One Lucky Vampire(57)

Whatever the case, their relationship definitely wasn’t good right now, she thought as she followed Jake to the stairs.

“I set the table in the kitchen rather than the dining room. I hope that’s okay,” Jake commented as he crossed the upper living room to the kitchen.

“Of course,” Nicole murmured. The dining room was the left half of the large upper room in the loft off the stairs. There was no wall separating it from the living area to the right and the entire area was carpeted in cream. The house obviously had not been built for children, she thought as she glanced to the large, dark oak dining-room table with ten chairs. She had never used the more formal dining space yet. It would be handy for large family functions, but she hadn’t had anything like that so far. Maybe she should consider having the family up for Christmas, she thought now.

“Would you like wine, water, pop, coffee . . . ?”

Nicole turned her attention to Jake’s back at that question as he led them into the kitchen. “Wine sounds nice.”

She’d worked hard and a glass of wine sounded relaxing, something she suspected she would need, considering the tension building in the air around her. Geez, there were definitely bad feelings between the trio of men in whose company she found herself. Dante and Tomasso obviously resented Jake for running away from the family. They also obviously wanted to bring him back to the fold, or they wouldn’t be here. The question was whether Jake would be willing to rejoin his family.

“Dinner is some kind of chicken, so is Creekside okay?” Jake asked, pulling a bottle of white wine out of the refrigerator. He or someone else had obviously put it in to chill. Nicole didn’t drink much and only put white wine in the refrigerator when she was expecting company. Rodolfo had wanted to put in a wine fridge, but they hadn’t got around to it before they’d split.

“Sounds good,” she murmured, moving to the table and hesitating before taking the end seat backing the front window. It meant the three men would have to take the other end and the sides. They’d have to deal with each other. She wasn’t surprised when Dante and Tomasso each took a side, leaving the other end of the small bar-height table for Jake. He would now have one man on either side of him. There was no way to ignore their presence.

Nicole’s gaze shifted to the table as she settled on her high seat. Aside from the four place settings there were several covered dishes on the table, and even as she took note of them, Dante and Tomasso began lifting covers to look underneath. The smells that wafted out were amazing and she felt her stomach rumble with interest.

“It’s chicken with a creamy mustard sauce, dilled potatoes, asparagus with butter and lemon, and a light cranberry salad,” Jake read off a piece of paper held to the refrigerator door by a magnet as he opened the wine in front of the door.

“You didn’t cook, did you?” she asked with a frown.

“Not me. Marguerite apparently ordered catering for a couple of days,” Jake said quietly. “I just warmed it up.”

“Good,” Nicole said relaxing. She didn’t care how much better he seemed, or the fact that Dante and Tomasso claimed he was back to normal. The man had nearly died. She didn’t want him doing anything for a day or so while he recovered . . . which she supposed was ironic. She was paying the man to work, he’d worked one day and then got sick and spent two days down. Now she didn’t want him working for a couple more. Go figure.

“It must be from the same place the last two dinners were from,” Dante said with a blissful sigh as he surveyed the chicken.

Tomasso nodded in agreement. “It smells as heavenly as those meals were.”

“Two dinners?” Jake asked with a frown as he set a glass of wine in front of Nicole. “You mean one.”

“Two,” Tomasso said.

“Two,” Dante echoed.

When Jake glanced to her with a questioning frown, she nodded. “Two. You started throwing up Friday night, were unconscious all day Saturday and Sunday. This is Monday.”

“Oh,” he said weakly and turned away to move around to his seat. As he sat down, he muttered, “Sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. You can’t help it if you got sick,” Nicole said firmly and frowned when she caught the looks the twins exchanged. Jake had a funny expression on his face too, she noted, but simply reached for her wine. She paused with it halfway to her lips, though, when she noted that she was the only one with wine. Glancing from man to man, she asked, “Doesn’t anyone else want wine?”

All three men shook their heads as one. Nicole stared at them, but they were all busy removing the lids on the food and beginning to serve themselves, so she took a sip and set the glass down, suddenly self-conscious about having it.