Page 36 of I Hate Myself for Loving You
She grinned, squeezing his arm with her aging hand. “Yes, dear, and your twin needs saving. That means I have some chicken soup to make.”
Holy baloney! Eva’s infamous chicken soup was the key to this? A drink to help you join vamp-kind…
Avery knew the story of Eva’s chicken soup well. She’d claimed to read prophecies in it. “So you thought the drink from the letter was water here on Adams land?” she asked Lassiter.
He looked to her, his handsome face filled with wonder. His nod was slow. “I did. I thought if Drake drank what I thought was water, he’d be turned back.”
“But it wasn’t. All this time, it was actually chicken soup!” But wait. Hadn’t Eva told Martine and Derrick that it was all just bunk? “I don’t understand,” Avery interrupted. “You told Martine and Derrick the chicken soup theory was all just made up to devise a way to get them together. The same with Max and JC.”
Eva smiled knowingly, her eyes crinkling around the corners. “Well, dear, to a degree it is made up. I admit to tampering with the chicken soup legacy for my own purposes, a bit of manipulation on my part for the good of my grandsons, if you will. But this time the chicken soup is what will turn Lassiter’s brother into a fine young man like himself.”
Lassiter looked down at Eva, his eyes dark and unreadable. “Do you know how long I’ve looked? How many Adamses there are in the world?”
Avery snorted. “Do you know how much wildlife he’s devastated in his quest?”
“I didn’t devastate wildlife. I disturbed them,” Lassiter defended. “I put everything back the way it was, just like I would have done here when I came up dry.”
“Now, Avery, I think you’d do the same in Lassiter’s position. Let’s not cast stones, shall we?” Eva said with reproach and a shake of her finger.
Lassiter stuck his tongue out at Avery like he used to do when they were kids.
“I do know this journey has been hard for you, Lassiter, and your brother, but you have lifetimes to make up for it. After all, you’re half vampire. Your immortality will grant you some justification. Now, let’s make soup!”
“Soup,” Lassiter murmured.
“Yeah, pale boy. Soup,” Avery chuckled.
Chapter Twelve
Avery smiled while watching Lassiter and his twin, Drake, plant trees.
What a difference two months could make.
Eva had made the chicken soup that restored Drake to his human form and he was, indeed, Lassiter’s double. They were identical in almost every way.
Except the way that made Avery’s loins scream and her knees weak.
Only Lassiter did that to her.
He had an easier personality than Lassiter, though, in her estimation, he should be the one who was bitter. He’d adjusted well to life on the Adams’ farm and strove to adjust to the conformities legs and arms brought with it.
Lassiter had a much lighter attitude nowadays. He smiled more often and he and Avery had spent a great deal of time talking again.
Like they’d once done.
Sometimes they laughed. Sometimes they sat quietly, but no matter what they did, they were never far from one another.
Avery knew she was in love with Lassiter. What once had been an idol-like, schoolgirl crush had turned into love. The kind of love a woman feels when she knows it’s the real thing.
She’d learned to temper her impatience and impulsivity with that knowledge.
Lassiter was hers and there was no way she’d let him forget it.
Gently, of course…
She could wait until he was ready to admit he felt the same.
And he would.
