"I'll do that," Gia interrupted. "Why don't you go pick up some subs or something and take one up to Holly? I'm sure she'd like that. She was so hungry she was nauseous while we were waiting for you to finish."
"Was she?" he asked with surprise.
Gia nodded and then pointed out, "That probably did not help."
"No," he agreed, a little relieved that it might not have been all down to the meal he'd made. "Subs, huh?"
Gia nodded. "Or something else if you like. I just said subs because the boys like those second only to pizza, and if you got pizza they might--"
"Eat it all on us," Justin suggested with wry amusement when she hesitated.
Grinning, she nodded and then said with a shrug, "They are big boys."
"Yeah," he agreed dryly. "I'll have to keep that in mind the next time I cook."
"Good thinking," she commented.
Nodding, he started away, then paused and turned back to hug her, offering a soft, "Thanks."
"For what?" she asked with surprise.
"The suggestion," Justin said as he straightened. "And the encouragement. I appreciate it. This life mate business is a little trickier than I expected, what with Holly being married and everything. I'm sure it would have been a breeze for me otherwise, but this was an unexpected complication."
"Oh yes, I'm sure it would have been a breeze were she not married," Gia agreed.
Justin peered at her closely. Despite being straight-faced, he got the feeling she was mocking him, but after a moment he shrugged that concern aside and checked his pocket for the keys to the SUV that had been delivered earlier. Satisfied that he had them, he thanked her again and headed out of the house.
Holly turned restlessly onto her side and sighed unhappily. Despite her charming bout of hanging over the porcelain throne, she was still starved. Unfortunately, she simply couldn't go downstairs in search of food without having to hurt Justin's feelings by refusing the fish.
That thought made her remember the fishy eyes staring dully at her from the platter and Holly shuddered and closed her own eyes on a grimace. She was not a fish eater to begin with. She didn't mind fish-and-chip-type fish, but she had never cared for the fishy flavor some fish had and that fish down on the table in the kitchen had looked pretty fishy to her. Disgusting even. What had Justin been thinking? Good Lord, it was like serving a cow with its head on instead of a roast. Nothing like reminding the eater that their meal had been alive and kicking before it hit the table. Gad!
Rolling onto her back, she tried to sleep, but her thoughts returned to Justin. Despite the debacle it had turned out to be, it had been terribly sweet of him to go to all that trouble. And the man could cook more than spaghetti, which was impressive, she thought. While she didn't care for fish, it had been obvious that what Justin had provided was a gourmet meal. It made her wonder what else he could cook.
Justin also had impeccable manners, she thought as she recalled his holding the door and then seating her at the table like she was a lady of old. It wasn't something she was used to and it had made her feel . . . fussed over, she supposed. Delicate, maybe. Like a lady.
A knock sounded at the door and Holly's eyes popped open.
"Yes?" she said uncertainly after the briefest of hesitations, and then quickly sat up when the door opened to reveal the man she'd been thinking of.
"Hi," Justin said, hesitating in the doorway. "How are you feeling?"
"Better." Holly got quickly to her feet and offered a stiff smile. "What--?"
"I thought if the nausea had passed, you might be hungry," Justin said quickly and held up a take-out bag she hadn't noticed until then. "So I picked up a couple of subs."
"Oh," Holly breathed and was hard put not to launch herself at the man, or at least at the bag he carried as he now closed the door and carried his offerings to a table and chairs positioned in the corner of the room.
"I wasn't sure what you like so I just ordered you an assorted," he said as he set the bag on the table and opened it to begin retrieving items. "I hope that's okay?"
"Fine," Holly assured him, hurrying to join him at the table. She normally ordered a veggie one, or chicken, but right now assorted sounded like heaven. Her eyes widened though when he pulled out a second sandwich, and then a third. Good Lord, he must think she ate like a horse if he thought she--
"I got myself a couple too and thought I'd join you," Justin announced as he began to remove bags of chips and bottles of pop from the bag. "I hope that's okay?"
"Of course," Holly said politely. What else could she do? Say, "No, give me my food and get out"? But she did ask, "What about that . . . er . . . lovely fish you made?"
"By the time I got back to the kitchen Dante and Tomasso had staked their claim to all of it but the head. I'm not big on fish head."
Holly felt her stomach roll alarmingly at just the mention of the fish head and almost groaned aloud.
"I should have grabbed glasses," Justin muttered as he set the bottles of pop on the table. "Again I didn't know what you like so just got Coke."
"Coke is fine," she assured him, and then as she noted the variety of chips he'd chosen, added, "And I love salt and vinegar chips with my sandwiches."
"Me too," he said with a grin, then set the now empty take-out bag aside and headed for the door. "Sit down and start. I'm just going to grab a couple of glasses. Do you want ice too?"
"Sure," Holly murmured, settling at the table and reaching for the nearest bag of chips. She wouldn't even open the sandwich until he got back, but couldn't resist the chips while she waited. Dear God, she was hungry enough to eat a horse . . . as long as its head wasn't still attached, she thought wryly as she opened the chip bag. The astringent scent of vinegar hit her nose as the bag opened. Much to her relief the smell did not make her nauseous like the spicy, curry scent had earlier, so Holly popped a chip in her mouth and moaned as the sharp flavor hit her tongue. Salt and vinegar had never tasted so good as they did in that moment. She really had been hungry. Still was, she acknowledged, her gaze moving idly around the room until it stopped on the bed.
Her eyes widened then as she realized that she was entertaining a man in her bedroom . . . who wasn't her husband. There was nothing sexual about it, but . . . well, Anders and Decker had warned against it.
Biting her lip, she glanced toward the balcony doors and then stood and walked over to peer out at the balcony off her room. It was small and quaint, but it also held a table and chairs . . . and didn't have a bed.
Holly quickly opened the doors and stepped out to examine the table. It looked clean enough, but as she'd expected, there was a fine dusting of dirt or dust across the surface from being outside all the time. Hurrying back into the room, she crossed to the bathroom, found a fresh washcloth, dampened it, grabbed a hand towel and rushed back out to the balcony to give the table and chairs a quick cleaning. She then returned the now dirty items to the bathroom and then gathered up the sandwiches and chips and rushed out to the balcony with them. She'd just set them on the table when she heard Justin call her name.
Stepping back into the room, she noted that he stood in the open door, confusion on his face as he stared at the table in her room that now held only the bottles of pop. Smiling brightly, she hurried over to collect them, as well as the empty take-out bag, announcing, "I thought it would be nice to eat on the balcony.
"Oh." Justin relaxed and closed the door, then followed her outside with the glasses of ice he'd gone to collect.
"See, isn't this nice?" Holly asked cheerfully as she set the pops down and settled in one of the chairs.
"Yes, it is," he said with a smile, peering out over the landscape. "A nice ocean breeze, beautiful views and moonlight. What could be more romantic?"
In the process of unwrapping her sandwich, Holly stilled, alarm coursing through her. Cripes, it was romantic when you put it that way. What had she been thinking? Well, she knew what she'd been thinking, that it was better to eat on the balcony than in
her bedroom with a big old bed there to give poor lovelorn Justin ideas. Cripes. This was no better.
"Maybe I should get some candles," Justin said now.
"No!" Holly squawked with dismay. The last thing they needed was to make the setting more romantic. Noting that she'd startled him, she forced herself to pitch her voice to a less panicked level, and added, "I'm so hungry, Justin. I can't wait. Let's just eat. Hmmm?"
Fortunately, he nodded agreeably and started to open one of his own sandwiches, rather than go in search of candles.
"I'm sorry about dinner," Justin said after they'd eaten in silence for a few moments. "It didn't occur to me that you might be disturbed by it being served with the head on."
"That's all right," Holly murmured, more interested in her food than the subject at the moment. "It was kind of you to cook for all of us . . . and at least Dante and Tomasso apparently enjoyed your efforts."
"Yeah. They did," he said with a wry smile, and told her, "They ate every last bite of it. They even split the head in the end."
Holly didn't comment, she was too busy trying to swallow the food in her mouth, which had suddenly transformed into a dry nasty ball at the reminder of that damned fish. Deciding a change of topic was necessary if she wanted to enjoy her meal, Holly asked, "So, you were born here in California but live in Canada now?"
In the midst of biting into his sandwich, Justin merely nodded. Once he'd chewed and swallowed though, he added, "My family still lives here, though."
"Oh," she said with surprise, and then tilted her head and asked, "Family?"
"Yeah, you know, mother, father, brothers and sisters. Family." He grinned and teased, "We do have 'em you know. We aren't hatched."
"Yes, of course, I just--are they all vampires too?" she asked, and then tsked with exasperation at herself and said, "Of course they are. If you're over a hundred, you'd hardly still have parents and siblings alive if they weren't."
Justin nodded at her deduction. "My parents are old. Not as old as Lucian or anything, but old enough. Dad was born around the time of William the Conqueror. He fought alongside him in battle, in fact. Mom, though, wasn't born until the late fourteenth century, during the peasants' revolt in England, about 1381 I think, he added, to give her a reference point.
"Oh," Holly breathed, sitting back slightly. Cripes, his parents were ancient.
"I have three brothers and three sisters," he added. "Each the dutiful century apart. I'm the second youngest. The oldest is my brother Cam. He was born shortly after my parents mated and is over six hundred years old. My younger sister is six, no seven, this year."
"Wow," she murmured. "That's . . . wow."
Justin chuckled softly and shrugged. "I suppose it would be to a mortal. To me, it's just my family."
"Right." Holly shook her head, finding it hard to imagine that seeming normal to anyone. But then she'd grown up in the mortal world, where older siblings were usually one to ten years and sometimes even as much as twenty years older, but never five or six centuries.
"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" Justin asked.
She watched him pick up the last of his first sandwich and pop it in his mouth, marveling that he had finished a whole foot-long sub while she was only halfway through one half of hers. It seemed Dante and Tomasso weren't the only ones who ate a lot. Her mother would have said it was because he was eating too fast, and if he'd just slow down he'd realize one sandwich would more than fill him up. Thoughts of her mom reminded her of his question, and Holly cleared her throat.
"No. I was an only child," she said, and then smiled wryly and added. "Apparently, I was pretty much an accident."
His eyebrows rose. "Why would you say that?"
"Because my parents told me so," Holly said with a shrug and added, "Mom and Dad are archaeologists. They love what they do and are pretty much obsessed with it to the exclusion of everything else. If they aren't on a dig, they're planning and finding the funding for one. It doesn't leave a lot of time for kids."
He nodded slowly, his brows drawing together with what appeared to be concern. "Where did you stay when they went on these digs?"
"Oh, they took me with them," she said lightly, and noting his surprise, nodded. "They did. I grew up in tents around the world, a couple months or a year in one place, and then on to the next."
"You never went to school?" he asked with a frown.
"James's mom taught us," she explained and when he looked blank, added, "My husband, James. His father was an archaeologist on my father's team too. His mother was a schoolteacher, but she gave up her job to join his dad on the digs and homeschooled us both. It was really very handy all the way around."
"Yes, I guess so," he murmured thoughtfully, and then commented, "So you've known James a long time."
"All of my life," she said with a small smile. "We were playmates as tiny tots, best friends during the preteens, boyfriend and girlfriend as teens and then . . ." She shrugged. "When I turned eighteen, we went off to college together. Well, actually, university," she said with a smile. "We both went to the university of British Columbia."
"British Columbia, Canada?" he clarified, and when she nodded, asked curiously, "Why?"
"It's where James's mom is from and where she went to university."
"So she steered you toward it," Justin guessed.
Holly nodded. "But both our families live down here in California. Well, our families' families I guess," she corrected. "Grandparents, aunts and uncles and such. James's dad was from California. He met James's mom while lecturing at her university. Anyway, after growing up in places like Egypt and such, BC seemed a bit chilly to us, and we both wanted to be closer to family, so once James graduated last year, we moved down here to look for work."
"And then you married," he guessed.
Holly shook her head. "Actually, we married almost four years ago. We had both finished our bachelors in our fields. We were living in different dorms on campus and finding it a bit difficult to handle after the life we'd led, so we decided to marry and move off campus together. I worked while he got his MBA in applied science, and now he's working while I finish my courses to become an accountant."
"But you've always been together," he said slowly, a frown plucking at his face.
"Always," she said solemnly. "He was my first kiss, my first date, and my first love."
"I see," Justin whispered, then grabbed his second sandwich and rather than open it, slid it back into the take-out bag, grabbed it, his empty chip bag and his pop and glass and headed inside. "I have to talk to Gia."
Holly stared after him silently. She wasn't terribly surprised by his reaction. That might even be part of the reason she'd said what she had. He had to understand that she was married, and happily, and that she loved her husband. She was not open to being his life mate. Still, she hated to hurt his feelings.
Sighing, Holly glanced down to the remainder of her sandwich and then began wrapping it up. She'd finish it later, maybe. For now, she'd lost her appetite.
"I shouldn't have turned her," Justin muttered, pacing the length of Gia's bedroom. "I should have waited for Marguerite to find me a mate. She never messes up like this."
"You did what you thought was right at the time," Gia said solemnly.
"Well, it was a mistake," Justin said harshly. "She's married."
"Yes, she is," Gia agreed.
"But I mean really married. She's known this guy since she was a kid. She grew up with him. He was her first kiss and her first love, for God's sake. She'll never leave him. Not even for me," he said with dismay.
"Maybe not," Gia agreed. "Or maybe she will."
"I threw my one turn away for nothing," Justin realized with horror.
"Would you really rather she had died?" Gia asked patiently.
"Of course not," he snapped. "I would rather she hadn't fallen on the damned scissors at all. What kind of an idiot runs with scissors?" he asked with sudden fury.
Gia bit her lip, he
suspected to keep from laughing, and shook her head. "Well, sadly, she did run with scissors, did fall on them, and you did turn her to save her life when you realized she was your life mate. Now, I suggest you deal with it."
Justin scowled at her grimly and then snatched up the take-out bag and his drink from her dresser, where he'd set them on entering and whirled to storm out of her room.
"Deal with it," he muttered to himself as he stomped downstairs. "Just deal with the fact that you turned a woman you can't have. Nice. Thanks for that, Gia. Very helpful advice."
"Talking to yourself, Bricker?"
Pausing at the foot of the stairs, he scowled at Dante as the man passed with several jumbo bags of chips and a six-pack of cola in hand. Scowling, Justin said, "It's more useful than talking to members of the fairer sex."
"Don't let Gia hear you say that. She'll kick your ass," Dante warned before disappearing into the living room.
"Too late," Justin muttered, turning toward the kitchen. "Life has already kicked my ass, and has left precious little for her to have at."
"Trouble?" Tomasso asked as Justin pushed into the kitchen.
Justin glanced to the big guy, noting that he was folding a dish towel and setting it on the counter. The twins had helped Gia clean, obviously, or perhaps even done it all themselves. He wouldn't have been surprised. It wasn't like she had eaten anything. The pair probably would have felt bad to make her do the cleaning up when they'd eaten every last scrap of food he'd made.
"I gather you overheard what I said to your brother?" Justin asked finally, carrying his sandwich over to put it in the refrigerator for later . . . when he'd regained his appetite.
Tomasso grunted in the affirmative and Justin closed the fridge door with a sigh. "Holly has known her husband all her life. They were childhood friends and sweethearts. She isn't likely to throw him over for me. She hardly knows me."
"Then maybe she needs to," Tomasso said mildly as he moved to open the cupboard and began to retrieve the rest of the jumbo-sized bags of chips inside.
Justin watched him, but his mind was on what he'd said. "You think I should continue to woo her? Let her get to know me? You think she might choose me then?"
"Only one way to find out," Tomasso said with a shrug. Chips stacked in one beefy arm, he reached into the refrigerator with his free hand and retrieved a six-pack of soda. "What have you got to lose?"