Single White Vampire (Argeneau #3)(3)
Bastien looked as if he were about to comment, but paused and turned at the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Lucern opened the door, and the two men watched with varying degrees of surprise as a taxi pulled to a stop beside Bastien's van.
"Wrong address?" Bastien queried, knowing his brother wasn't big on company.
"It must be," Lucern commented. He narrowed his eyes when the driver got out and opened the back door for a young woman.
"Who is that?" Bastien asked. He sounded even more surprised than Lucern felt.
"I haven't a clue," Lucern answered. The taxi driver retrieved a small suitcase and overnight bag from the trunk of the car.
"I believe it's your editor," Marguerite announced.
Both Lucern and Bastien swiveled to peer at their mother. They found her reading the now-open FedExed letter.
"My editor? What the hell are you talking about?" Lucern marched over to snatch the letter out of her hand.
Ignoring his rude behavior, Lucern's mother moved to Bastieh's side and peered curiously outside. "As the mail is so slow, and because the interest in your books is becoming so widespread, Ms. Kate C. Leever decided to come speak to you in person. Which," Marguerite added archly, "you would know should you bother to read your mail."
Lucern crumpled the letter in his hand. It basically said everything his mother had just verbalized. That, plus the fact that Kate C. Leever would be arriving on the 8 p.m. flight from New York. It was 8:30. The plane must have been on time.
"She's quite pretty, isn't she?" The comment, along with the speculation in his mother's voice when she made it, was enough to raise alarm in Lucern. Marguerite sounded like a mother considering taking the matchmaking trail—a path quite familiar to her. She'd taken it upon first seeing Etienne and Rachel together, too, and look how that had turned out: Etienne hip deep in wedding preparations!
"She's contemplating matchmaking, Bastien. Take her home. Now," Lucern ordered. His brother burst out laughing, moving him to add, "After she has finished with me, she shall focus on finding you a wife."
Bastien stopped laughing at once. He grabbed his mother's arm. "Come along, Mother. This is none of our business."
"Of course it is my business." Marguerite shrugged her elbow free. "You are my sons. Your happiness and future are very much my business."
Bastien tried to argue. "I don't understand why this is an issue now. We are both well over four hundred years old. Why, after all this time, have you taken it into your head to see us married off?"
Marguerite pondered for a moment. "Well, ever since your father died, I've been thinking—"
"Dear God," Lucern interrupted. He woefully shook his head.
"What did I say?" his mother asked.
"That is exactly how Lissianna ended up working at the shelter and getting involved with Greg. Dad died, and she started thinking."
Bastien nodded solemnly. "Women shouldn't think."
"Bastien!" Marguerite Argeneau exclaimed.
"Now, now. You know I'm teasing, Mother," he soothed, taking her arm again. This time he got her out the door.
"I, however, am not," Lucern called as he watched them walk down the porch steps to the sidewalk. His mother berated Bastien the whole way, and Lucern grinned at his brother's beleaguered expression. Bastien would catch hell all the way home, Lucern knew, and almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
His laughter died, however, as his gaze switched to the blonde who was apparently his editor. His mother paused in her berating to greet the woman. Lucern almost tried to hear what was said, then decided not to bother. He doubted he wanted to hear it, anyway.
He watched the woman nod and smile at his mother, then she took her luggage in hand and started up the sidewalk. Lucern's eyes narrowed. Dear God, she didn't expect to stay with him, did she? There was no mention in her letter of where she planned to stay. She must expect to stay in a hotel. She would hardly just assume that he would put her up. The woman probably just hadn't stopped at her hotel yet, he reassured himself, his gaze traveling over her person.
Kate C. Leever was about his mother's height, which made her relatively tall for a woman, perhaps 5' 10". She was also slim and shapely, with long blond hair. She appeared pretty from the distance presently separating them. In a pale blue business suit, Kate C. Leever resembled a cool glass of ice water. The image was pleasing on this unseasonably warm September evening.
The image shattered when the woman dragged her luggage up the porch steps, paused before him, offered him a bright cheerful smile that lifted her lips and sparkled in her eyes, then blurted, "Hi. I'm Kate Leever. I hope you got my letter. The mail was so slow, and you kept forgetting to send me your phone number, so I thought I'd come visit personally and talk to you about all the publicity possibilities that are opening up for us. I know you're not really interested in partaking of any of them, but I feel sure once I explain the benefits you'll reconsider."
Lucern stared at her wide, smiling lips for one mesmerized moment; then he gave himself a shake. Reconsider? Was that what she wanted? Well, that was easy enough. He reconsidered. It was a quick task. "No." He closed his door.
Kate stared at the solid wooden panel where Lucern Argeneau's face had been and fought not to shriek with fury. The man was the most difficult, annoying, rude, obnoxious—she pounded on his door—pigheaded, ignorant…