Page 10 of Mac (Demented Souls #7)

E lyse led him into her kitchen marveling at how he wasn't at all what she'd expected when she'd first seen him rumbling up the street on his motorcycle. She found that she liked talking to him and occasionally found herself telling him more than she'd planned. Like what she did.

She knew from experience that most men found managing a bookstore boring.

In the past, when she'd told someone, she could see the light of interest die in their eyes.

She didn't know why, she loved her job, but she'd seen it happen more than once.

So she'd quit offering it up. Most of the men she'd dated in the past didn't push after she told them it was boring and those that did eventually find out, were far enough into the relationship that they no longer cared.

"So, you manage a Bookmans, any real benefits to the job? killer discounts? First access to new books, movies, whatever?"

Elyse shrugged as she plated their dinners, pulling the potatoes from the microwave and adding them to the steaks. "I can pull pretty much anything from the shelf and read it, as long as I put it back in the end. If I want to keep it, I have to pay for it just like anyone else."

"So, you do get first access." He sounded intrigued. She set the plates on the table, his rare steak in front of him and hers in front of her empty seat, then went to fetch flatware, seasonings and a couple things from the fridge.

"I guess, unless it's something we've got a wait list on, though I could take those, I rarely do. It wouldn't look good if a customer was waiting for something and found out I'd brought it home to read it first. Know what I mean?"

"I get it. It's not that you can't, it's that it's not good customer service. You want to get it to the waiting customer as quickly as you can. It builds goodwill and creates devoted customers."

"Exactly!" She laid the flatware on the table and set out the salt, pepper and butter. "Do you need steak sauce? I think I've got some of that A1 stuff in the fridge, but I couldn't tell you how old it is."

"I'm good. The only reason to use that stuff is to cover up the taste of a bad steak." Mac met her gaze a slight smile curling the edges of his mouth. "I've never had a steak bad enough to need it." He winked, and heat rushed to her face.

Elyse wasn't sure why but something about the way he said it made the room feel warmer as a pool even warmer than the room settled low in her belly.

Why does he affect me this way? she asked herself.

She didn't know, but it had been way too long since anyone had made her feel like this.

Like a schoolgirl who blushed at every innuendo or hint at something intimate.

She'd forgotten how heady it was and right now, she was going to enjoy it.

At least for tonight. Tomorrow was soon enough to examine things and pick them apart.

"I have some sour cream for the potato, if you like?"

"Butter's fine." Mac shook his head as he picked up his fork and steak knife. He used the knife to point at her chair. "Sit down and eat with me. Your steak's getting cold and you don't need to wait on me."

Elyse blinked then did as he requested. First she doctored her potato, so the butter would have time to melt while she ate her steak, then put a second pat of butter on top of the meat and rubbed it around a moment, until it had mostly melted before slicing off a chunk and taking a bite.

Elyse had to close her eyes a moment as the flavor burst in her mouth. The flavor of the beef, the seasonings, the char and the butter all blended together into one of the best tasting things she'd eaten in a long time.

When she opened her eyes, she found him watching her with a look she didn't know how to interpret.

She lifted one brow in question and met his gaze for several seconds before turning her attention back to her plate.

Whatever was going on in his head, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

Not as long she had food this good sitting in front of her.

She popped the second bite in her mouth, this time she was expecting the taste and didn't close her eyes or savor it in quite the same way.

Instead she smiled across at Mac and when she'd swallowed, she noticed he hadn't taken a bite since she sat down.

"Is there something wrong?" She pointed at his plate with the point of her knife.

He glanced down and seemed surprised it was still waiting for him, nearly untouched. "Sorry, no. It's good," Mac cut a bite and spoke again before he put it in his mouth. "It's really good."

Elyse watched the way his full lips moved as he chewed and wondered if they were as soft as they looked.

Unbidden the thought popped into her head, wondering what that pale, reddish stubble that covered the bottom half of his face would feel like against her skin.

Along her cheek, sliding farther down. Heat rushed to her face and she turned her attention back to her food, hopefully before he'd noticed her blush.

She kept her gaze on her plate until her steak was gone then glanced at him as she reached for the salt and pepper. His eyes weren't on her, so maybe he hadn't noticed that she had avoided looking at him.

"This is really good.I don't know what you did, but I think this is the best steak I've had in a long time. Thank you for cooking for me."

"It was nothing." Elyse shrugged. She hadn't done anything special, just used the same seasonings her mother had taught her to use a long time ago, then tossed a few soaked wood chips into the bottom of her gas grill the way she'd seen her father do so many times while she'd been growing up.

It was her favorite way to cook a steak because it was the best of both worlds, the flavor of a wood fire, but the ease and speed of a gas grill.

"If it was nothing, maybe I can convince you to do it again sometime, showing me how when you do."

She looked up to find him watching her. "I can do that." She let a smile creep across her face. she liked the idea of having him over again. Besides, how to cook a steak wasn't some big secret. Anyone could learn to do it, with a little patience.

"Do you have any family nearby?" Mac asked after a bit.

"I do. I grew up here in Tucson, but my family's not close. I talk to my parents occasionally, but not often. Most of my siblings have left the area. Moved away for better jobs or to be near their spouse's family."

"Oh? How many siblings do you have?"

Elyse glanced at him, wondering how he would react when he heard. There were a few reactions she'd gotten used to, and she never knew which to expect. "I'm the youngest of five, so I have four siblings."

Mac's eyes went wide. "So you're part of a big family. I always wondered what that was like. I'm an only child. I always envied the big families. You always had a built-in play-mate."

"Sometimes. Or sometimes there are just more to pick on you." She looked away.

"Did your siblings pick on you?"

"Not all of them." Elyse felt guilty for letting him believe that, even for a moment. "Dave and I are close. It was always the two of us against the others."

"Three on two? That hardly seems fair."

"Fair didn't have much to do with it. It was more ages.

Adam, Bailey and Conner are all a year apart a piece.

They are close, inseparable some might say.

Then there is Dave and me. We are closer in age to each other than Dave is to the rest of them.

Conner was almost five when Dave was born.

" She shook her head. "I don't know why the big gap there, but Dave and I are only fifteen months apart, so he and I naturally stuck together.

Especially when the older kids, or anyone else, picked on one of us.

" She smiled at the memory of Dave standing up for her against a bully at school when she was in kindergarten and him only in first grade.

The memory of him, so small but standing between her and the boy who had just pushed her down so he could have the swings warmed her.

Even if he had gotten in trouble later for knocking the kid down and giving him a black eye.

In Elyse's eyes he'd been her hero and it had only made her more loyal to him.

In later years, the two of them had stood back to back more than once as they'd faced whatever had come their way. Bullies, siblings, whatever.

"See, that look right there is why I always wanted a brother or sister while I was growing up. It just wasn't in the cards for me, not then."

"Oh? Did you find a sibling after you were grown?"

"Kind of. Not in the way you're probably thinking, but I did, a whole club of them."

That was an odd way to phrase it and she couldn't help but frown as she tried to figure out what he meant. A club of brothers?

"They're not really brothers, not like most people think of it.

But the Demented Souls are my family. We're as close as I imagine real siblings are.

I know some of my brothers say they're closer to those of us in the club than with their real siblings.

" He shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I don't have any family left. "

Sadness filled her for him. "I'm sorry. Is it recent?"

Mac shook his head. "No. My folks died more than twenty years ago. I've had a long time to get used to them being gone."

"That's sad. And you didn't have anyone else? No grandparents?"

"I did for a while. A grandmother on one side and my grandfather on the other.

They were both already in their seventies.

And I was grown. I saw them each once or twice more before they passed, at different times, obviously.

But by the time I got out of the Army, I was the only one left in both families.

" She watched as he looked away then took a deep breath and let it out with a shudder.

"Anyway. Enough of the depressing talk. You said you and your brother are close? Does he live in the area?"