Page 22 of Bad Luck Vampire

“Ah,” Inan said sympathetically, but there was no surprise. He had been reading her. Even so, he still asked, “And yer parents?”

Alasdair cast his uncle a grateful glance, appreciating that Inan was only asking these things so Alasdair could learn what they already knew from reading her mind.

“My parents died when I was eleven,” Sophie said softly.

“So, no family left?” Connor queried gently.

Sophie hesitated and then just shook her head before asking, “Do you all live in Scotland?”

“We do,” Connor said, gesturing to himself and the other uncles. He then pointed at Alasdair and his brother and said, “But these laddies jumped ship to the Americas ages ago.”

“After we spent eons trainin’ ’em on how to be good and proper Enforcers too,” his uncle Inan said almost resentfully. Turning, he scowled at Alasdair and his brother. “They’ve been here ever since. Broke their ma’s heart, they did.”

Alasdair scowled at him for the guilt trip, and then turned swiftly to Sophie when she asked him, “Enforcers? What is that? I thought you worked with Tybo.”

“We do,” Alasdair assured her.

“But he said ‘enforcers,’” Sophie pointed out with confusion.

Alasdair had one moment of panic as he tried to come up with an explanation, and then the answer came to him. “We’re in law enforcement. Enforcers for short among those on the job in Scotland and we just call it that by habit.”

“Oh.” Sophie nodded and relaxed at this explanation from the men. She supposed it made sense. Law enforcement. Enforcers. Simple, she thought and then glanced around swiftly when the waiter suddenly appeared at her side and leaned past her to set a large platter of appetizers on the table. Sitting back to give him more room, she offered a “sorry” for being in his way, because... well, she was Canadian.

“That’s fine, miss,” the waiter said, offering her a smoky smile.

“Och, away and boil yer head, boyo,” Connor growled at the man.

Sophie had no idea why until Inan said, “Aye, the lass is taken, so ye can jest keep those cow eyes to yerself.”

When the waiter flushed and turned quickly away to collect another platter, Sophie scowled at the men for embarrassing him like that. She then looked to Alasdair for an explanation for such behavior, and saw that he too was scowling at the young man.

When the waiter finished setting down the second platter, he moved to the other side of the table to place a third one down. It wasn’t until the man had moved away that Alasdair glanced her way and saw her looking at him questioningly. He immediately smothered his scowl and shrugged mildly. “My uncles are a tad protective.”

“Huh,” she muttered, eyeing him narrowly. Turning to peer at the uncles, she said, “But I don’t need protecting.”

“Lass,” Inan said, his tone condescending, “if ye kenned what that tadger was thinkin’, ye’d be thankin’ us fer interfering.”

Sophie arched one eyebrow. “And how would you ‘ken’ what he was thinking?”

“I read—” Inan stopped on a grunt of pain, and then scowled toward Alasdair as if he were the source of pain.

“I’m a maun,” Inan said now in answer to her question, and then added, “And he was peekin’ down yer décolletage while layin’ out the platters. Did ye no’ notice how slow he was with the task while on yer side? ’Twas so he’d get a longer gander at yer chebs.”

Sophie had never heard the word chebs before, but suspected she knew what it meant and immediately glanced down to see that the way she was sitting had allowed her neckline to gape a bit, giving a lovely view from above of her black lace bra. Sophie calmly straightened in her seat, making the gap close. She then said mildly, “It isn’t like there’s much to see other than my fancy ass bra, and it covers as much as a swimsuit, so...” She shrugged with studied unconcern and hoped she wasn’t blushing and giving away that she was embarrassed and uncomfortable.

Silence reigned for a moment after her comment, but Sophie ignored it, as well as the stares she could feel trained on her, and leaned forward to inspect the food on the platters.

A moment later the uncles apparently gave up their staring at her, and turned their attention to the food as well, because Inan asked with dismay, “These little bite-sized bits are no’ the meal, are they?”

“They are just the hors d’oeuvres,” Marguerite said soothingly.

“Hmm.” Connor grunted. “What are they?”

“This platter has little mushroom quiches, vegetable spring rolls, and Brie crostini with onion jam and cranberry compote,” Alasdair said, and Sophie glanced at him with surprise to see that he was reading from a small card.

“Where did you get that?” she asked with interest.

Alasdair smiled faintly, set down the card, and reached across in front of her to tug a small card out of a holder she hadn’t noticed on the bottom of the raised edge of the large platter. When he offered it to her to read, she quickly shook her head. She had never been much for public speaking, but simply said, “I like listening to your voice. You read it.”

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