TALL DARK AND HUNGRY Page 0,119

news."

"Wait! Mother!" Bastien half rose, then paused and simply sank down in his seat again when the door closed. For a minute, he stared blindly at the closed door, wondering what she had been talking about. Bastien suspected she had meant his broken heart when she spoke of his problem, but he had no idea what she meant when she'd said it was taken care of. The possibilities were endless. No doubt a half-dozen New York psychologists were going to call him over the next couple of days--pretty, single fe¬male psychologists--all claiming a need to talk to him about his mother.

Bastien scrubbed his hands through his hair with agitation. Marguerite Argeneau had to be the most annoying, interfering... And she was now Vincent's problem. For a while, at least.

"Sorry, Vinny," he muttered under his breath. A small smile plucked at his lips at the idea of the chaos his cousin was about to suffer, but it died quickly. As annoying and persistent as she could be, Marguerite Argeneau often got what she wanted. She had man¬aged to get Kate back for Lucern when the woman had fled him for New York. And she had arranged for Thomas to get Etienne and Rachel back together when they had fallen out. It was just a shame she hadn't set her mind to getting Terri back for him.

Not that he wanted her interference, he assured himself.

Meredith was talking on the phone when Terri walked into her office. The woman stopped dead in the middle of her conversation and gaped at her; then she hung up the phone without a word of good-bye or an explanation to whomever she had been talking to. "Am I glad to see you."

Terri smiled. "Well, it's nice to see you too, Meredith."

"Trust me, not as nice as it is for me to see you, Terri." The secretary stood, collected her purse and jacket, and walked around the desk. "He's been a mis¬erable grouch ever since returning from England. He loves you, you know."

"Yes." Terri smiled. "He told me that in Hudders-field. The problem was whether I could handle what you all are." One of the things that Kate had ex¬plained was that most of the employees at the upper level were vampires as well. There were many em¬ployees at Argeneau Enterprises who weren't, but those in important positions were. It eliminated the possibility of a disgruntled employee blabbing about what they were to the rest of the world.

Meredith paused in front of her and nodded. "And now?"

"And now, I'm unemployed, homeless, and here," Terri said wryly. She'd quit her job, and even man¬aged to sell the cottage before leaving. She intended to look for a position in America, or Toronto, or wherever it was that she and Bastien ended up. If he still wanted her.

Smiling, the secretary leaned forward and hugged her. "Welcome to the family," she said. Then turned to gesture to Bastien's office door. "It's not locked. He'll be happy to see you. I'm going to an early lunch."

"Thank you," Terri said quietly. She waited for the older woman to leave the office before she knocked, waited for his "Enter"--which was rather snappish, she noticed--then walked in.

"Meredith, where the hell did I put--" His harassed tones died abruptly as he glanced up and spotted her.

"Terri."

Tern.

"You didn't put me anywhere, but you left me in Huddersfield." She closed the door and crossed the room, suddenly unsure that Kate and Meredith were right, and that he would really be happy to see her. He didn't look too happy.

Bastien was confused for a minute; then he reran his last words to himself--"Meredith, where the hell did I put... Terri." Understanding dawned. "I waited the two days."

"I'm a slow thinker," Terri said apologetically. "And thick sometimes. Kate had to come see me be¬fore I got over old presumptions."

"Old presumptions?"

"Well, you know. Thirty-three years of vampire movies can leave an impression," Terri explained with a shrug. "I was stuck on the word, not seeing the man. Or the woman, for that matter." She paused in front of his desk. "I was even afraid of Kate when she first showed up at my office in Leeds."

"Kate came to the University?" Bastien asked.

Terri nodded, a small smile tugging at her lips. "She said she just knew that you'd mess up the ex¬plaining part."

"I didn't mess up the explaining part," he snapped.

" 'Have you seen the movie An American Werewolf in London?' " she quoted back to him. She shook her head and laughed.

Bastien