Meant to Be Immortal (Argeneau #32) - Lynsay Sands Page 0,117

I felt closer to my parents.” A little uncomfortable and embarrassed at the admission, she straightened and said, “You should probably get going. They’re all waiting in the RV.”

“Yes. Besides, the sooner I leave, the sooner I’ll be back,” he said with a smile as he bent to pick up the bags he’d carried in. “Where do you want these? Laundry room, I’m guessing?”

“I can manage from here. You go ahead,” she said at once, but he was already shaking his head before she’d finished speaking.

“It’ll only take me a minute to take these to your laundry room, and that way I get to see a bit more of your house before I go,” he added with a grin. “So, where is it?”

“At the end of the hall, in the walk-in closet off the master bedroom,” CJ explained, picking up her own suitcase and bags.

“The walk-in closet?” he asked with surprise, heading down the hall.

CJ grinned at his tone of voice. “Yeah. It actually used to be the laundry room, but I took over the smaller closet in the master to make the master bathroom larger. So, I knocked out the wall into the laundry room next door to make it a walk-in/laundry combo. It makes it pretty handy for doing laundry,” she pointed out. “And with just me here, it’s not like anyone would be traipsing through my room to get to the washer and dryer in the walk-in.”

“Smart,” he decided as he turned into the master bedroom.

She saw Mac looking around the large bedroom with interest as he crossed to the open door to the walk-in. It made her look around too as she tried to see it from his perspective. Her gaze slid over the pale beige walls, wide-planked maple hardwood floor, an area rug in beige, with a rust and medium brown pattern, a rust and white colored duvet with a folded beige quilt on the end, and rust colored blinds covering the sliding glass doors and window. It was warm, but not too girly. She was not a girly type girl, CJ thought, and then grunted in surprise when she bumped into Mac, who had stopped abruptly.

Taking a step back, she glanced at him and then frowned as she noted that he’d gone stiff and still in the doorway to the walk-in. Unnaturally so, she realized, and dropped the suitcase and bags to free her hands.

“What is it?” CJ whispered, trying to look around his shoulder, but Mac moved protectively to the side, blocking her from view as well as blocking her view.

“Back up.”

Now CJ stiffened. That hadn’t been Mac’s voice. It was gruffer, and angry, and coming from inside her walk-in closet/laundry room combo.

Mac immediately started to back up, putting a hand behind to urge her to move with him. They shuffled backward until they were halfway to the door to the hall, and then the man said, “That’s far enough.”

CJ stopped at once and stepped to Mac’s side to see the speaker. Her gaze slid over the tall, skinny, haggard-looking man with dark hair that was confronting them. She recognized him at once as the man in the video Mrs. Vesper’s friend Joan had shown them. Officer Steve Jefferson had apparently not been caught and arrested. He’d been on the lam for two weeks and broken into her home, and he was pointing a gun at them, she noted just before Mac shifted in front of her again. CJ knew he was trying to protect her and scowled at him for it before simply moving around him. She was the ex–police officer here, as well as the man’s target, and it was her house. She didn’t need Mac to protect her. She also didn’t want him hurt in her place because of some sense of chivalry.

Mac did not retreat under the look she cast him. Instead, he moved in front of her again, turning his back to the man and scowling down at her in return as he hissed, “CJ, let me handle this. I can’t control him. The guy’s all hopped up on something.”

“Yeah, and he’s waving a gun around too,” she pointed out, barely noticing the odd bit about not being able to control him. “Which is exactly why I should handle it. I’m trained to deal with trash like this. I used to be a cop, remember?”

“You may be trained, but I am immort—” He snapped his mouth shut in the middle of whatever he’d been saying, and asked in