keeping warm.
“Good heavens, Mrs. Vesper!” she said with amazement as she transferred the new toast to the stack the older woman held. “We won’t eat all this toast.”
“Well, then I’ll make French toast tomorrow morning out of whatever’s left over,” she said complacently. “Now go tell that young man that breakfast is ready. Maybe we can put some color into his cheeks.”
Mac withdrew his fangs from Officer Dandridge’s neck and straightened in the passenger seat the moment he heard the squeak of Mrs. Vesper’s porch door opening. He remained facing the man, though, as he quickly wiped his mouth to be sure there was no blood on it, and released the police officer from his control. Only then did he turn to peer out the car window to see CJ crossing the porch to the steps. She stopped, though, when she saw him look, and waved him over, calling, “Breakfast is ready.”
“Coming,” Mac called out, then glanced back to Dandridge and rearranged the man’s thoughts so he’d think they’d been discussing the house fire and the captain’s plans for him. Mac then got out of the car and made his way to the porch.
“Well, Mrs. Vesper will be relieved,” CJ said with a faint smile, stepping back as he mounted the porch stairs.
Mac raised his eyebrows as he stepped up next to her. “About what?”
“You looked ready to drop dead on us when you left the kitchen. Now you have a little color in your cheeks,” she explained, turning to lead him to the door.
“Oh. I just needed fresh air,” he lied, following. The truth was, he’d needed blood. Badly. Mac hadn’t slept a wink after CJ had gone to bed last night. Instead, he’d paced the room, his gaze moving repeatedly to the window in the hopes of seeing a vehicle approaching. But the courier Bastien had promised would be there in an hour or two had not shown up.
By the time Mac had heard CJ slip out of the room this morning, he’d been desperate for blood and in pain with it. Just having her back in the room with him had been torture, but being in the kitchen with both women had been worse. He’d known he wouldn’t last long without snapping and feeding on the pair of them. Not willing to risk that, he’d headed outside to feed on Officer Dandridge instead, and didn’t regret it a bit. Mac hadn’t taken a lot of blood, just enough to tide him over and make him less dangerous to be around. Aside from which, this was still an emergency situation since his courier hadn’t shown up.
That thought made him wonder where the hell the man was. Bastien would not have forgotten to arrange a delivery. It would have been a priority. Leaving an immortal without blood when he was healing from something like what Mac had gone through was just not an option. It was too risky. The injured immortal might run amok and attack someone, drawing attention to the presence of their kind in the world, and that was something they avoided at all costs.
“It smells delicious, Mrs. Vesper.”
Mac looked around at CJ’s words as they entered the kitchen and inhaled deeply. While he was sure CJ was referring to the odors of cooked food in the air, all he smelled was blood with an undertone of bacon. Obviously, he hadn’t had enough blood, Mac realized unhappily, and looked around for CJ’s purse. Spotting it on the counter, he started toward it, asking, “CJ, can I use your phone again? I need to call Bastien and check on the arrival time of that courier he was going to send. He should have been here by now and I am beginning to worry that he may have had a misadventure.”
“You can use the house phone,” Mrs. Vesper offered, and then added, “After you eat.”
Mac turned to face the older woman with surprise. “But—”
“After you eat, young man,” Mrs. Vesper said firmly, carrying coffees to the table. “I did not go to all the trouble of cooking this food so that you could let it go cold while you yap on the phone. The courier will get here when he gets here. Now sit down and eat.”
Mac nearly took control of Mrs. Vesper and made his call anyway. The problem was, he couldn’t control CJ and she would consider the older lady’s sudden about-face odd at best. Besides, Mrs. Vesper reminded him so much of his mother in that