“Oh here, I was to give you this,” Drina mimicked dryly as she accepted the envelope.
Tall-Dark-and-Rude raised an eyebrow but otherwise didn’t react.
Drina shook her head and opened the letter. It was from Uncle Lucian, explaining that her escort was Anders and he would be delivering her directly to Port Henry. She guessed that meant Lucian hadn’t trusted Anders to pass on this information himself. Perhaps he really was mute, she thought, and glanced curiously to the man as she slipped the letter into her pocket. The nanos should have prevented it . . . unless, of course, it wasn’t a physical problem but a genetic one. Still, she’d never heard of a mute immortal.
“Do you speak at all?” she asked finally.
He turned an arched eyebrow in her direction as he steered the vehicle up the driveway beside the house, and shrugged. “Why bother? You were doing well enough on your own.”
So . . . rude, not mute, Drina thought, and scowled. “Obviously, all those tales Aunt Marguerite told me about charming Canadian men were something of an exaggeration.”
That had him hitting the brakes and jerking around to peer at her with wide eyes. They were really quite beautiful eyes, she noted absently as he barked, “Marguerite?”
“Dear God, it speaks again,” she muttered dryly. “Be still my beating heart. I don’t know if I’ll survive the excitement.”
Scowling at her sarcasm, he eased his foot off the brakes to cruise forward along the driveway until they reached a manned gate. Two men came out of a small building beside the gates and waved in greeting. They then immediately set about manually opening the inner gate. Once Anders had steered the SUV through and paused at a second gate, the men closed the first one. They then disappeared inside the small building again. A bare moment later, the second gate swung open on its own, and he urged their vehicle out onto a dark, country road.
“Did Marguerite specify any particular male in Canada?” Anders asked abruptly, as Drina turned from watching the gate close behind them.
She raised an eyebrow, noting the tension now apparent in the man. “Now you want to speak, do you?” she asked with amusement, and taunted, “Afraid it was you?”
He glanced at her sharply, his own eyes narrowed. “Was it?”
Drina snorted and tugged on her seat belt. Doing it up, she muttered, “Like I’d tell you if it was.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
She glanced over to see that he was now frowning.
“Hell no,” she assured him. “What self-respecting girl would want to be stuck with a doorstop for a mate for the rest of her life?”
“A doorstop?” he squawked.
“Yes, doorstop. As in big, silent, and good only for holding wood.” She smiled sweetly, and added, “At least I’m pretty sure about the wood part. Nanos do make sure immortal males function in all areas.”
Drina watched with satisfaction as Anders’s mouth dropped open. She then shifted in her seat to a more comfortable position and closed her eyes. “I think I’ll take a nap. I never sleep well on planes. Enjoy the drive.”
Despite her closed eyes, she was aware that he kept glancing her way. Drina ignored it and managed not to grin. The man needed some shaking up, and she had no doubt this would do it. Over the centuries, she’d become good at judging the age of other immortals, and was pretty sure she was centuries older than Anders. He wouldn’t be able to read her, which would leave him wondering . . . and drive him nuts, she was sure. But it served him right. It didn’t take much effort to be courteous, and courtesy was necessary in a civilized society. It was a lesson the man should learn before he got too old to learn anything anymore.
Harper considered his cards briefly, then pulled out a six of spades and laid it on the discard pile. He glanced toward Tiny, not terribly surprised to find the man not looking at his own cards but peering distractedly toward the stairs.
“Tiny,” he prompted. “Your turn.”
“Oh.” The mortal turned back to his cards, started to pull one out of his hand as if to discard it, and Harper shot his own hand out to stop him.
When Tiny glanced at him with surprise, he pointed out dryly, “You have to pick up first.”
“Oh, right.” He shook his head and set back the card he’d been about to discard, and reached for one from the deck.
Harper sat back with a little shake of the head, thinking, Lord save me from new life mates. The thought made him grimace since that’s all he seemed to be surrounded with lately: Victor and Elvi, DJ and Mabel, Allesandro and Leonora, Edward and Dawn and now Tiny and Mirabeau. The first four couples had been together for a year and a half now, and were just starting to re-gather some of their wits about them. They were still new enough to be trying at times, but at least they could actually hold on to a thought or two longer than a second.