“Hmm,” CJ murmured. “He is pale this morning.”
“Pale?” Mrs. Vesper gave a bark of laughter. “He’s whiter than that bread. Speaking of which, dear. Throw those last four slices in the toaster for me, will you, please? This is almost ready.”
CJ moved to the plate of bread in front of a four-slice toaster and did as requested as she said, “I think I’ll talk to Dandridge and have him take him into emergency on the way to the police station so they can check him over.”
“You aren’t taking him in yourself?” Mrs. Vesper didn’t hide her surprise.
“No. Really, he’s the responsibility of the police now,” CJ answered, saying what had only occurred to her moments ago, and then to distract her, asked, “Does Sandford have a hospital, or will Dandridge have to take him to a bigger town?”
“Oh, yes. We’ve had a hospital since 1951,” Mrs. Vesper assured her, and then smiled faintly and explained, “I know that because I was one of the first babies born there and my mother was glad not to have to rely on a midwife or go to the city to have me. She always said the new hospital was finished just in time for my birth.”
CJ smiled at this bit of the woman’s history, and then picked up the butter knife Mrs. Vesper had left next to the plate and began to butter the toast when it popped.
“Perfect timing,” Mrs. Vesper crowed, bustling to a cupboard next to the sink to fetch a large bowl. Returning to the stove she set the bowl down, and began to shift the scrambled eggs she’d been cooking into it from the frying pan. She carried the pale-yellow mixture to the table while CJ finished buttering the toast, and then returned and opened the stove to retrieve bacon and hash browns that she transferred to the table as well before returning to open the stove yet again.
“Just put those on here, dear,” Mrs. Vesper instructed as CJ finished buttering the last slice.
CJ glanced over to see that she’d retrieved a plate already stacked high with buttered toast from the oven where it had been keeping warm.
“Good heavens, Mrs. Vesper!” she said with amazement as she transferred the new toast to the stack the older woman held. “We won’t eat all this toast.”
“Well, then I’ll make French toast tomorrow morning out of whatever’s left over,” she said complacently. “Now go tell that young man that breakfast is ready. Maybe we can put some color into his cheeks.”
Mac withdrew his fangs from Officer Dandridge’s neck and straightened in the passenger seat the moment he heard the squeak of Mrs. Vesper’s porch door opening. He remained facing the man, though, as he quickly wiped his mouth to be sure there was no blood on it, and released the police officer from his control. Only then did he turn to peer out the car window to see CJ crossing the porch to the steps. She stopped, though, when she saw him look, and waved him over, calling, “Breakfast is ready.”
“Coming,” Mac called out, then glanced back to Dandridge and rearranged the man’s thoughts so he’d think they’d been discussing the house fire and the captain’s plans for him. Mac then got out of the car and made his way to the porch.
“Well, Mrs. Vesper will be relieved,” CJ said with a faint smile, stepping back as he mounted the porch stairs.
Mac raised his eyebrows as he stepped up next to her. “About what?”
“You looked ready to drop dead on us when you left the kitchen. Now you have a little color in your cheeks,” she explained, turning to lead him to the door.
“Oh. I just needed fresh air,” he lied, following. The truth was, he’d needed blood. Badly. Mac hadn’t slept a wink after CJ had gone to bed last night. Instead, he’d paced the room, his gaze moving repeatedly to the window in the hopes of seeing a vehicle approaching. But the courier Bastien had promised would be there in an hour or two had not shown up.
By the time Mac had heard CJ slip out of the room this morning, he’d been desperate for blood and in pain with it. Just having her back in the room with him had been torture, but being in the kitchen with both women had been worse. He’d known he wouldn’t last long without snapping and feeding on the pair of them. Not willing to risk that, he’d headed outside to feed on Officer Dandridge instead, and didn’t regret it a bit. Mac hadn’t taken a lot of blood, just enough to tide him over and make him less dangerous to be around. Aside from which, this was still an emergency situation since his courier hadn’t shown up.
That thought made him wonder where the hell the man was. Bastien would not have forgotten to arrange a delivery. It would have been a priority. Leaving an immortal without blood when he was healing from something like what Mac had gone through was just not an option. It was too risky. The injured immortal might run amok and attack someone, drawing attention to the presence of their kind in the world, and that was something they avoided at all costs.
“It smells delicious, Mrs. Vesper.”
Mac looked around at CJ’s words as they entered the kitchen and inhaled deeply. While he was sure CJ was referring to the odors of cooked food in the air, all he smelled was blood with an undertone of bacon. Obviously, he hadn’t had enough blood, Mac realized unhappily, and looked around for CJ’s purse. Spotting it on the counter, he started toward it, asking, “CJ, can I use your phone again? I need to call Bastien and check on the arrival time of that courier he was going to send. He should have been here by now and I am beginning to worry that he may have had a misadventure.”
“You can use the house phone,” Mrs. Vesper offered, and then added, “After you eat.”
Mac turned to face the older woman with surprise. “But—”
“After you eat, young man,” Mrs. Vesper said firmly, carrying coffees to the table. “I did not go to all the trouble of cooking this food so that you could let it go cold while you yap on the phone. The courier will get here when he gets here. Now sit down and eat.”
Mac nearly took control of Mrs. Vesper and made his call anyway. The problem was, he couldn’t control CJ and she would consider the older lady’s sudden about-face odd at best. Besides, Mrs. Vesper reminded him so much of his mother in that moment that he couldn’t help but smile. He hadn’t been a child for well over a thousand years, but that didn’t stop his mother, Mary Delacort, from treating him like a ten-year-old when she felt the occasion called for it. Biting back his smile, Mac settled at the table. He could control himself for the length of time it would take to eat. He hoped.
“Well, dig in,” Mrs. Vesper said happily once they were all seated.
Mac began scooping food onto his plate, taking a healthy portion from each offering despite being unsure whether he would enjoy it. He was hungry, which was a new experience for him. Mac hadn’t eaten in more than a millennia before the cookies he’d had last night, not even at family parties and such where most immortals ate out of politeness. Food simply hadn’t held any appeal for him. Not until now. But then that was one of the signs of meeting a life mate: a sudden hunger for pleasures that had not tempted the immortal in ages, food and sex being the two most notable among them.
“This is very good, Mrs. Vesper. Thank you,” CJ said suddenly, and then added with concern, “I hope you didn’t have to cook twice. First for the others and now for us.”
“No, no. They were going to a special wedding party breakfast after the rehearsal so I didn’t have to cook for the others at all,” Mrs. Vesper assured her. “A bit of coffee and they were off.”
“Isn’t it usually a rehearsal dinner the night before?” CJ asked with surprise.
“Yes, but since most of their wedding party wouldn’t be arriving until late last night, they arranged it for breakfast this morning,” Mrs. Vesper explained. “Fortunately, the church was available for an early rehearsal, and the wedding is late afternoon, so they planned a fifteen-minute to half-hour rehearsal, followed by breakfast, and then the girls are heading to the local spa for manicures, pedicures, and to get their hair and make-up done, and so on. No doubt they’ll be there right up until it’s time to dress for the wedding.”
“And what will the men be doing?” CJ asked.
“Why, golfing, of course,” Mrs. Vesper said with amusement, and both women laughed, although Mac noted that the tone of their laughter was rather dry. He supposed it had to do with the fact that the women would spend the better part of the day having to primp for their roles in the wedding, while the men would relax on the golf course, probably having a couple of beers along the way, and then spend ten minutes in the shower, shave again if they had five-o’clock shadow, and then dress and head for the church.
It did seem unfair sometimes that women were expected to do so much to be considered attractive while men pretty much just had to show up. At least that’s what his sisters told Mac. He’d always responded that if they didn’t like it, then women could simply stop all the added primping. Since that usually resulted in one of them throwing something at him, he supposed he shouldn’t share that thought with CJ and Mrs. Vesper. He also supposed he shouldn’t share that, to his mind, the men would have the better day. He didn’t expect that would please them much either, so he simply concentrated on the food on his plate. It was all really delicious, an explosion of different tastes on his tongue that made him wonder why he’d lost interest in food for so long.
“I suppose what with helping out with the fire and all that you didn’t get to interview Officer Jefferson?”
Mac stopped eating and glanced up sharply at that question from Mrs. Vesper, his eyes sliding between the two women as CJ turned a startled gaze on the older woman.
“How did you know I was here to interview Officer Jefferson?” CJ asked with surprise.
“My friend Amelia Fairly is also friends with Audrey Dupree,” she explained. “And for weeks now Audrey has been complaining to anyone who would listen about—as she put it—some upstart agent from the Special Investigation Unit wanting to grill poor Jefferson over that little incident with that young ruffian Keith Kaye. So, when you said you work for the Special Investigation Unit, I knew it must be you.”