to be able to get out of there before Jefferson got back. Which was ironic, she supposed. She’d been trying to meet with the man for weeks, and now just wanted to avoid him.
“Awesome! Next stop: the Happy Wonton,” Bricker said cheerfully, taking her arm in one hand and Mac’s in the other and ushering them out of the station with Decker leading the way.
Thirteen
“I should probably check on CJ again and make sure that she’s okay,” Mac muttered, glancing toward the hall and the stairs beyond. They’d stopped to pick up Chinese food on the way back to the bed-and-breakfast, but CJ hadn’t been interested in having any when they’d got there. She’d gone straight up to her suite for what she’d called a “lie down,” leaving Mac and the others to feast on the Chinese food without her.
The minute she’d left the room, Mac had started to fret over her. He’d managed to restrain himself for twenty whole minutes before going up to check on her the first time. The second time had been twenty minutes after that. Now another twenty minutes had passed and he was anxious to check on her again. It was looking like he’d be running up to be sure she was still breathing three times an hour for the rest of the night. At least until Mrs. Vesper went to bed and he could just go up there and stay in CJ’s suite. Unfortunately, the woman appeared to be enjoying the company at the table and was showing no signs of tiring.
Mac blamed that on Marguerite. His aunt and Julius had joined them to eat when they’d returned, and after hearing about their day and evening, she’d been chatting away with Mrs. Vesper, asking her all sorts of questions that Mrs. Vesper had happily answered. The woman was blooming under the attention, which Mac would have thought was nice if he wasn’t so anxious about CJ. He knew damned right well that head wounds could be risky for mortals. Swelling on the brain could cause problems that weren’t immediately evident but could kill them. And those problems might not be apparent while she slept, he thought now with a frown. Perhaps he should wake her up this time.
“Or you could go have a nap yourself,” Decker suggested.
Mac blinked at the comment, somewhat confused by where it had come from. Deciding he must have missed part of the conversation, he merely shrugged and said, “I’m not tired.”
His answer inspired dead silence for a minute, and then Bricker pointed out, “It was just after nine o’clock when we got back and CJ went to lie down. She might sleep straight through the night rather than just nap . . . or enjoy dream time as my Holly likes to call it,” he added pointedly.
“Dream time?” Mrs. Vesper said with a faint smile. “Isn’t that sweet. It sounds much less lazy than ‘nap.’ I like it.”
Mac heard Mrs. Vesper’s comment, or at least the rumble of her voice, but his mind was on what Bricker had said. Dream time. Immortals were said to share dreams with their life mates when sleeping near each other. Usually they were shared sex dreams. If he went up and slept too . . .
Standing abruptly, he picked up the full glass of water Mrs. Vesper had fetched for him and said, “I’ll just go look in on her and set this by the bedside table in case she’s thirsty when she wakes up, and then I might just have a little nap myself. I wouldn’t want her to be up by herself in the middle of the night.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mac,” Mrs. Vesper said with a smile. “Well, if you don’t get up until after I’ve gone to bed, I’ll wish you good night now.”
“Good night,” Mac murmured, heading out of the kitchen.
He heard Marguerite’s soft “Sweet dreams” as he left the room.
CJ was asleep in her own bed when Mac reached her suite. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. She’d probably assumed that he’d be out in the RV with his bodyguards now that they were here, and if today hadn’t gone as it had, he probably would have been. But her head injury meant she wasn’t supposed to be left alone for twenty-four hours and he intended on watching her like a hawk. He wasn’t risking losing his life mate to swelling on the brain, or anything else, before he could even claim her. Fortunately, sharing