A Quick Bite

by Lynsay Sands

  “Bill said there was a new kid on the streets. He doesn’t think the boy’s more than twelve or thirteen and is pretty sure he’s been eating out of the garbage bins back here. I thought I’d see if I could find him and convince him to come to the shelter.”

  “Oh.” Lissianna glanced around the lot. Bill was one of the regulars down at the shelter. He often pointed them toward people who might need their help. If he said there was a new kid on the streets, then there was. Bill was dependable about such things. And Father Joseph was equally dependable about going out in search of such strays in the hopes of getting to them before they did something desperate or stupid, or got dragged into drugs or prostitution.

  “I’ll help,” Lissianna offered. “He’s probably around here somewhere. I—”

  “No, no. This is your night off,” Father Joseph said, then frowned. “Besides, you aren’t wearing a coat. What are you doing out here without a coat?”

  “Oh.” Lissianna’s gaze slid to the garbage bins as a thump sounded behind them. A quick probe of Dwayne’s thoughts told her that he’d thumped his head against the bin as he leaned against it. Idiot. She turned back to find Father Joseph peering toward the containers and spoke quickly to distract him. “I forgot something in my cousin’s car.”

  It was a bald-faced lie, and Lissianna sincerely hoped the man hadn’t noticed where exactly she’d come from, but would think she’d been in the little black Mazda parked beside the bins. Not wanting to lie any more than necessary, she rubbed her arms, and added, “Gosh you’re right though, it is cold out here.”

  “Yes.” He peered at her with concern. “You’d best go back inside.”

  Nodding, Lissianna wished him good night and made her escape. She hurried across the parking lot, then around the corner of the bar, only slowing once she stepped inside the loud and crowded bar.

  Thomas was nowhere in sight, but—thanks to the fuchsia-tinted tips of her ebony hair—Lissianna didn’t have any trouble spotting Mirabeau at the bar with Jeanne.

  “Well, you look…” Mirabeau hesitated as Lissianna reached them, then finally finished with, “the same. What happened?”

  “Anemic.” She spat the word with annoyance.

  “But he looked so healthy,” Jeanne protested.

  “Padded shoulders and bottled tan,” she said. “And that’s not all.”

  “What else could there be?” Mira asked dryly.

  Lissianna grimaced. “He had a cucumber down his pants.”

  Jeanne gave a disbelieving giggle, but Mirabeau groaned, and said, “It must have been a seedless English cucumber, the man looked huge.”

  Lissianna gaped. “You looked?”

  “You didn’t?” she countered.

  Jeanne burst out laughing, but Lissianna just shook her head and glanced around the bar. “Where’s Thomas?”

  “Here.”

  She spun around as his hand settled on her shoulder.

  “Did I hear you right? Was your Romeo sporting a cucumber down his pants?” he asked with amusement, giving her shoulder an affectionate squeeze.

  Lissianna nodded with disgust. “Can you imagine?”

  Thomas gave a laugh. “Actually, the sad fact is I can. First women padded their bras, now men pad their boxers.” He shook his head. “What a world.”

  Lissianna found a reluctant smile tugging at her lips at his expression, then gave in and allowed her irritation to drop away. She wasn’t really upset that Dwayne had sported a cucumber; she hadn’t been interested in what was in his boxers anyway. Hell, she hadn’t even really wanted to take him out for a bite. She was just annoyed at the waste of time and the fact that she’d used up more energy staying warm out there than the man’s weak blood had supplied. She was even hungrier than she’d been before going outside. All the outing had managed to do was whet her appetite.

  “How long until we can go to Mom’s?” she asked hopefully. Her cousins and Mirabeau had decided to take her out dancing before heading to the birthday party her mother was having for her. Lissianna had been pleased with the idea at the time, but that was when she’d only been hungry. Now she was ravenous and eager to get to the party and whatever offering her mother would have on hand. She’d even accept an intravenous at that point, which was saying something. Lissianna hated being fed intravenously.

  “It’s only a little after nine,” Mirabeau announced, with a glance at her wrist watch. “Marguerite said we weren’t to bring you to the party until ten.”

  “Hmm.” Lissianna’s mouth twisted with displeasure. “Do any of you know why the party starts so late?”

  “Aunt Marguerite said she had to pick up something for you in the city before the party, and couldn’t do it until after 9 P.M.,” Thomas offered. “Then, she has to drive back too, so—” He shrugged. “—no party till ten.”

  “She must be picking up your gift,” Mirabeau guessed.

  “I don’t think so,” Thomas said. “She mentioned something about Lissianna and feeding. I suspect she’s picking up a special dessert or something.”

  “A special dessert?” Jeanne asked with interest. “In the city? After nine?” Her gaze slid to Lissianna full of excitement as she suggested, “A Sweet Tooth?”

  “It must be,” Lissianna agreed, grinning at the prospect. She’d inherited her mother’s love of sweets and nothing satisfied it like a Sweet Tooth, which was how they referred to undiagnosed diabetics who ran around with dangerously high blood sugar levels. It was a rare treat, made rarer by the fact that afterward they always put the thought in the person’s mind to call his doctor and arrange to have a blood test, thus removing one more Sweet Tooth from the menu.

  “That could be it,” Thomas commented. “It would explain Aunt Marguerite’s willingness to drive around downtown Toronto. She hates city driving and generally avoids it like the plague.”

  “If she drove,” Mirabeau commented. “She could have had Bastien send one of the company cars out to chauffeur her around.”

  Thomas shook his head at the mention of Lissianna’s brother, the head of Argeneau Enterprises. “Nope. She was driving herself and not happy about it.”

  Lissianna shifted impatiently, and asked, “So, how long till we can go?”

  Thomas hesitated. “Well, it is Friday night, and the traffic might be bad, with everyone trying to escape the city for the weekend,” he said thoughtfully. “I’m guessing we could go in another fifteen minutes and not risk being too early.”

  “How about if we leave now and you drive slowly?” Lissianna suggested.

  “That boring, are we?” he asked with amusement.

  “Not you. This place. It’s like a meat market,” Lissianna wrinkled her nose.

  “Okay, brat.” Thomas ruffled her hair affectionately. He was four years older and more like an older brother than her own brothers were, but then they’d been raised together. “Let’s head out. I’ll do my best to drive slowly.”

  “Yeah, right,” Jeanne Louise said with a snort. “Like that will ever happen.”

  Lissianna smiled as they collected their coats and headed for the exit. Thomas was a bit of a speed demon, and she knew Jeanne Louise was right. She had no doubt they’d arrive early and annoy her mother. It was a chance she was willing to take.

  Lissianna had forgotten all about Father Joseph when she’d suggested leaving, but there was no sign of him as they walked to Thomas’s Jeep. He’d either given up, or taken his search elsewhere. Her next thought was for Dwayne, and Lissianna glanced toward the bins as Thomas drove by them, her gaze searching the shadows for his seated figure, but there was no sign of him either. He’d left, too. She was a bit surprised at his quick recovery, but then shrugged the matter aside. He wasn’t lying unconscious in the middle of the parking lot, so had obviously managed to find a taxi home.

  Traffic wasn’t bad after all. It was late enough that they’d missed the worst of it and made good time getting to her mother’s home on the outskirts of Toronto. Too good.

&nbs
p; “We’re half an hour early,” Jeanne Louise said from the backseat as Thomas parked the Jeep behind Marguerite’s little red sports car.

  “Yeah.” He glanced at the house and shrugged. “She’ll be okay with it.”

  Jeanne Louise snorted. “You mean she’ll be okay with it as soon as you give her your charming grin. You always could get around Aunt Marguerite.”

  “Why do you think I liked hanging out with Thomas when we were younger?” Lissianna asked with amusement.

  “Oh, I see!” Thomas laughed as they got out of the vehicle. “So the truth is out. You only like me for my way with your mother.”

  “Well, you didn’t actually think it was that I liked hanging out with you, did you?” Lissianna teased, as he walked around to her side.

  “Brat.” He gave her hair a tug as he joined her.

  “Isn’t that your brother Bastien’s car?” Mirabeau asked as she climbed out from behind the front passenger seat and slammed the Jeep door closed.

  Lissianna glanced toward the dark Mercedes and nodded. “Looks like it.”

  “I wonder if anyone else is here.” Jeanne Louise murmured.

  Lissianna shrugged. “I don’t see any other cars. But I suppose Bastien could have arranged for a couple of the company cars to pick up and drop off people.”

  “If he did, I doubt anyone has arrived yet,” Mirabeau said, as they started toward the front door. “You know it isn’t fashionable to show up to these things on time. Only unfashionable geeks arrive on time.”

  “I guess that makes us unfashionable geeks,” Lissianna commented.

  “Nah. We’re just trendsetters,” Thomas announced, and they all chuckled.

  Bastien opened the front door as they approached. “I thought I heard a car.”

  “Bastien, du-ude!” Thomas greeted loudly, then immediately stepped up to give him a hug that had the older man stiffening in surprise. “How’s it hanging, dude?”

  Lissianna bit her lip to keep from laughing and glanced toward Jeanne Louise and Mirabeau, then quickly away as she saw that they were also having difficulty controlling their expressions at the sudden change in Thomas. He’d gone from being just your average guy to a space cadet, in the passing of a heartbeat.

  “Yes…Well…Thomas. Hello.” Bastien managed to disengage himself from his exuberant younger cousin. As usual, he looked uncomfortable and not entirely sure how to handle the younger man. It was why Thomas acted that way, he knew that both her older brothers—at over four hundred and six hundred—tended to look down on him as a young pup, and it never ceased to annoy him. Being thought of as little more than a child at over two hundred years old could be terribly annoying, and so he acted like an ass around them. It never failed to make the older men uncomfortable and—Lissianna suspected—gave Thomas an advantage. Her brothers were forever underestimating Thomas because of their prejudices.

  Suffering the same prejudice herself, Lissianna could sympathize with Thomas. She also never failed to enjoy watching her older brothers squirm with discomfort.

  “So, where’s the party, dude?” Thomas asked brightly.

  “It has not started yet,” Bastien said. “You’re the first to arrive.”

  “No dude, you were the first to arrive,” Thomas corrected him cheerfully, then confided, “You don’t know how relieved that makes me. ’Cause if we’d been first, Mirabeau said we would have been unfashionable geeks. But we weren’t. You were.”

  Lissianna coughed to cover the snort of laughter that managed to escape her as her brother recognized that he’d just been called an unfashionable geek. When she regained control of herself it was to find Bastien standing stiff and straight and appearing a tad annoyed. She took pity on him, and asked, “So, where’s Mom? And are we allowed to enter, or are we to wait out here for another fifteen minutes?”

  “Oh, no. Come in.” Bastien stepped quickly to the side. “I just got here myself, and Mother went up to change for the party after letting me in. She should be down in a few minutes. Maybe you should wait in the games room until she comes down. She might not want you to see the decorations until everyone’s here.”

  “Okay,” Lissianna said agreeably, stepping past him into the entry.

  “Want to play a game of pool, dude?” Thomas asked cheerfully as he followed Lissianna into the house.

  “Oh…er…No. Thank you, Thomas, I have to watch for early arrivals until Mother is ready.” Bastien backed away along the hall as he spoke. “I’ll tell her you’re here.”

  “He loves me,” Thomas said with amusement, as Bastien disappeared from the hall, then he opened his arms to shepherd them toward the closed door on the right of the hall. “Come along. Let’s go play. Anyone up for a game of pool?”

  “I’ll play,” Mirabeau said, then added, “Lissi, you have a run in your stockings.”

  “What?” Lissianna paused and peered down at her legs.

  “Back right,” Mirabeau said, and she twisted to look at the back of her right leg.

  “I must have got it caught on something on the garbage bin,” Lissianna muttered with disgust as she spotted the long, wide ladder up the back of her right calf.

  “Garbage bin?” Thomas echoed with interest.

  “Don’t ask,” she said dryly, then made an irritated tsk and straightened. “I’ll have to go change my stockings before the party starts. Fortunately, Mom insisted I leave spare clothes here in my old room when I moved out. I should have a couple pairs of stockings. You guys go ahead and play.”

  “Hurry back,” Thomas called, as she jogged lightly up the stairs.

  Lissianna merely waved over her shoulder as she reached the landing and started along the hall toward her bedroom, but she was thinking it was good advice. Marguerite Argeneau wasn’t going to be pleased that they’d arrived early, but Thomas would quickly cajole her out of any irritation she might initially be feeling. For that reason alone, it would be better to be with Thomas and the others when she met up with her mother.

  “Coward,” Lissianna berated herself. She was over two hundred years old and well past the age where she should worry about upsetting her mother.

  “Yeah right,” Lissianna muttered, acknowledging that she would probably still worry about it when she was six hundred. All she had to do was look at her brothers to know that. They were independent, self-sufficient and…well…just plain old and still worried about pleasing or displeasing Marguerite Argeneau.

  “It must be a family thing,” she decided as she opened the door to the room that had been hers until recently, and where she still occasionally slept when she stayed too late to make it home before sunrise. Lissianna started into the room, but her steps halted, her eyes widening in surprise at the sight of the man on the bed.

  “Oh, sorry, wrong room,” she muttered, and drew the door closed again.

  Lissianna then simply stood in the hall staring blankly around as she realized she hadn’t accidentally entered the wrong room. This was her old bedroom. She’d spent several decades sleeping there and knew her own room when she saw it. She just didn’t know why there was a man in it. Or, more importantly, why he was tied spread-eagled on the bed.

  Lissianna considered the matter for a moment. Her mother would not have taken in a boarder, and if she had, she certainly wouldn’t have done so without mentioning it to her children. Nor would she have put him in Lissianna’s old room, a room she still used on those rare occasions she stayed. Besides, the fact that he was tied down on the bed rather belied the possibility of his being a willing guest.

  As did the bow around his neck, Lissianna thought as she recalled the cheery red splotch of color that had been half-crushed by his chin as he’d struggled to look at her.

  It was the bow that finally had her relaxing as she realized he must be the special surprise her mother had driven into the city for. The Sweet Tooth Jeanne Louise had suggested. Though, Lissianna thought, the man in her bed had looked healthy enough, but then, you couldn’t always tell until you got
close enough to smell the sweetness an untreated diabetic exuded.

  In effect, the fellow was a walking birthday cake. And a yummy-looking one at that, she decided, recalling his dark good looks. His eyes had been piercing and intelligent, his nose straight, his chin strong…and his body had been rather nice, too. He’d appeared long and lean and muscular, stretched out on the bed.

  Of course, after her experience with Dwayne, Lissianna was aware there might be some padding under the jacket he wore. She hadn’t looked for cucumbers, but the man hadn’t been sporting a tan, bottled or otherwise, yet hadn’t looked anemic, but then her mother wasn’t likely to make the mistake Lissianna had earlier. Marguerite would have made sure he was exactly what she wanted to give her daughter, and Lissianna was thinking that Jeanne Louise was probably right, and he was an untreated diabetic. Nothing else made much sense. Her mother would hardly drive all the way into town for just a standard healthy individual when she could have ordered a pizza and handed Lissianna the delivery boy, which is what she usually did.

  So, he was a sweet to eat, she reasoned, and felt hunger gnaw at her stomach. Lissianna wouldn’t have minded a nibble right then. Just a little taste to tide her over until her mother actually gave him to her. She quickly killed that thought. Even Thomas wouldn’t be able to cajole her mother out of her bad mood if Lissianna pulled a stunt like that. So, walking back in there and biting him was out, but she still needed to fetch fresh stockings.

  While Lissianna knew she should probably just return to the games room without them, it seemed to her that—as the surprise was already spoiled—it was silly to run around in ruined stockings all night. She was here, and it would only take a moment to grab a fresh pair from those she’d left behind for just such an emergency.

  Chapter 2

  Greg stared at the closed door. He couldn’t believe that someone had just opened it, paused—obviously startled at the sight of him—then apologized and closed the door while he’d just lain there like an idiot, too startled to say or do anything. Not that he’d had much of a chance to react, but still…