“Meanwhile, I’ll be going crazy.”
“My granny used to say, ‘To act is easy. To think is hard.’ It’s especially hard when your thinkin’ is as cloudy as the sky in a thunderstorm, and this is your rainy day.”
“Gwyneth, do you honestly think he’ll be understanding when Morgaine falls apart? Sheneedsus—now!”
She stopped and considered the wild look in his eyes. “I ain’t never hit a vampire afore, but if it’ll knock some badly needed sense into you, I might just clock you upside the head.”
He narrowed his eyes and frowned.
She eyed him for a moment and decided he wasn’t going to attack her, so she continued her rant. “I know my cousin wouldn’t want you gettin’ yourself killed. She’s in love with you, Sly, and wouldn’t forgive herself neither.”
“Did she say that?”
“Does she have to? I do declare. Men are so stupid sometimes.”
He sighed. “How sweet.”
“Hey, some folks have tact. Others tell the truth. And it ain’t the beard that makes the philosopher.”
“You’re right,” he mumbled. “Whatever you just said.”
In the basement, Sly and Nathan opened the false wall and revealed the still. Everything seemed to be in order, so it must not have been discovered—yet.
Gwyneth had argued that the wine should go into the finished product and not the still in case the process of distillation destroyed the blood. It made sense to Sly, so they brought an empty mason jar with them to get some of the fresh product.
Sly took the container from Gwyneth. “Why aren’t we just using the moonshine we made before Morgaine and I went to New York?”
“Because this is fresher.”
“I thought whiskey was better aged.”
“Naw, my motto is fresher is almost always better, isn’t that so, Nathan?”
Nathan chuckled. “I guess it has to be since we drank what was left of the last batch.”
She slapped Nathan’s arm with the back of her hand, and he laughed. Sly had never seen Nathan so happy. They really did seem good for each other.
He poured some from the bucket into the jar until it was about three-quarters full, and handed it to Gwyneth,
“Seems like the proper time to collect it anyways. There’s room at the top to add some of your wine cure. What’s it called agin?”
“Vampire Vintage.”
“Okay. So how much of this Vampire Vintage should go into our Vampire Vodka?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Morgaine said to tell you something about the principle of sourdough bread. Does that make sense?”
Gwyneth snapped her fingers. “It sure do. Let me think for a minute. If I can figure out how much starter goes into my sourdough bread recipe, I can probably figure out how much wine to put in the moonshine.”
“Like a ratio?” Nathan asked.
She looked at him blankly, then said, “Uh-huh, I guess. Now here’s the recipe…
3/4 cup cracked wheat
