waiters and four waitresses to calm her down and get the poor confused guy away from her."
"Oh?" Lissianna asked weakly. She ate without thinking, enjoying the flavors and textures in her mouth after so long on a liquid diet. However, she still couldn't eat as much as the others and the amount of food she left behind drew attention and comment from the others along the lines of it was no wonder she was so pale and so on.
The ring of a phone brought an end to the concerned murmurs and everyone fell silent as John pulled a cell phone from his pocket and answered it. He listened for a moment, then began to talk, discussing what was obviously work. Lissianna knew he was an accountant and that it was tax time for a lot of businesses he dealt with. When a child at the next table began to scream, he frowned, and said, "Hang on, Jack, I can't hear you. I'm taking you outside."
He stood, paused to kiss his wife on the way by, then moved toward the entrance of the restaurant.
They were all silent for a minute, then Anne suddenly said, "John and I were talking while you were all gone, and he suggested we just drive you home when we leave here, then you don't have to borrow money, Greg."
Lissianna was aware of Greg stiffening beside her, and understood his problem at once. They couldn't go to his apartment, it would certainly be watched, and he couldn't explain to his sister why he couldn't go to his place. She reached out under the table to pat his leg soothingly.
"Actually, Greg's car is at my place," Lissianna lied smoothly. She'd had two hundred years to perfect the skill, and though she tried not to use it unless absolutely necessary, it had been necessary more often than she cared to think about thanks to who and what she was. "We took the tram downtown."
"Oh, well where do you live, Lissi? We could drop you both there so Greg can collect his car."
Lissianna gave Debbie's address without even hesitating. If Greg couldn't borrow money, they had nowhere else to go.
Chapter 16
"Thank you, Debbie. I really appreciate this," Lissianna said sincerely as she followed her to the front door.
"Not a problem, Lissi. I was young once, too."
Lissianna blinked. She always found it startling when people assumed they were older than she… and, of course, Deb did. She thought Lissianna was twenty-five to her fifty. Little did the woman know she was talking to someone who was more than a century and a half older than herself.
Debbie gave a little laugh. "I do understand. My mother didn't approve of anyone I dated either. Up to and including my husband, who was a prince among men until the day he died." She paused at the door and turned back to face Lissianna, her glance shifting to the kitchen doorway where Greg waited. A grin split her lips. "And your Greg seems like a prince too: good-looking, polite and a doctor. Way to go, girl!"
"Well, a psychologist anyway," Lissianna said with a faint smile, grateful—not for the first time—that Debbie had been home when Greg's sister had dropped them off.
Debbie had been understandably surprised when Lissianna had shown up on her doorstep with Greg in tow. Lissianna could have controlled her and "made" her let them stay, but hadn't wanted to. Instead, she'd taken a chance and asked for her help. She hadn't explained much, just telling Debbie she'd been staying at her mother's house while her apartment was painted, but they'd had a falling-out and she needed a place to stay for the night. Debbie had taken one look at her tense expression and Greg's grim one and come to her own conclusions, apparently assuming the falling-out had been over him. Sympathetic, sweet, and a sucker for romance, she'd welcomed them into her home.
"You're a dark horse, aren't you?" Debbie said now. "You never mentioned your apartment was being painted, let alone that you were in love."
"I'm not in love," Lissianna protested automatically, startled by the woman's words, but Debbie just chuckled softly.
"Lissi dear, I recognize the way you two look at each other. It's how my Jim and I used to look at each other." Her expression turned sad at the thought of her deceased husband, then she shook off the melancholy and smiled. "There is no way you'll convince me you don't love the man."