Page 36 of Bad Luck Vampire

“What?” she squealed in horror. “Pizza? I thought this guy had money?”

Sophie stopped at the door to her office and swung around with surprise. “Who said he had money?”

“Well, you flew out in a helicopter to some wedding hours away, and flew back in a plane. It sounds like the family has money.”

Sophie considered that and then nodded slowly. “I suppose it does. At least someone has money. Natalie owns the golf course. She inherited it from her parents. And Valerian does have a helicopter, so I suppose that suggests money,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean Alasdair has money.”

“The flowers he sent you suggest he might,” Bobby countered, stopping behind Megan and leaning against the hall wall with his arms crossed. “I mean, come on, Soph, he must have paid a bundle for them.”

Sophie turned to peer through her door at the flowers on her desk. They were gorgeous, and huge and yes, they probably had cost a small fortune. Still . . . “I have no idea if he has money or his family does or whatnot and I don’t care. I like him. He’s nice, and interesting and I enjoyed his company so I’m going out with him again.” She paused briefly, and then said, “Now I have to get back to work. I still have to make up time for leaving early yesterday so I’m working late tonight. See you at Sunday dinner,” she added as a way to let them know she wouldn’t appreciate interruptions this afternoon.

Sophie then slid into her office and closed the door.

“The devil ye say! Course we told ’em to put the message on the card. If they didn’y do it, ’twas no’ our fault,” Connor said firmly.

Alasdair scowled at his uncles as they all nodded in firm agreement. He’d returned to the house to find Sam had gone out for groceries and his brother and uncles were all abed. He’d considered waking them up as he’d planned, with a bucket of water each. However, the idea had seemed an exhausting one at that point. It meant lugging up four buckets of water and visiting one room after the other.

In the end, Alasdair had decided his time would be better served getting some rest. He had plans for the night, after all. He had to work at midnight, of course, but before that was dinner and then dessert with Sophie... and if things went as expected, a dessert of Sophie after that. The very idea had made him hard again.

Alasdair tried to tell himself that he shouldn’t get his hopes up. After all, Sophie had some say in the matter. However, life mate passion was a well-known symptom, often discussed by unmated immortals, usually with envy and anticipation. Unmated immortals might tease and taunt the newly mated for the life mate brain and horndog tendencies they suffered after first finding their life mate, but it was a smoke screen to hide their jealousy. That passion was something every immortal looked forward to experiencing someday. Eagerly.

Alasdair had already experienced a little of it. Sitting beside her during the wedding ceremony and then dinner had been a sweet torture, his entire body vibrating and attuned to hers. Taking her arm to escort her from one tent to the other last night had sent sparks of excitement shivering from his fingers through his body so that it had almost been a relief to reach the table and release her. But watching her suck her fingers today at lunch had been something else. His mind had gone wild with imagining her sweet lips doing other things.

For a man who hadn’t been the least interested in sex for over two hundred years, the sudden awakening of his hunger for it, and the strength of that hunger, made it hard to think of much else. That was why he wasn’t surprised when he lay down to sleep and immediately found himself having sex dreams about Sophie. Sadly, she was at work and wide-awake, so he hadn’t got to experience the shared sex dreams that was another symptom of new life mates, but his solo dreams were good enough to have him achy and cranky when he woke up.

A quick shower and getting dressed had done little to improve his mood. But encountering his uncles in the hall as they came out of their own rooms had at least given him a target for his temper.

“Well, there was no message about lunch, so someone messed up and knowing you as I do, I’m thinking it was an error on your part,” Alasdair said firmly, and then turned to head for the stairs, not interested in hearing their denials. He wasn’t surprised when his uncles followed on his heels, protesting the whole way down the stairs.

It was when they entered the kitchen and spotted Sam that their nattering died as Connor bellowed, “Hoy! Lass! Tell Alasdair there was supposed to be an invite to lunch on the card with the flowers fer Sophie,” he instructed, and then turned to Alasdair to explain, “Sam placed the order fer us.”

“What?” Sam asked, casting a confused glance their way as she closed the refrigerator door and turned to set several food items on the island. She was obviously starting dinner preparations.

Connor scowled with irritation, and said, “Did we no’ ask ye to invite Sophie to lunch in the card on those flowers ye ordered fer us?”

“No,” Sam said as she turned away to grab a knife out of the knife block.

“What do ye mean, no?” Inan said with outrage as they watched her retrieve a vegetable peeler from a drawer, and then collect a cutting board from the cupboard, before settling on a stool at the island. “Course we did.”

“No, you did not,” she said with certainty, plucking a zucchini from the collection of vegetables she’d retrieved from the refrigerator. “The four of you came charging into the kitchen demanding I order flowers and send them to Sophie from Alasdair. We argued over the arrangement in question until I convinced you to send the deluxe Thinking of You bouquet instead of the one the four of you had originally chosen, and then you all just marched out of the kitchen in a snit because I wouldn’t send the ones you wanted.”

“I still do no’ ken why ye would no’ send the ones we liked. They were prettier,” Inan said with irritation.

“They were a funeral spray,” Sam said with exasperation, and Alasdair’s eyes widened in horror at how close Sophie had come to receiving a funeral arrangement from him.

“Well, we told ye to ha’e the In Sympathy banner removed,” Connor pointed out with irritation. “She would no’ ha’e kenned the difference without that.”

“Oh, yes, she would have,” Sam assured them.

His uncles all scowled at Sam, but she just scowled back.

Finally, Connor said, “I suppose we could ha’e been a might overset at the disagreement, and maybe might ha’e forgotten to ask ye to include the invite to lunch on the card.”

“There’s no maybe about it. You never mentioned what to put on the card so I just had them put his name,” Sam informed them.

“Well, hell,” Connor muttered unhappily, his shoulders slouching somewhat as he turned to Alasdair. “Sorry, lad. I guess we made a muckle mess o’ that.”

His other three uncles nodded, looking miserable enough to make him feel guilty.

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