He glanced to the man with surprise at the terse greeting, eyebrows rising as he recognized the eyes that turned to him. "Nice to see you, Anders," Harper greeted in return as he reached in to retrieve one of the coolers. "It's been a while."
Anders's answer was a grunt as he claimed the second cooler and straightened from the vehicle. He paused to close the back of the SUV, hit the button to lock the doors, and then nodded for Harper to lead the way.
Harper turned away but found himself grinning and couldn't resist saying, "Chatty as ever, I see."
When the man basically told him to bugger off in Russian, Harper burst out laughing. The sound of his own laughter was somewhat startling, but it felt good, he decided, as he led the way across the deck. Maybe it was a sign that he was finally coming out of the depression that had struck him when Jenny had died.
The thought made him sigh to himself as he shifted the cooler to open the door to the house. He'd been sunk pretty deep in self-pity and gloom for the last year and a half, and while he supposed it was only to be expected when one lost a life mate, it would be a relief to feel more himself again. He was not a naturally gloomy guy but had found little to laugh or even smile about since Jenny's death.
"Here." Tiny was in front of him, reaching for Harper's cooler the minute he stepped into the house. He gave it up and watched the man carry it into the dining room, where he unraveled the cord and plugged it in. The one Tiny himself had carried in was already plugged into a socket in the corner of the kitchen, Harper noted, and supposed the man was spreading them throughout the house to be sure they didn't overload a breaker. The coolers were basically portable refrigerators and probably used a lot of juice.
Feeling the cold at his back, Harper realized he was blocking Anders from entering and quickly stepped aside for him to pass. He then pulled the screen door closed and shut and locked the inner door. By the time he turned back, Tiny had returned and was taking the last cooler from Anders. Harper's gaze slid over the dining room in search of Alexandrina-Argenis-everyone-calls-me-Drina and found her standing beside the dining-room table, shrugging out of her coat.
"If this is all blood, you brought a lot of it," Tiny commented with a frown as he turned to carry the last cooler away, this time heading for the living room.
"Lucian sent it for your turn," Anders responded, bending to undo and remove his boots.
"My God, he speaks again," Drina muttered with feigned shock. "And a whole sentence too."
"Sometimes you'll even get a paragraph out of him," Harper responded, but his gaze was now on Tiny. The man had paused in the doorway of the living room and turned back, a startled expression on his face. Apparently it hadn't occurred to him that now that he and Mirabeau had acknowledged they were life mates, the next step was the turn.
"A whole paragraph?" Drina asked with dry amusement, drawing Harper's attention again.
"A short one, but a paragraph just the same," he murmured, glancing her way. He then paused to take her in. She was petite, as he'd noticed outside, which was a polite way of saying short. But she was curvy too, rounded in all the right places. She was also most definitely Spanish, with olive skin, deep-set eyes, the large brow bone, and straight, almost prominent nose. But it all worked to make an attractive face, he decided.
"Right, of course, the turn," Tiny muttered, drawing his attention once more, and Harper shifted his attention back to find the other man looking resolute. As he watched, Tiny straightened his shoulders and continued into the living room.
Harper frowned and had to bite back the urge to tell Tiny that perhaps he should wait on turning, but he knew it was just a knee-jerk reaction to his own experience. It was rare for a mortal to die during the turn, and in all likelihood, Tiny would probably be fine. However, Jenny had died, and so that was the first thing he thought of and the worry that now plagued him.
Sighing, he bent to remove his boots. He set them beside the radiator, and straightened to remove his coat. Laying it over his arm, he then took Anders's as he finished removing it and crossed the room to collect Drina's as well before ducking into the small pantry in the back corner of the kitchen. It held the entry to the garage but was also where the closet was.
"Handy."
Harper glanced around to see that Drina stood in the doorway to the kitchen, eyes sliding around the small room. Her gaze slid back to him as he reached for hangers, and she moved to join him as he hung up her coat.
"Let me help. You don't have to wait on us." She took the second hanger he'd just retrieved and Anders's coat, leaving him to deal with only his own.
Harper murmured a "thanks," but had to fight the urge to assure her it was fine and send her from the room. The tiny space suddenly seemed smaller with her in it, a good portion of the air seeming to have slipped out with her entrance, leaving an unbearably hot vacuum behind that had him feeling flushed and oxygen starved. Which was just odd, he decided. He had never been claustrophobic before this. Still, Harper was relieved when they were done with the task, and he could usher her back into the much larger kitchen.
"So where is this Stephanie we're supposed to guard?" Drina asked, sliding onto one of the stools that ran along the L-shaped counter separating the kitchen from the dining area.
"Sleeping," Harper answered, moving past her to the dining-room table to gather the cards from his game with Tiny.
"Stephanie's still used to mortal hours," Tiny explained, returning to the kitchen then. "So we thought it'd be better if one of us was up with her during the day and the other up at night to keep an eye on things while she slept. I got night duty."
"They're concerned about the lack of security here," Harper explained, sliding the cards into their box and moving to set them on the counter.
Drina frowned and glanced to Tiny. "But isn't that backward? You're mortal, aren't you? Shouldn't you be up during the day and this Mirabeau up at night?"
Tiny smiled wryly. "That would have been easier all around, but it's only been this one day. Besides, while I can hang out with her during the day or night and keep an eye on her, someone has to sleep in her room, which had to be Mirabeau." When Drina raised an eyebrow, he explained, "We didn't think it was a good idea to leave her alone in her room all night. There's no fence here, no alarm . . . It could be hours before we realized she was gone if she was taken or-"
"Or what?" Drina asked when Tiny hesitated. It was pure politeness on her part, Harper knew. The woman could have read him easily enough to find out what he was reluctant to say but was asking instead out of respect.
Tiny was silent as he removed his own coat, but finally admitted, "There's some concern that Stephanie might try to run away and get to her family."
"Really?" Drina asked, her eyes narrowing.
Tiny nodded. "Apparently, Lucian caught the thought in her head a time or two. He thinks she only wants to see them, not necessarily approach them, but-" He shrugged. "Anyway, as far as she's concerned, none of us know that, and someone has to be with her twenty-four/seven because of Leonius."