A Bite to Remember (3 page)

“Well…” Vincent frowned. “I guess that puts a spanner in the shopping plan.”

“I can keep an eye on the house while you and Jackie shop,” Tiny rumbled as he joined them under the portico.

Jackie frowned at the suggestion. The last thing she wanted to do was go shopping with Vincent Argeneau. Unfortunately, it was after four o’clock and heading for dinner time. They’d need food…and coffee. She lived off the black liquid and couldn’t go all night without. Giving in with a sigh, she said, “I’ll get my purse.”

“I should warn you, Jackie hates shopping,” Tiny informed Vincent as she headed into the house.

Jackie rolled her eyes at the understatement, but didn’t get the chance to comment. The telephone was ringing as she opened the door.

“I’ll get it.” Vincent was suddenly rushing past her toward the office.

Jackie followed him and grabbed her purse off the desk as he picked up the receiver and said hello. She’d turned to leave the office when he said, “What?” with such distress that she paused and turned back with concern.

The man looked both stunned and horrified.

Two

“So the call was from your production assistant, telling you that the lead in the play who was supposed to open tonight has quit and the play can’t open?”

“Yes,” Vincent answered wearily, his gaze on the road ahead. Jackie was driving, but he was supposed to be directing her to somewhere to buy kitchen appliances. He didn’t have a clue where people bought such things. He hadn’t told her that, however, but was hoping to spot a likely store before she realized it.

“I was under the impression you’d permanently closed down all of your plays until you sorted out the matter of who is sabotaging them?”

“No, not exactly,” Vincent murmured and wondered what Bastien had told her before sending her out here.

Before he could voice the question, Jackie answered it by saying, “Bastien wasn’t very specific about details. He just
said that someone was sabotaging your plays. I was hoping both Tiny and I could sit down with you later this evening to go over the particulars, but wanted to get the urgent matters out of the way first.”

“The urgent matters being securing my home and seeing to the shopping,” Vincent murmured, a faint smile curving his lips as he glanced her way.

“You may be able to live and function without food, but we can’t,” Jackie said defensively. “And I positively cannot function without coffee.”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t expect you to,” he assured her quickly. “It’s common sense to see to the basics first. A safe roof over your head and food are basic needs.”

“Not for you. At least not the food,” Jackie pointed out. Before he could comment, she suddenly braked and swerved into the driveway of a mall.

“Sorry, I guess I got distracted,” he muttered, glancing over the large complex.

“No problem,” Jackie said as she parked. “I almost missed it myself and I
was
paying attention.”

Vincent merely grunted and slid out of the car to follow her inside. He really expected the next little while to be boring and possibly even annoying, but soon learned differently. As he concentrated on selecting items to go in the kitchen, Vincent found his frustration slipping away.

“I don’t know why you don’t like shopping.” Vincent commented as he snatched the cheap white plastic coffeepot away from Jackie and set it back on the shelf. He then picked up the more expensive chrome and black model and dropped it in the cart.

Not sure what would be needed in the kitchen, Vincent had simply been picking up one of everything; one blender, one mixer, one crockpot, one juicer, and so on. He’d have asked Jackie what she thought he needed, but Tiny hadn’t been kidding when he said she hated shopping. She’d been snapping and growling since they’d arrived. He thought it was kind of cute. Jackie was like a little snarling Chihuahua…but much cuter.

“Please do not tell me you are one of
those
people.”

Jackie sounded disgusted and it made him hesitate warily. “What people?”

“People who believe in retail therapy,” she said dryly, picking up a toaster.

“I don’t know. It does seem to be relaxing me though,” Vincent admitted. He took the toaster from her and switched it for another.

“What was wrong with that one?” she asked sharply.

“This one is better,” Vincent said with a shrug as he set his substitution in the cart. “It’s chrome and black and will match the rest of the appliances.”

“So was the first one,” she pointed out impatiently.

“But this one is a cool shape and it will toast
four
slices,” Vincent pointed out.

Jackie rolled her eyes. “There are only two of us. We don’t
need
a four-slice toaster.”

“There will be four of us. You forgot my aunt and myself,” Vincent reminded her.

“You don’t eat,” she said with exasperation.

“I do,” Vincent corrected. Not often, he acknowledged to himself, but he would start eating more while she was here.
His gaze landed on the next appliance in the aisle and he brightened. “Oh, look, a waffle maker. I’ve had waffles. They were good.”

Vincent pushed the cart further along the aisle to look at the contraption.

“What do you mean you
eat
?” The question burst from Jackie as she trailed after him. Some of her annoyance appeared to have eased, replaced with confusion by his claim. “Your kind don’t eat, you suck blood.”

Vincent smiled at an older woman pushing a cart past them in the aisle. Jackie’s words had made her stiffen and glance their way with shock.

“We’re practicing our lines for a play,” he lied with a charming smile. The woman relaxed and smiled uncertainly back, then began moving again. Vincent waited until she’d left the aisle before turning an arched eyebrow on Jackie. He needn’t have bothered, she was already bright red with embarrassment over her slip.

“Sorry,” she muttered, taking the waffle maker from him and placing it in the cart. She insisted, “But you
don’t
eat. None of you eat…Except for Bastien. He used to eat in business meetings, just to be polite I think. He’s started to eat just lately, but I gather that has something to do with Terri.”

“Well, I eat,” Vincent informed her.

“Then why is your kitchen completely empty of food?” Jackie asked archly.

“I eat out a lot,” Vincent muttered, and—leaving her to chew on that—he moved further up the aisle to the next contraption, an ice cream maker. “Do you like ice cream?”

Vincent glanced at Jackie and found her grumpy expression briefly gone. She was eyeing the ice cream maker with something close to lust.

Realizing he was watching her, she schooled her expression into one of indifference and shrugged. “Ice cream is okay.”

He wasn’t fooled. Smiling to himself, Vincent set the ice cream maker in the cart.

“I think we have everything. We should go. We still have groceries to get,” Jackie reminded him.

“There’s one more aisle. We should—”

“Trust me, Vincent, I think you have almost everything they sell. You couldn’t possibly need anything else,” she said impatiently. Jackie paused and frowned when she saw the way he’d stopped and was smiling at her. Her voice was wary when she asked, “What?”

“I like the way you say my name. So sharp, so concise—”

“So annoyed,” Jackie said with exasperation. She added, “We
do
have
everything
. You’ve picked up one of every appliance in the store.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Vincent conceded, taking pity on her beleaguered expression. “I guess we can check out.”

He pushed the heaped cart to the front of the store and then paused, his gaze moving over the checkouts until he spotted the beaming manager waving him to an end aisle where their other two carts were already unloaded onto the checkout belt. Vincent was really quite impressed with this store. Once the first cart had been full of table linen, dishes, and silverware, he’d gone in search of somewhere he could leave it while he filled a second one. The manager had taken the cart
for him and sent someone to watch at a discreet distance while they’d filled the second cart. The moment it was full, the store worker had appeared with another empty cart and switched with him.

“Excellent service,” Vincent complimented as the manager and clerk began to help him unload.

“New house?” the manager asked with a smile.

“Good guess,” Vincent complimented, which could be taken as agreement or not as the man liked.

“Not much of a guess.” The manager chuckled. “It has to be a new house. About the only thing you haven’t got here is a microwave.”

Vincent stilled and turned accusingly on Jackie. Sighing, she threw her hands up in the air and turned to head back to the housewares section.

Half an hour later, Jackie watched impatiently as the last of their items were rung through…including a black and chrome microwave. “We won’t have room in the car for all this,” she pointed out. “And we still have to get the actual groceries.”

“I’d be happy to have one of the boys deliver your purchases for you,” the manager said accommodatingly.

“Oh great!” Vincent beamed and Jackie just managed not to roll her eyes. It would just figure that he actually seemed to enjoy shopping. The man had been relaxed and cheerful through the entire grueling two hours in this store. She’d have been happy to grab a coffeepot and paper plates, but not Vincent.
If they were doing it, they were doing it right,
he’d said, and proceeded to take his time over choosing the dish patterns, as well as the style of drinking glasses, and
then had insisted on color-coordinating all the appliances.

Jackie shook her head. Who cared if the teapot was white plastic, the cappuccino machine was chrome, or the vegetable steamer was blue? Vincent did. He wanted everything black and chrome to match.

Sighing impatiently, she shifted her feet as Vincent handed over his credit card.

“The man at the house is called Tiny. If the gate is closed and locked and you have to buzz, just tell him it’s a delivery authorized by Jackie,” Vincent instructed.

“I’ll call him to warn him it’s on the way,” Jackie said impatiently. “Can we go now?”

“Don’t mind her,” Vincent advised the manager. “She just flew in from New York. You know how New Yorkers can be.”

“Oh…Yes.” The manager nodded solemnly, looking—for all the world—as if he wanted to offer Vincent his sympathies for having to deal with her.

Finding the whole matter beyond exasperating, Jackie turned on her heel and headed for the automatic doors.

“Come again!” the manager called cheerfully as Vincent followed.

“We are not doing this at the grocery store,” Jackie said grimly as she started the engine of the rental car. “We are not going to buy out the grocery store. You’re a
vampire,
you’re not
supposed
to eat.”

“And you’re a woman. You’re
supposed
to like shopping,” he responded mildly. “I guess things aren’t always what they seem, are they?”

In her impatience, Jackie managed to stall the car. Feeling her face go red with embarrassment, she ground her
teeth together and restarted the engine. Pausing then, she took a deep steadying breath.

“Must be jet lag,” she muttered under her breath as she pulled out of the parking spot.

“No doubt,” Vincent said agreeably.

“Are you always this damned cheerful?” she asked with irritation.

“Mostly always,” he assured her with a grin.

Jackie blew her breath out on a sigh. “You’re nothing like Bastien. He’s…”

“Serious? Sober? Solemn? And all those other
S
’s?” Vincent suggested with amusement.

“Grown up,” she said dryly.

“He’s a businessman. I’m an actor,” Vincent pointed out as if that said it all.

Jackie frowned. She’d forgotten, but he was also a businessman, with his own company. It made her wonder how much of his cheerful, easygoing behavior was for show.

“Do you have Tiny’s list?” Vincent asked as they walked into the grocery store ten minutes later.

Jackie reached into her pocket and pulled out the scrap of paper Tiny had handed her on the way out the door. She unfolded it, read the single word at the top, blinked and then burst out laughing.

Curious, Vincent took the list from her. He smiled faintly. “Well, you did tell him to write
everything
on it.”

“Yes,” Jackie agreed with a sigh, acknowledging to herself that they weren’t going to get in and out quickly here either. They did need everything; Vincent’s home didn’t even have the staples, like salt and pepper.

“Here.” Vincent reached into his pocket and pulled out some money. Handing it to her, he gestured to the end of the store. “Why don’t you go pick up a couple of drinks for us and I’ll start the shopping?”

Jackie followed his gesture to the coffee shop sign at the end of the store and nodded with relief. A dose of caffeine would make it all bearable. “How do you take your coffee?”

Vincent blinked at the question. “Regular?”

Jackie arched her eyebrows. His answer told her that he didn’t normally drink coffee. However, since he was giving her a reprieve from shopping, she let it go and merely headed for the coffee shop.

Ten minutes later she’d downed half her cappuccino and felt about a hundred times better. She didn’t even mind that Vincent seemed to want to look at everything on the shelves. The man was practically salivating as he looked at the pictures of the food on the cans and boxes. His reactions made her think she had to be right and he didn’t normally eat as she’d suspected.

Unfortunately, when she said as much, Vincent just shrugged and said the restaurants he went to didn’t serve things like this. Jackie was sufficiently mellowed by her caffeine boost to let the matter go for now, but she still was sure he didn’t eat.

The kitchen purchases had arrived at the house and Tiny had put most of them away by the time they returned. That still left the groceries. Jackie and Vincent helped the giant put them away before she fetched her briefcase and set it on the table.