“And we enjoy the comforts of home while spying on the ne’er-do-wells of the world,” he said with satisfaction.
Divine narrowed her eyes and turned to Marcus.
“Jackie was a private detective before she turned,” Marcus explained quietly, and then added, “Well, she still is obviously, and Vincent helps her out from time to time.”
Divine let her breath out on a small sigh. Great. So the two she’d thought were a baby immortal and a flaky artsy type were just another pair of detectives out to find her. Great. She turned back to Vincent. “Why two?”
“One for us,” Vincent said, slipping his arm around Jackie. “And one for you two.”
“You can change that to one for you two and one for Marcus. I am not sleeping in either of those with him,” she said firmly, and then shifted impatiently. “Actually, I don’t know why you two are even coming. You have no business at the carnival. Marcus and I can handle the authorities.”
“But you need protection,” Jackie said firmly. “You’ve already been attacked twice. We don’t want it to happen a third time. Vincent and I will help with the authorities and then stick close to help sort out who set the fire and who attacked you the first time.”
Divine almost said, “Don’t you have to wait here for Lucian to show up?” but caught the question back. She had no intention of revealing that she knew about that. Her main concern at that moment was to get to the carnival, let Bob and Madge know she was healthy and well, and make sure they weren’t being held up by the authorities looking into the RV fire. After that, she could slip away and disappear and start yet another new life. First, she had to get to the carnival though, and it was looking like if she wanted to get there, she’d have company. It would have been a lot easier if they’d let her call a taxi, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen.
“Fine,” she snapped, and then forced herself to smile and added, “Thank you. For . . . everything,” she ended on a sigh, and then asked, “Can we go now?”
Jackie and Vincent exchanged a glance and then turned toward the house. “Just give us a couple minutes to pack our bags. Why don’t you two raid the fridge and pantry for food?”
“There’s a cooler in the pantry for cold stuff,” Jackie added, glancing back to them as they started into the house. “And bags to put the canned and dried goods in.”
“Don’t worry about blood. I’ll take care of that,” Vincent added before the two disappeared inside.
“Shall we?” Marcus asked.
Divine wanted to say no and make a run for it, but suspected she wouldn’t get far. While she’d got the better of the man when she’d gone after him with the mop, she suspected that the element of surprise had played a big factor in that. The man was immortal. He was as fast as or faster than she, and probably stronger, if only because men were physically stronger by nature.
Although it looked to her like he might be physically stronger than most male immortals too, she decided, her gaze sliding over his chest in the very tight and obviously borrowed T-shirt he was wearing. The man really had a very large, very nice physique. Funny she hadn’t really noticed that until now.
“Who bought my clothes?” Divine asked curiously as she let him lead her inside.
“Vincent had one of his people buy them,” Marcus admitted. “He asked what you normally wear and I said pretty much what you had on when we got here. That I’d never seen you in anything else, and he made a couple calls and . . .” He shrugged.
“And voilà,” she finished wryly, thinking it must be nice to have “people” to do things for you.
“He had them pick up clothes for me too, but—” Marcus glanced down at himself with a grimace.
“But he was a little off on size for you,” Divine said with amusement, and then said, “Either you pissed him off at some time in the past, or Vincent only has an eye for size when it comes to women.”
“Jackie helped him with that,” Marcus assured her.
“Oh good,” Divine murmured, and when he glanced at her in question, admitted, “Well, it would be a little alarming to think he could guess my bra size at a glance.”
His gaze slid over her bare shoulders where she’d tugged the peasant blouse to the side to ride her upper arms and she explained, “It’s strapless.”
“Oh.” He nodded.
As they entered the kitchen, Divine added, “Pretty pink with white lace trim along the bottom. I’m wearing matching panties too.”
Marcus stopped dead in the doorway as if he’d been shot and after a couple steps, Divine glanced back at him and almost smiled at the expression on his face. She didn’t know what little devil had made her say that. Really, it had surprised her as well when the words had slipped out, but the expression on his face . . .
Goodness, the man looked like he’d swallowed his tongue. He was also looking at her as if he could see the undergarments she’d described right through her clothes. For some reason that sent a thrill of excitement through her.
“Yo! Marcus?”
Divine glanced past Marcus to the stairs. Vincent was halfway down, hanging over the railing to peer into the kitchen at them through the kitchen door Marcus held open with his body.
Marcus turned to peer at the man and then cleared his throat. “Yeah?”
“Make sure you throw some ice cream in the cooler too. I want to make us some of my famous super-duper sundaes later while we’re relaxing.”
“Right. Ice cream.” Marcus nodded.
“And the fixings,” Vincent added.
“Right. Fixings.” Marcus nodded again.
Divine couldn’t see his expression, but whatever it was made Vincent suddenly frown. “You do know what fixings are needed for sundaes, right?”
When Marcus didn’t respond Vincent clucked impatiently and yelled upstairs, “Honey, can you throw a couple pairs of shorts and some T-shirts in a bag for me? Marcus hasn’t eaten in more than two millennia. If we leave it up to him we’ll be stuck with Puppy Chow or something.”
“You have a puppy?” Divine asked curiously.
Vincent lowered his gaze back to them and grinned. “Yeah. We dropped her at the vet’s last night. She was being operated on this morning. Spayed,” he added and then frowned. “We were supposed to pick her up at four.” Raising his head he yelled, “Jackie, we forgot to pick up Little One at four.”
“Crap,” they heard from upstairs. “I think they’re open until eight. I’ll call.”
Divine raised an eyebrow. “You don’t plan on bringing her along to, do you? I mean, what if they set the RV on fire again or blow it up this time or something?”
Vincent stiffened and then raised his head and yelled, “I’ll call the office and have someone pick her up if they’re open. They can take her to the kennel tomorrow until we get back.”
“Oh, but—”
“It’s safer for her,” Vincent interrupted.
There was a pause and then Jackie sighed. “Okay.”
Vincent nodded, but didn’t look pleased himself as he came down the rest of the stairs to join them in the kitchen. Once there he commented, “You know, Bastien should really have some of his scientists look into developing nanos for dogs.”
“Why not just give our nanos to the dog and see if it takes?” Divine suggested, crossing the kitchen to a set of double doors she suspected was the pantry. She was right, she saw once she opened them.
“Because that wouldn’t work,” Marcus said with a laugh.
“Why?” Divine asked absently as she flipped on a switch, lighting up the small room lined with shelves. A survey of the contents on the shelves left her a little bewildered. There were fruits and vegetables. She recognized those, but there were a ton of other items she didn’t recognize. What the devil was Spam? she wondered.