Page 11 of Immortal by Morning (Argeneau #37)

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Roberts said.

“Not worry about how to woo my life mate?” Crispin peered at his partner dubiously.

“I just mean stop panicking,” Roberts said and when Crispin opened his mouth to deny he was, his partner added, “Do not even

try to deny it. I can hear your thoughts, remember?”

Crispin let his mouth snap closed. He really hated being so easily read now. It was definitely a drawback to finding a life

mate.

“Look,” Roberts said, interrupting his inner grumbling, “you will have plenty of time to sort out how to woo Abril. This is

not going to be a quick investigation. It will take days, maybe even weeks, to get the bodies out. You can use that as an

excuse to hang around here and interact with her.”

“True,” Crispin agreed. They’d been brainstorming on ways to woo Abril for several minutes now, and not coming up with much.

From what he had seen of modern society, there was more “hooking up” going on nowadays than actual dating.

There was also a lot of phone play: texting back and forth, sexting, and sending nude photos seemed to be the order of the day.

At least that was how it seemed from listening to their single, mortal coworkers talk.

Wooing in his day had been a completely different animal. But courting a woman had changed with the times. He knew that twenty

or thirty years ago dinner and a movie had been the thing, and that would have made this all much easier. But apparently that

was no longer the thing, and the phone was key.

Crispin was not someone who enjoyed texting, or the phone in general. It was his opinion that cell phones were one of the

worst things to happen to mankind. He supposed it came in handy when your car broke down in a rural area, or when a sudden

health issue struck a mortal, but otherwise it had become something of a pain in the ass. From what he had seen, cell phones

had become addictive. Kids and adults in their early twenties and even older, appeared always to have to be on them. It made

questioning them when on a case something of a challenge.

More importantly to him though, it meant you just couldn’t escape people.

When the telephone was first invented, he’d thought it was grand.

It had made communication much swifter than using couriered messages and such, and if you didn’t want to be disturbed, you simply did not answer.

People would assume you were not home. Now, with cell phones, you couldn’t do that.

They had been made to carry with you. If you didn’t answer, the caller knew you were avoiding their call.

You were never unreachable with a cell phone.

He himself preferred to actually speak to people in person. At least that’s what he told himself, but he supposed the truth

was that he liked to avoid people as much as possible and preferred just to be left alone. With Abril, though, he knew it

was going to be different. He wanted to see her face-to-face. He wanted to speak to her, and yes, he wanted to do all sorts

of other things to her. He just needed to sort out how to woo her to the point of doing those things without overwhelming

her so much that she ran for the hills.

“So...” Roberts said.

When he didn’t continue, Crispin glanced at him in question. “So what?”

“You kissed her, and it was really hot.”

“How the hell—” Crispin began furiously, and then stopped and simply scowled at his partner as he realized he had probably

been shouting out the memory to Alexander since he’d joined him. Finally, he just said, “Yes.”

Roberts smiled faintly and nodded, but then cautioned, “You might want to ease up on that.”

Crispin peered at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

His partner hesitated and then said slowly, “Abril seems like a nice girl, but...”

He narrowed his eyes. “But what?”

“I just would not want you scaring her off with life mate passion before she gets to know you.”

Crispin’s eyebrows rose. “I thought people today were all about ‘hookups’ and such.”

“Some maybe. I mean, that seems to be the case amongst the single cops we work with. But that does not mean everybody is like that and she may be someone who is not. Besides, even if she is, the depth of life mate passion can apparently be overwhelming. It might scare her off if you move too quickly,” he pointed out.

“I just think you should take it slow. At least until I can get a better read of her and see how she is likely to react.”

Crispin frowned. He wasn’t sure he wanted his buddy to get a better read on Abril. He wasn’t happy with Alexander reading

him, but he definitely wouldn’t be happy with him reading his mate. Especially when Crispin couldn’t do that himself.

“Then just take it slow,” Roberts said, obviously having heard his thoughts on the matter. “Let her take the lead.”

Crispin nodded. That seemed a reasonable suggestion to him. Let her take the lead. He could do that. Maybe. It would help

if he wasn’t so attracted to the woman. He’d thought she was a cute, perky little thing on first seeing her, but now that

he’d touched and kissed her, she was a goddamned goddess. It would be hard to resist that attraction when she was stood in

front of him, all soft and sexy. He would try though.

“In the meantime, we should go door to door and question the neighbors. We can take the car.”

When Crispin glanced to him with surprise, Roberts shrugged and said, “I don’t know about you, but I could use a blood break.”

“Oh. Yes. Good idea,” Crispin murmured. Now that Roberts had mentioned it, he was aware that he could use a bag of the red liquid himself and they had a cooler of it in the car. They could grab a quick bag as they drove to the first house on the block to start their interview with the neighbors.

Abril closed the file she’d been working on for the last couple of hours and glanced at the clock. It was almost 6:00. Close

enough, she decided, her workday was done. Despite Gina’s order, she hadn’t curled up on the couch with Lilith and a tea for

the rest of the afternoon. First, she had already spent several hours that day not working because of the skeletal remains

that she had found. But more importantly, not putting in the time today on work that needed doing, would have just meant working

longer hours the next day to do what hadn’t got done. Actually, even with the work she’d done that afternoon, she’d probably

be putting in overtime to finish what needed doing.

Deciding that wasn’t something she wanted to think about just then, Abril turned off her computer. She then swiveled her desk

chair around to get up, only to find Lilith’s head immediately on her knees, her sad eyes looking up at her and tail slowly

wagging.

“Wow, you’re really good with the guilt there, girl,” she said with amusement, but gave in and began to cuddle and pet her.

Lilith’s arrival in her office about five minutes after she’d sat down to work had told her that Delacort had returned her.

A glance at the security monitor on her desk showed he hadn’t come in with her and was still outside. He must’ve opened the

door, let her in, and then gone back to work himself.

Installing the security system, all the cameras, and a magnetic vehicle driveway alarm that sounded any time a vehicle drove up the driveway was the first thing Gina had done when she’d purchased the house.

It had seemed a smart thing to Abril, considering Gina was a woman living alone.

She was also often grateful for the cameras and the monitor in her office.

Anytime the driveway alarm sounded in the kitchen, all she had to do was look at the monitor to see if it was something that she needed to address.

Otherwise, she’d be having to jump up and run to the front of the house every time the alarm went off.

Sometimes, it was just someone pulling in to turn around on the road, or door-to-door salesmen she never bothered to answer

the door to. Abril hadn’t even realized there was such a thing as door-to-door sales anymore... until a guy trying to sell

frozen meat delivery, and then someone selling solar panels or something had come to the door. The cameras and monitor had

come in handy to help her avoid those salesmen, and were helping her at the moment by allowing her to see the activity presently

taking place in the yard. The forensics team was still hard at work, but Roberts and Delacort were now nowhere to be seen.

Their car was gone too, she noted. Officer Peters, however, was still there.

Abril decided then that it might be a good idea to take Lilith on another trip outside before she had to prepare dinner for

them both. Not because she wanted to maybe chat with Peters to see if the two detectives were done for the night and might

be back tomorrow. Certainly not! She was only thinking of Lilith’s comfort.

The thought made Abril snort to herself. She so wanted to know if there was a chance that she’d see Detective Delacort again. Shaking her head at herself, she caught Lilith’s head in both hands, met her gaze and said, “Potty?”

Lilith immediately backed excitedly from her petting hands and hurried out of her office.

“I’d guess that’s a yes,” Abril said with amusement as she stood to follow her to the kitchen.

Unsure what had happened to the leash she’d put on the Lab when Delacort had taken her out, Abril fetched another one from

the closet. She then glanced around for Lilith, unsurprised to see she was standing at the sliding doors, watching the activity

outside as she waited. They usually let her out that door. It was just easier. Now, however, that wasn’t an option.

“Come on, girl. Outside.” Abril patted her leg and headed in the opposite direction. Lilith hesitated a moment, but then followed.

She even sat patiently while Abril pulled on her shoes and her newly cleaned and dried coat. The Lab then stood, but remained

still for Abril to clip the leash onto her collar.