Meant to Be Immortal (Argeneau #32) - Lynsay Sands Page 0,54

flicked on the blinker and announced, “Here we are.”

Turning his head, Mac saw that they’d arrived at Walmart. Time for shopping, he thought with an inner sigh. He hated shopping.

“Well, Mac, so far you’re doing a bang-up job of wooing her,” Decker commented dryly fifteen minutes later. “You hardly said two words to her in the car and now you’re sitting out here with me while Bricker is inside shopping with her.”

Mac turned to give the man a scowl, but didn’t tell him to shut up like he wanted to. Everything Decker had said was true. He’d let the other two men carry most of the conversation on the drive over, and now he was sitting out here on the hood of her car waiting for CJ and Bricker to return with a pair of shoes for him to wear into the store.

Mac looked down at his bare feet, hardly able to believe he’d left Mrs. Vesper’s place barefoot. It was, of course, how he’d been carried out of the burning house last night and how he’d been walking around ever since. He’d got so used to it that he hadn’t even noticed that he didn’t have shoes on until the door greeter inside Walmart had politely explained he couldn’t enter barefoot. Now CJ and Bricker were inside buying him shoes so that he could shop for clothes he didn’t really need just to spend time with her. So far, he wasn’t acing this wooing business.

“She’s very guarded,” Decker said suddenly.

“I had noticed,” Mac said wearily.

Decker nodded and then added, “She’s going to be a hard sell.”

Mac looked at him worriedly. “Do you know what the issue is that Julius mentioned?”

Decker shook his head. “Nothing has popped up on the surface of her thoughts yet.”

“Hmm.” Mac turned to look back toward the store entrance and said impatiently, “What the hell are those two doing in there? How long does it take to buy a pair of shoes?”

Ten

“I really can’t see Mac wearing those,” CJ said, eyeing the paisley-patterned, plastic purple flip-flops Justin was holding up with the disgust they deserved. Good Lord, she wouldn’t even make Captain Dupree wear the ugly things, and he was in her bad books right now.

“Yes, well, it seems to me he doesn’t have much choice since we don’t know his shoe size,” Bricker pointed out.

CJ frowned. He was right, of course, but still . . . The flip-flops were really ugly, and she was quite sure he’d never wear them after today, if they even managed to get him to wear them into the store. She debated the matter briefly and then heaved out a sigh and shook her head. She simply could not do it. Especially not when he had so much that he had to replace at the moment.

“No. It would be a waste of his money,” she said finally, and started to dig in her purse for her phone, only to stop when she recalled she’d forgot to charge it. Letting her purse drop back to her side, she asked, “Can I use your phone?”

“My phone?” Bricker echoed with surprise.

“Yeah. Mine is dead or so close to dead it might die mid-call and I want to call Decker,” she explained.

“Decker?” Bricker said dumbly.

“Well, Mac doesn’t have a cell phone. I presume Decker does?” she asked, and when he nodded, she arched an eyebrow. “So? Let me call him on your phone so I can have him ask Mac his shoe size. Then we can at least pick something he might wear more than once.”

“Ah.” Bricker nodded, but looked slightly disappointed as he set the purple flip-flops back and handed over his phone after opening it to Decker’s number. CJ got the feeling he’d really liked the idea of making Mac wear the ugly things.

Boys! she thought, shaking her head as she tapped the green phone symbol and placed the phone to her ear.

Decker answered after the first ring with, “Hope you are nearly done, Bricker. We are sitting out here in the sunlight waiting on you two, and you know that isn’t good. We should have brought a cooler with us.”

“A cooler of what?” CJ asked with amusement. “Cold water or beer?”

“CJ,” Decker said with obvious consternation. “Sorry, I just assumed it was Bricker.”

“No. I borrowed his phone to call and find out what size shoe Mac wears,” she explained. “And maybe his clothing sizes too.”

“Right. Hang on,” Decker said, and then must have pressed the phone to his chest because