over, trying to match up pairs. The one with the most pairs at the end wins,” he explained. “CJ said it was the only game we couldn’t cheat at by reading her mind.”
Mac grinned widely. “That’s my clever girl.”
“Yeah. Bricker tried to convince her to play poker for Reese’s Pieces first, but she’s no one’s fool. I like her,” he added.
“So do I!” he heard Dani say, her voice a little distant but still he heard it.
He also heard Bricker call out, “Me too.”
“Did you hear that? We’ve voted. She passes Argeneau and Bricker muster. You can keep her.”
“I can, can I?” he asked with a smile.
“Yeah,” Decker said lightly, and then in a more solemn tone, “Seriously, cousin. I’m glad you have her. She’s perfect for you.”
“Do I have her?” Mac asked with concern.
“You’re asking the wrong person, Mac. Man up and go talk to your woman.”
Mac bristled at the “man up” bit. He’d only wanted to know what he was walking into, so he snapped irritably, “How do you know I haven’t talked to her already?”
“Well, for one thing, because Dani, Bricker, and I just left maybe ten, fifteen minutes ago,” Decker said dryly. “And for another, if you’d already talked to her you wouldn’t be asking me these questions, would you? Go talk to her.”
“I will,” he assured him. “But first just tell me what exactly she knows.”
“I think Bricker pretty much covered everything,” Decker said thoughtfully.
“Bricker?” Mac asked with alarm.
“Yeah, but he did okay,” Decker assured him.
But Mac heard Dani snort in the background and mutter, “Sure, once he got past that ‘We’re the Casper the Friendly Ghost of vampires’ stuff.”
“What did Dani say?” Mac asked sharply. “Casper the friendly what?”
“It’s fine,” Decker assured him. “I think he was just going with that because of the whole bit about her thinking you were a cyborg or a werewolf.”
“What?” Mac squawked.
“It’s all good,” Decker said soothingly. “She’s there, isn’t she? She didn’t run off into the night screaming. She’s there waiting for you to talk to her. So go do it.”
“But what—”
“Dani’s telling me to hang up now, Mac. Gotta go,” Decker said. The words were followed by dead air and Mac pulled the phone away to see that the call had been ended.
“Casper the Friendly Ghost of vampires?” he muttered with bewilderment as he slid the phone into the back pocket of his jeans. “And how the hell could she think I was a cyborg or werewolf?”
Shaking his head, he moved back to his duffle bag and pulled out a T-shirt that he yanked on as he moved back to the bedroom to claim the bags of blood CJ had brought him. He slapped the first one to his fangs and waited impatiently for it to empty, then switched it out for the second bag and waited again before heading out in search of CJ.
He found her in the kitchen, humming as she stirred a creamy orangey red soup in a pot and flipped some kind of sandwich in a frying pan. She appeared much more relaxed than she’d been in the bedroom, and that made some of his worries ease.
“Oh, hello,” she said, offering him a smile when she spotted him.
“Hello.” Mac paused just inside the kitchen and smiled in return. “You seem much better.”
“Me?” She blinked in surprise and then laughed and pointed out, “You’re the one who was shot. I’m fine.”
“Yes, but you seemed anxious and eager to get away from me or something in the bedroom and I was worried . . .” He let the words trail off and shrugged.
“Ah.” She nodded, and gave the soup a stir, then lifted first one sandwich and then the other to check their bottoms before saying, “Well, I’ve been waiting for you to wake up so that we could talk, and then I walked in to find you standing there in nothing but your boxer briefs and male glory and—” she paused to give him a crooked smile “—you and I both know that half-naked in close quarters usually leads to fully naked and no talking at all for us.” She shrugged and shifted her attention back to her cooking as she ended, “So I was anxious and eager to be away. But now you’re dressed and so long as you don’t get too close, or touch or kiss me, we should be able to manage that talk.”
Oddly enough, her words made him want to get closer and kiss and touch her, talk be