was a big yes. If it made the hunters uncomfortable, so be it.
