Kiss Across Chaos (Kiss Across Time #10) - Tracy Cooper-Posey Page 0,63
yet surprise us all,” Taylor replied.
Aran frowned. “You all seem to think she’s made of titanium.”
“And you know differently?” Taylor asked softly.
Aran looked away. He’d revealed too much. If he answered her, it would pull him into a conversation he did not want to have. Not yet. Not while fear still lived on his shoulder and whispered in his ear.
Taylor added; “Jesse will need us now.”
“Relax,” Aran shot back. “I’ll bring her back to Canada for you.”
Taylor smiled. “Thank you.” She picked up the mail. “I think there’s a few letters in here for you, too. Did I tell you about the last Thanksgiving and the salmon Kit brought to the house?”
“Kit MacDonald?” Aran clarified. “He’s a visitor now, too?”
“Not the way Jesse is,” Taylor replied. She tossed two envelopes onto the far cushion. Both bore his name. “He does find some highly inventive reasons for popping by suddenly. Usually when Alannah is visiting, although I’m still not sure how he learns she is there.” Her smile was full of mischief.
Kit McDonald and Alannah. Aran let that idea hang in his mind as he reached for the letters. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Although it wasn’t up to him, anyway. Alannah had been born knowing how to make up her own mind about what she wanted and how to get it, too. Which meant she also knew how to avoid what she didn’t want.
Taylor told him about the stupefyingly large salmon Kit had left on the front verandah for Thanksgiving, which had given Taylor headaches trying to fillet and store it for a household of people who didn’t eat food. She went on to describe the solstice feast they’d held last year and the arm-wrestling competition between Neven, Alexander, Rafe and Remi, to decide who would hold this year’s solstice feast.
Aran realized he had sunk onto the cushions when he leaned back against the arm of the sofa with a small smile at the mental image of four vampires caught up in an ancient display of machismo.
He realized with a start that he was actually looking forward to the jump back to Alberta and seeing everyone again.
That was when Jesse reappeared, climbing down the steps with a distant look on her face. What had Veris told her to make her look that way?
“Are you heading out to speak to the media?” Aran asked her, wondering why his heart was thudding so hard. The effort it took to ask that question!
Jesse looked at him, startled. “God, no,” she breathed and shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself.
Something loosened in his middle. Aran didn’t linger to ask himself what it was that had just sighed in relief. He got to his feet, too uneasy to remain seated.
Taylor rose, too. “I’m going to tour around the house and make sure everything is still screwed down tight. Then I’ll bring Veris back. You two should go ahead.” She looked at Jesse. “You’ll stay for dinner, yes?”
Jesse smiled. “That depends. Who is cooking?”
“Rafe, I suspect,” Taylor said. “He’s probably already going through the contents of the kitchen and building a shopping list.”
“In that case, yes,” Jesse said. “I’d love to stay.”
Aran smiled. Rafe’s cooking was vastly superior to anyone else’s, including the humans in the family. He even baked and his croissants nearly rivalled Bertrand’s.
The pleasant remembrance let Aran squash down the hard knot in his middle and momentarily extinguish it, enough to let him put his arms around Jesse and steal the small pleasure while he jumped her to Canmore.
When Jesse climbed up the open stairs to the hidden door on the main level of the big house, she learned that everyone was there, just as Brody had said they would be. The house was stuffed full of people, once more, although the humans among them were mostly sleeping, for it was the middle of the night for Europe.
No one instantly pulled Jesse aside and demanded to know what the hell she had been doing to make the global press corps come after her. No one said congratulations about the ranking book. Even when Veris returned, he didn’t immediately call a family meeting around the big dining table to deconstruct what had happened and make plans to deal with it.
In fact, Jesse wasn’t even sure everyone did know about the book, or why Brody had yanked them over to the Canadian Rockies. This family was incredibly non-inquisitive about others’ concerns. They may be curious, but they wouldn’t ask.