Meant to Be Immortal (Argeneau #32) - Lynsay Sands Page 0,15

mate. So long that he’d begun to think it might never happen . . . and now here she was. She’d just walked up to the ambulance in his darkest hour, changing what had seemed like one of the worst days of his life into the best damned day ever.

Mac smiled faintly at the memory. Her arrival in his life had been so normal that, at first, he hadn’t recognized that his very existence was about to change, or that she was about to become the most important person in his life. CJ had just been a tall, slender stranger walking toward the ambulance in a white blouse and dark business jacket that contrasted wildly with the jeans and cowboy boots that finished off the outfit. Everything about her had been surprising, but he thought she should have had a spotlight on her, and been accompanied by a symphony, or a choir singing “Hallelujah!”

Mac smiled at the thought, and then turned his mind to more pragmatic matters . . . like that he had to contact the local Enforcers and bring them in on the case. If someone was trying to kill him, they needed to know. Not only so that they could try to sort out who it was, but because they’d have to do damage control when it came to the mortals in the area and any official reports the case generated. He would have preferred to let it play out as a simple fire caused by electrical issues as he’d originally intended. Being an old farmhouse, no one would have questioned that, and it would have got little attention at all that way. But not being able to control CJ had put paid to that plan and now they’d have to try to manage the situation.

Mac also needed to arrange for more blood to be delivered to him wherever he ended up. A safe house would make that difficult if CJ was the one guarding him. Hell, even in the bed-and-breakfast it would be difficult, but he needed more blood, and soon. While the blisters were gone and he looked mostly healed on the outside, his body was still repairing the internal damage and was quickly using up the blood he’d managed to acquire from the various firemen and paramedics at the scene. Mac was already feeling the gnawing ache that came when his body was in need of more blood. Not really a surprise. He’d pretty much been parboiled in that tub by the time the firemen had managed to beat back the flames enough to make a path in to get him out. The water had been bubbling around him, scalding him alive, and it had taken every ounce of self-control he possessed to keep from leaping out of the water. The only thing that had kept him from doing so was the sure knowledge that he would be dead in seconds if he got out. His body could repair almost any damage done to it, but nothing could bring an immortal back from ash and that’s what he would have been had he got out of that tub, because the one weakness immortals had was being incredibly flammable.

Pushing away the unpleasant memories of his time in the tub, Mac turned his thoughts to how he was going to make the calls he needed to. His phone, along with everything else he owned, had been destroyed in the fire, and the calls he had to make could not be done in front of others. He needed a phone and privacy for at least a few minutes, and was considering how to manage that when the loud music that had been playing since they left the house suddenly died.

Glancing around, Mac saw that they’d arrived at the police station. He turned back to CJ, his mouth opening and then snapping shut with alarm when he saw that she was already getting out of the car. Quite sure that if he let her out of his sight she’d never give him the chance to see her again, Mac quickly unsnapped his seat belt and scrambled out to follow.

Three

“So, what does ‘CJ’ stand for?”

CJ’s jaw tightened as that question told her that her attempt to escape Mac Argeneau hadn’t worked. She hadn’t moved quickly enough to leave him behind. Although she had managed to lose Simpson, she saw with a quick glance back. The officer was still scrambling out of the car with his evidence kit. Turning to