by Lynsay Sands
“What do I say?” he asked, and when she gaped at him with disbelief, he said stiffly, “I am not trying to be difficult. I dislike talking about feelings and such feminine things.”
“You do not have to talk about your feelings,” Marguerite said soothingly, and then her lips twitched and she added, “In fact, since most of your ‘feelings’ for Pet right now seem to be centered in your lower regions, I would advise against it.”
Before Santo could decide if she was insulting or making fun of him, Marguerite glanced at her wristwatch and murmured, “There are still a couple hours before she has to pick up Parker, and I do not think she has had anything to eat today unless the two of you stopped somewhere?”
Santo shook his head.
“Good,” Marguerite said on a sigh. “Then I suggest you take her out for a late lunch and then talk to her. Just be yourself, but speak your thoughts out loud,” she suggested as if it was easy as could be. Walking around him, she moved to the door and then paused to swing back and add, “Your less prurient thoughts, though, Santo. Save any sex talk for later. All right?”
She didn’t wait for an answer but turned away, muttering, “I need to go talk to Julius. Maybe he will have some ideas on how to help you.”
Santo stared at the empty doorway for several minutes after Marguerite left, feeling depression settle around his shoulders. He had lied when he’d said he disliked talking. It wasn’t that he disliked it so much as he was out of practice and uncomfortable with it. It was part of the reason he’d refused counseling after the mess in Venezuela where he was kidnapped and tortured . . . He didn’t know how to talk about it. And he didn’t know how to talk to Pet.
Santo grimaced at how stupid that sounded, and then shook his head and left the kitchen to go looking for Pet. He didn’t have far to go; he spotted her the minute he stepped into the hall. She was at the front door, her arms full of a bunch of equipment that she was trying to shift so that she could open the new door.
“What are you doing?” he asked with a frown, automatically moving forward now to take some of the items for her. His gaze moved over what he realized was a speaker and a gaming system as he took them.
“Thank you.” Her voice was quiet and polite as she juggled the other speaker and game controllers still in her hands so that she could open the door before she answered his question. “I’m taking these outside.”
Santo frowned, but followed when she stepped out on the porch. “Why?”
“To put in my car,” Pet responded as she made her way down the steps and headed for the driveway.
“Why?” Santo repeated impatiently, trailing her to her red Toyota 86. It was a damned cute car, he noted not for the first time, and he thought she’d look good in it.
“So I don’t have to later.”
Santo glanced at her blankly, slow to put together that she was answering his question about why she was putting the items in the car. He paused next to her as she stopped at the trunk and popped it open, and then watched unhappily as she set the controllers and speaker inside. She then turned to take the game station and the other speaker from him and set them in as well.
When she closed the trunk and headed back the way they’d come, he followed again, asking, “Are they not Parker’s?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know?” he asked as they mounted the stairs to the porch.
“That I took them from his room?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Not yet.”
Santo waited for her to explain and then scowled at her back when she didn’t, annoyed as hell that she was being so reticent.
“Where are you going now?” he asked when they entered the house, and she started to jog lightly up the stairs.
“Upstairs,” she announced as she reached the top of the steps.
Santo watched her disappear up the hall, and then muttered under his breath and strode into the living room.
“Problems?” Bricker asked with amusement.
“No,” he snarled, wondering how he was supposed to ask her out to lunch when she was being so difficult. Or if he even wanted to. Seriously, he’d known claiming a life mate could be hard, but this was not the kind of difficult he’d expected. Shouldn’t his life mate be someone who understood his silences and joined him in them?
A snort from Bricker reminded him that he wasn’t alone and was easily read at the moment. He turned a baleful glare on the younger immortal, but it didn’t seem to intimidate him.
“Buddy,” Bricker said with a grin, “the last thing you need is more silence. Hell, I’ve spent half my time the last couple of weeks wanting to check to see if you’re still breathing.” When Santo glowered at him, he shrugged. “I’m just sayin’ . . . I mean, at least Chewbacca squawks once in a while, you know?”
“What the hell is a Chewbacca?” Santo asked impatiently.
“Exactly.” Bricker nodded solemnly, as if his question meant something. “You are way out of touch with society, my friend. And at least as bad as Lucian was at the boy-girl thing. You need help, and I’m just the guy to help you.”
Santo arched his eyebrows and simply said, “The Bricker Lotto?”
Bricker grinned, apparently unembarrassed that Santo had heard about his explanations to his mate about their being life mates. “Yeah, all right, not my finest moment, maybe. But I got my girl, and that despite all the shade Anders and Decker were throwing my way, so . . . who’s laughing now?”
Santo grunted at that, and then glanced around at the sound of the front door closing.
“It was Pet,” Bricker told him.
Scowling, Santo strode out of the living room and hurried to open the front door. He peered out, then gaped when he saw that Pet was now carrying a television this time.
Cursing under his breath, he rushed after her, catching up just as she reached the back of the car.
“What are you doing now?” he asked with exasperation.
“Putting this in the car,” she said, even as she did so.
“I can see that,” he growled. “Why?”
“To take it somewhere else,” she said simply, slammed the trunk and turned to head back to the house again.
“Why?” he repeated impatiently, beginning to feel like a parrot.
“So Parker can play his games.”
“Well, he cannot play if they are not here,” he pointed out with exasperation, following her up the stairs to the porch and finding his attention briefly caught by the curve of her behind.
“He can,” she assured him. “Someplace else.”
That dragged his attention away from her butt, and he lifted his gaze to the back of her head with alarm. “Why would he not be here?”
“Because he’ll be elsewhere,” she said grimly and slipped back into the house.
Santo halted briefly, her words striking him like a blow as he realized she was taking Parker and his things and leaving. At least he thought she was. She was being so damned reticent he wasn’t sure. Honestly, getting answers from her was suddenly like pulling teeth, he thought irritably, and then nearly gasped aloud as he realized those had been her exact words to him.
Son of a bitch, she was giving him some of his own back, Santo realized. And he didn’t like it. No wonder she was annoyed with him. If she felt as frustrated by his lack of communication as he presently did with hers . . .
Muttering under his breath, Santo hurried after her. Bursting into the house, he glanced up the stairs, expecting to see her already halfway up them. She wasn’t there, though. Instead, he heard her voice from the living room. He moved to stand in the doorway just as Bricker said, “Marguerite mentioned she didn’t think you’d had breakfast or even lunch and might be hungry. Was she right?”
Santo saw the surprise that flickered onto Pet’s face, and then she smiled wryly and nodded. “Yeah, I guess she is. I didn’t even think of eating.”
“Good. ’Cause I’m hungry too,” Bricker said, and then added, “I was thinkin
g a nice juicy steak would be nice, maybe a baked potato . . .”
“That sounds good,” Pet admitted solemnly.
Bricker nodded and then glanced past her to Santo and said, “Take her to that steakhouse we stopped at on our way here.”
Pet swung around, her mouth forming an alarmed O as she spotted him and realized Bricker had set her up. She started to protest, “Oh, but—”
“They have aged steak there,” Bricker said, talking right over her and taking her arm to steer her across the room to Santo’s side. “And it was good too. Now, off you go.”
Santo took her elbow when Bricker urged Pet toward him, and then turned to walk her out of the house. He suspected Bricker had taken control of her to prevent further protest. The fact that he followed them out onto the porch and watched them walk to the SUV just convinced him that was the case. Santo didn’t know how he felt about that. Part of him didn’t like Bricker controlling her, but another part suspected she wouldn’t come with him otherwise and was grateful.
Sighing, he saw her seated in the passenger seat, and then started around the SUV.
“Hang on!”
Santo glanced around to see Julius passing Bricker and gesturing for the younger immortal to follow as he walked toward the SUV.
“Do you have the coffee table and headboard in the back?” his uncle asked as he approached.
“Sì,” Santo murmured, realizing he’d forgotten to unload the items they’d picked up. “But they are in boxes and have to be assembled.”
Julius nodded, not seeming surprised. “We will take them then. We can put them together while you are gone.”
Santo walked around and opened the back. Julius immediately leaned in and pulled out the long thin box holding the coffee table top and its legs. After passing it off to Bricker, he leaned in to grab the longer box holding the headboard next. He didn’t turn and head back to the house then, but paused to eye Santo solemnly.
“I had trouble talking to Marguerite when I first encountered her again,” he announced abruptly.
Santo arched an eyebrow at this news and waited.
“But a mortal named G.G. gave me some good advice,” he continued. “And that is that women like to talk.”
Santo’s other eyebrow rose at that. “Marguerite said I should talk more.”
“She is a woman,” he said with a shrug. “And you will have to talk some. Just try to pay attention to her questions. Your instinct will be to answer as economically as possible, from habit. Don’t. Give her as much information as you can, and then try to find out what she likes and is interested in and ask her questions. Once she starts talking, you will be able to talk less.”
Nodding then, Julius turned and carried the box with the headboard toward the house.
Santo closed the back and then hurried around to the driver’s door. Pet was sitting silent and still in the front seat. Definitely controlled, he thought grimly and glanced toward the porch to see Bricker standing there, box in hand, still watching.
Wondering how long her subdued state would last once they were out of Bricker’s sight, Santo pulled on his seat belt and started the engine. As he backed out of the driveway, he turned over all the advice he’d been given. Bricker seemed to agree with Marguerite about the need to talk to Pet. And even Julius seemed to think he should, had even advised him on how to turn the tables and make it so he had to talk less later.
But it was his frustration with her bulleted responses that had made him realize how unpleasant his own lack of communication skills must make him seem to her, and he didn’t want that. He wanted to talk to her. He just needed to figure out what to say, or what she wanted him to say.
“Here we are.”
Pet glanced around with surprise at Santo’s announcement, as startled by the fact that he’d bothered to make the announcement as by the fact that they were here. She’d been a little distracted during the drive. Actually, she’d been controlled at first. She knew that, had felt it, and had known it was Bricker controlling her. He hadn’t tried to hide it. In fact, she’d heard his voice in her head saying this was for her own good as he’d sent her out of the house and into the vehicle.
His control had slipped once they’d driven out of sight of the house, and Pet had been absolutely furious. If Bricker had been there in the SUV with them, she probably would have punched him in the nose. But rather than turn her fury on Santo, she’d forced herself to calm down and look for the source of the anger. It was fear. She had been helpless, trapped in a body controlled by another. Yep. Fear.
Once Pet had acknowledged that, a lot of her anger had slipped away. Not because she wasn’t afraid it could happen again. It could. But fear and anger wouldn’t stop that. What would help stop it was getting away from these people, and she was doing that tonight. In the meantime, Pet was going to eat the most expensive damned steak on the menu, with a baked potato and beans. Oh, yeah, and maybe the combo platter for the appetizer, or fried pickles, or hell, both. She was planning on a big old doggie bag, and Santo was paying. He had to because Bricker hadn’t thought to make her take her damned purse.
Pet undid her seat belt and started to reach for the door, but paused when she realized Santo hadn’t moved. Turning her head, she peered at him in question.
He stared back silently for a minute and then cleared his throat and said, “I know Bricker controlled you to get you to come with me, and I am sorry about that. I should have stopped him once I realized it, but you did want to eat, just not with me, and I wanted to accompany you so I could make up for . . . earlier. I would like to have a nice meal with you and . . . talk.”
The man damned near choked on the word talk, and Pet almost snickered but managed to hold it back. Partially because she was still annoyed.
“I will try to answer any questions you have,” Santo added when she remained silent. “Whether they are about Purdy’s cousin or myself or . . .” He shrugged, seeming to suggest he would talk about anything she wished.
Pet eyed him with curiosity. He’d sounded stiff, his voice gravelly or even rusty by the end, as if he was not used to spitting out so many words at a time. She suspected he wasn’t. But he was trying, she acknowledged, and wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Part of her appreciated it, but another part was suddenly terribly frightened. She’d decided it was better to avoid him. His making an effort now might make him likeable. Add that to her attraction to him and avoiding him would probably become harder.
“Is that all right?” Santo asked solemnly. “Can you stomach eating a meal with me? Or should I take us back to the house?”
Pet almost went for the “take us back to the house” option, but that was her fear talking, and she knew it. Besides, she was hungry, and she still had questions she would like answers to. She opened her mouth to say she would eat a meal with him, but paused when her stomach answered for her with a grumbling that sounded loud in the suddenly silent vehicle.
It struck Pet as funny, and she felt herself relax. A smile even curved her lips as the long complaint ended and she said, “My stomach says yes, it would like to eat.”
Santo relaxed and smiled back, and she was struck again by how beautiful the man was, and then he got out of the truck.
“What are you doing, woman?” Pet muttered under her breath as his door closed. Shaking her head, she opened her own door and followed him out.
Eight
“I guess I should have asked if this restaurant would do,” Santo said solemnly as she met him at the front of the SUV. “I know Bricker suggested it, but you might have preferred something else.”
“Actually, this is one of my favorite places,” Pet assured him. It was a steakhouse chain that aged their meat and, much to her vegetarian sister’s dismay, Pet was a big fan of steak.
“Good.” Santo relaxed and offered her his arm.
Pet blinked at the old world action but then accepted the offered arm. This time she wasn’t taken by surprise when a tingling started where her skin m
et his. Setting her teeth, she did her best to ignore it. But it was hard to ignore how large and firm the muscle of his forearm felt under her hand, and Pet squeezed gently as they walked to the door, testing the hardness. Santo didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he was too polite to mention it.
“Can I get you a table?”
Pet glanced around at that enthusiastic voice as Santo ushered her inside the restaurant. She watched with amusement as a middle-aged bottle blonde rushed toward them, her attention and wide eyes focused solely on Santo. The woman was practically shivering with excitement as she stopped in front of him.
“A table for two,” Santo said in his deep rumble and the hostess breathed out a long “ohhhh” of wonderment. Pet could only presume it was at how sexy his voice was. She didn’t think it could be with surprise at his asking for a table for two. There were two of them standing there, after all. The woman may not have noticed, though, Pet supposed. The hostess was positively eating Santo alive with her eyes.
Giving her head a shake, Pet released her hold on Santo’s arm and followed when the woman grabbed two menus and started wending her way through the tables. She could feel Santo at her back and noted the other diners glancing their way. Pet was sure his size and the fact that he was gorgeous were the draw, and was relieved when the hostess stopped at a booth and announced brightly, “Here you go.”
“Thank you.” Pet slid quickly into the near side, leaving Santo to take the opposite booth seat.
The hostess gave them each a menu and told them that their server would be Dylan, before reluctantly leaving them alone.
It wasn’t until after their waiter had taken their orders and then taken their menus away that Pet even dared to look at Santo again. She found him looking back, his gaze intense, and she quickly glanced away, wondering if he was trying to read her mind. She glanced over the other guests in the restaurant, noting that it was only half full at the moment. But then it was one thirty now, past the lunch hour rush.