"I see," he murmured. "Then couldn't I just kiss her? She would experience our attraction that way and-"
"Kisses are nice, but she might pull away before you could get very far," Sam pointed out. "Alex is pretty stubborn when she sets her mind to something. A shared dream really would be better, so that she couldexperience all the passion. A kiss would be like just sampling the first course, and we want her to get the full meal to know what she could have."
Cale ran a hand wearily through his hair. "Right."
"How long has it been since you had sex?" Lucian asked, drawing another reprimanding look from Leigh. Sighing, he patted her hand and explained, "If it's been a while, he may need a refresher course. Or one of those books I bought."
"You said you didn't read those books," Leigh said with surprise.
"Well, no, but I've always been exceptional at everything I do and managed to get along without them. However, Cale is not me."
Cale rolled his eyes. "I'd forgotten just how arrogant you could be, Uncle."
Lucian shrugged. "That's a skill too, and, as I say, I'm exceptional at everything."
Leigh laughed and kissed the man on the cheek as if she thought he was joking. Cale suspected he wasn't.
"All right, I think we're agreed the best way to deal with this is to somehow get Alex and Cale under the same roof or at least nearer each other so they can experience the shared dreams," Marguerite said firmly, and then glanced around the room. "Does anyone have ideas?"
"I could take him over to her place in a van, park on the road, and have him sleep in the back," Bricker suggested. "That might be close enough for their minds to meet."
"No goddamned way," Cale barked, blanching atthe very suggestion. Lying in the back of a van having erotic dreams about Alex while Bricker sat in the front seat able to read what he was experiencing was just not something he was willing to even consider. Dear God!
"I thought you said that after this many years nothing should embarrass him?" Leigh said with gentle amusement.
Lucian grunted. "I guess he's more sensitive than I thought."
"I am not sensitive," Cale snapped, irritated by the very suggestion.
"It's probably his mother's fault," Lucian said, ignoring him. "Martine named him after Calliope, the muse of poetry. Between that and his father dying when he was only fifty, he's probably suffered under Martine's namby-pamby influence."
When Cale began to growl deep in his throat, Marguerite spoke up quickly to keep the peace. "Perhaps we should move to the dining room. Dinner is probably ready now, and we can think about a solution while we eat, and then talk about this some more."
"Food is always a good idea, Marguerite," Lucian announced.
"Great," Cale muttered as everyone got up with murmurs of agreement. It seemed he would have a break before they continued with this torture they called help.
Chapter Eight
"Do you want some help?"
Alex glanced up from the grill she was scrubbing and smiled at Bev. "No, I'm almost done. You go ahead with the others."
Bev nodded gratefully and hurried to collect her coat and purse and follow the others out the back door. Alex took a moment to enjoy the cold breeze that wafted through the room as the door opened and closed. It was always hot in the kitchen by the end of the night, hours of cooking tended to raise the temperature several degrees despite the top-rated ventilation system she'd had installed. The breeze felt nice.
Sighing, she turned back to finish cleaning her station. As the owner, she could have made someone else perform this chore, but Alex was rather possessive of her station. It had been hell for her to see Peter workingat it, switching things around and touching her tools. She was glad it was her own again.
Smiling to herself as she finished, Alex put away her cleaning gear, and then removed her hat and apron as she headed into her office. It was Saturday night and they closed later on Saturdays. Still, normally she would have sat down and done a little paperwork before heading home; but now that Cale was handling the paperwork, there was nothing for her to do, and she was glad of it. She didn't know if it was because she'd gotten out of the routine during those few weeks she'd been overseeing the new restaurant, or if she was fighting off a bug, but she was incredibly tired tonight and eager to head home.
Alex hung her apron from the tree in the corner of her office, shrugged into her coat, and then paused to cover a yawn that left her eyes watering. Dashing away the moisture, she grabbed her keys and purse and headed for the back door, hoping that the blast of cold air that awaited her outside would wake her up for the drive home.
As much as she'd been expecting it, the frigid wind that slapped at her as she stepped outside had her gasping breathlessly. Squinting her eyes against it, she quickly locked the door, and then gasped with surprise when she was suddenly grabbed from behind. She managed a half shout before an arm snaked around her neck, cutting off the sound even as another arm banded around her waist. When she was then lifted off her feet and carried away, her surprise turned to panic.
She dropped her keys and clawed at the arm around her neck even as she began to kick, aiming for the man behind her.
When neither action had any effect, Alex reached behind her head and dug her nails into the first flesh she found. A shouted curse was her reward, and then the arm around her throat pulled out from the curve of both of hers, which were now over it. Something cut into the side of her face as it did, and she gritted her teeth at the pain. Her assailant tried to grab for her hands while maintaining his hold around her waist. But she had two free to his one, and he finally gave that up and punched her in the head.
Alex moaned as lights exploded behind her eyes, and then the arm around her waist was suddenly gone. Her feet hit the ground with a jarring impact, and immediately slid out from beneath her. She crashed backward onto the icy tarmac, and there was a second explosion of pain, this time one that seemed to start at the back of her skull and vibrate forward through her brain.