After Marguerite’s suggestion, Mac had actually looked into Pelee Island as a possible home base. But it was much farther away from his father and sister, and necessitated a boat ride in the summer, or a plane ride in the winter when the lake was frozen and unpassable. Aside from that, though, everything would have had to be flown out to him in the winter, which had seemed somewhat inconvenient, not to mention expensive, since he received almost daily deliveries of items needed for his experiments.
Marguerite distracted him from his thoughts when she answered CJ’s question with, “Because you have been on my mind a good deal this morning. That usually means I’ll see the person soon, and since I plan to be here for a while, that would mean I’d see you here.”
“Oh,” CJ laughed at her words. “I have a friend who’s like that with money. Well, not like that exactly. She swears that any time she has trouble sleeping, a check shows up in the mail the next day.”
“Well, then, for her insomnia pays,” Marguerite said, and both women laughed.
“Well, goodness, I guess I’d best put on more coffee.”
Mac glanced around at that comment from Mrs. Vesper to see that she had joined them on the porch, but it was CJ who held out a hand to the woman and waved her forward, saying, “Oh, no, Mrs. Vesper. First come and meet Marguerite. Marguerite, this is Millie Vesper. Mrs. Vesper this is Marguerite Notte. I met her and her husband—” Head swinging back, she asked, “Julius is here too?”
“Yes. He and the boys went around to talk to that nice officer in the police car about where to move the RV to. I gather it’s blocking his view,” Marguerite explained, but Mac noted that her gaze was focused on Mrs. Vesper with great interest. Perhaps that’s why he wasn’t overly surprised when she said, “My goodness, Millie, you have interesting energy about you. It makes me think of someone else I know.”
“Marguerite Argeneau Notte, I told you to wait for me to escort you.”
Mac glanced toward the RV in time to see Julius Notte rushing toward them around the front of the vehicle with Justin Bricker and Mac’s cousin Decker Argeneau Pimms on his heels. He also noticed that, while Marguerite’s husband’s voice might have sounded sharp, his expression was pure anxiety.
“I’m fine, it’s fine,” Marguerite said breezily, waving away his worry.
“It is not fine, my love,” Julius countered at once, his voice an odd combination of exasperation and affection. “What if you had fallen or—”
“Darling, I’m pregnant, not crippled,” Marguerite said with a laugh, sliding her hand through the man’s arm as he reached her. “You worry too much.”
“You make me worry too much,” Julius countered, retrieving his arm from her hold to slide it around her waist and press her to his side. “You are none too steady on your feet lately.”
“Are you saying I’m clumsy?” Marguerite asked with affront.
“No,” he assured her. “I am saying you are simply not used to this new distribution of weight you are having to deal with.”
“So, you’re saying I’m fat,” Marguerite suggested, eyes narrowing.
“No, no, I would never,” he said at once, his expression becoming alarmed. “You are not fat, my love.”
“I am so fat,” Marguerite argued unhappily. “I’m big as a barn.”
“Sì, but with my child and I love you for it,” Julius argued at once, and seemed to realize his mistake at once when Marguerite’s eyes narrowed on him. “I mean, no. Not as big as a barn, my love. Just round like ripe fruit.”
“Round?” Marguerite asked with dismay.
“Lush, I meant lush,” he backtracked quickly.
“Give it up, Julius,” CJ said on a laugh. “You’re just digging yourself a deeper hole.”
Julius Notte turned to blink at CJ and then smiled widely in greeting. “CJ Cummings!”
Mac watched with amazement as CJ’s face bloomed with a wide, joyful smile that turned her from simply attractive to stunning, and then Julius stepped forward to give her a quick hug of greeting and Mac scowled. He wanted to slap the man’s hands off of her and push him away, but Justin Bricker distracted him by saying, “Marguerite, I thought I heard you say this lovely lady’s energy reminds you of someone else as we came around the RV? Did I hear that right?”
At Bricker’s question, Marguerite turned to peer at Mrs. Vesper again and smiled faintly. “Yes, you did, and she does.”
“Huh,” he said dryly. “Then yet another one bites the dust.”
“Another two,” Decker corrected.
“Sì, you must include Mac,” Julius pointed out as he released CJ.
“Yeah,” Bricker said with a grin. “We drop like flies around Marguerite.”
The men all grunted agreement at that.
“I’m sorry, am I missing something? Who’s biting the dust?” CJ glanced around the group with confusion.
“No one,” Mac said quickly.
“It’s just a family joke,” Decker added, and then his attention shifted to Mac and he raised his eyebrows. “We have the things you requested in the RV for you if you’d like to go take a look.”
Knowing the things Decker was referring to were clothes, credit cards, ID and—most importantly—blood, Mac nodded.
“We’ll be in the RV,” Decker announced as he turned to lead the way toward the large vehicle.
Mac didn’t follow right away, but glanced to Julius instead, to find the man hesitating, his gaze sliding from Marguerite to the RV. He obviously wanted to go too, but was torn at the idea of leaving his very pregnant wife. Fortunately, CJ waved him off, saying, “Go on. I’ll keep an eye on Marguerite.”
“I’m not a child,” Marguerite said with exasperation. “No one needs to keep an eye on me.”
Ignoring his wife, Julius murmured, “Thank you, CJ,” and joined Mac to follow Decker and Bricker to the RV.
“My goodness, that husband of yours is a considerate fellow,” Mac heard Mrs. Vesper say as they walked away.
“Yes,” Marguerite said. “And handsome too.”
“My dear, all of them are handsome,” Mrs. Vesper said with a delighted laugh that made Mac smile. He liked the lady. So much so that she was part of the reason he’d settled on Sandford as the place to live. If Marguerite thought she might be a life mate to one of their kind, it would be a fine thing in his book.
“So, someone set your new house on fire,” Julius commented as they entered the RV and closed the door behind them. “Who have you pissed off this century?”
Mac gave a faint laugh and shook his head. “That was one of CJ’s first questions too.”
“Your life mate?” Julius asked, and then answered the question for himself. “Yes. Definitely your life mate. You are older than me by a good five hundred years, and I have never been able to read you. Yet right now I can read you as easily as young Justin here.”
“So can I,” Decker announced cheerfully.
“I can read you too,” Justin Bricker added.
Mac stiffened at this news. Old as he was, there were few immortals who could read him. Knowing that all three men could now do so was more than a little discomfiting.
“But I have to say,” Bricker said suddenly, “it’s kind of disappointing to be able to read you since all you’re thinking about at the moment is blood. Normally new life mates are all about the partner and sex.”
“There is no sex to think about yet,” Mac said with irritation, and then asked, “Where is the blood?”
“There may not be sex yet, but there should be sexy thoughts running through your head about what you want to do with her, and sex dreams that you should have shared last night. But there’s nada. What’s up with that?” Turning to Julius, Bricker raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure they’re life mates?”
“I did not sleep last night,” Mac said irritably, but was now worrying about whether CJ was really his life mate as well. He hadn’t had any sort of sexy thoughts about her yet. He thought she was attractive, but he hadn’t thought anything like Bricker was suggesting.
“Yes. They are life mates. He simply has not had a chance to get close enough to touch her yet,” Julius said slowly, his gaze focused on Mac’s forehead as he riffled through his thoughts.
Mac could feel him in there poking around. It too was discomfiting.
“She is keeping you at a distance,” Julius said now, and then added, “I am not surprised. She has some issues. I read that from her on Pelee Island when we encountered her there back in May.”
“What issues?” Mac asked at once, forgetting about the blood he wanted so desperately.
“That is for you to find out,” Julius said solemnly.
“It would be easier if you just told me,” Mac snapped, quickly losing his patience. He wasn’t getting blood, and he wasn’t getting information.
“This is something I think it is better you learn from her,” Julius said quietly, heading into the bedroom at the back of the RV. “You might be tempted to use the knowledge as a shortcut to convince her to turn rather than wooing her, and then you would be cheating her, and yourself.”
Mac was frowning over that when his uncle reached into what looked like a cupboard, but was obviously a refrigerator made to look like a cupboard, because he pulled out a bag of blood and turned to toss it to him. Mac caught it and slapped it to his already dropping fangs as his uncle turned back to retrieve several more bags of blood. These ones the man carried back and set on the small dining table next to him, then urged him to sit.
“Relax,” Julius suggested mildly. “You need at least six bags and then you need a shower. You smell like death.”
Mac grimaced around the bag at his mouth, but settled on the seat as the men began to describe their efforts to find him in more detail.