Claire Delacroix (17 page)

Viviane sighed. “We had a wonderful time last night and a better time this morning. I fell back asleep, but when I woke up, Niall was different.”

“How different?”

“As though he didn’t want to be near me.” Viviane appealed to Barb with a glance. “I just couldn’t seem to get his attention. He started fiddling with the toilet, trying to figure how it worked or something. It was as though I wasn’t even there!”

“Did you say anything mushy to him?”

Viviane looked perplexed.

“You know, did you make any reference to, say, your being destined to be together.”

“Well, of course!” Viviane looked at Barb as though she was the thick one. “It’s perfectly obvious, after all. That’s why he’s here!”

Barb leaned across the table, losing the battle to bite back a smile. “But Viviane, he’s a
guy
.”

“I
know
that.”

“Do you have brothers?”

“No.”

“Well, if you did, you’d know that they’re just
different
. Guys think different from us, they talk different from us, but sometimes they mean the same thing. And when emotion shows up -” Barb rolled her eyes “- they do their damnedest to duck and run.” She gestured with her mug. “He’s being evasive. He’s not sure what you expect from him and doesn’t want to talk about it.”

Or he did know and didn’t want to let Viviane down right to her face. Barb’s usually unsympathetic heart twisted just a little.

Because anyone could see that Viviane was an incurable romantic. Barb didn’t want to be the one to tell here that some men never fell in love. Nope, Mr. Tall, Blond and Handsome could clean up after himself.

As much as Barb hated the thought of him doing it. She heaved a sigh and tried to be helpful as well as protective. Because if anyone could reform a rat, it was sweet, genuine Viviane.

She forced a smile for her troubled employee. “Take a look in the relationship section when you have a chance and you’ll see different. Men are from Mars and all that jazz. They’re like a different species.”

“I had no idea...”

“How would you?” Barb patted her employee’s hand. “See, you’ve been reading too much in the romance section. Great stuff, but written
by
women
for
women, if you know what I mean. Kind of how we’d like men to be if we got to design them from the ground up, instead of the way they really are.”

Viviane seemed to be thinking about that.

“They don’t read romances, Viviane, so they don’t have a clue. In fact, they don’t read the relationship books, either, though they whine enough about not understanding women. Goddess forbid that they did anything to solve that!”

Viviane smiled, just a glimmer of her usual enthusiasm but it was enough for Barb.

“You’ve got to look at what he’s done. Guys put more value in deeds than words.”

“You sound like Niall,” Viviane charged and Barb couldn’t stop her chuckle.

“Years in the trenches. Three brothers - I was trained from the cradle, after all. Or maybe I should call it trial by fire.” Barb leaned closer when Viviane didn’t seem to follow the reference. “You said he followed you - was it far? Expensive? Hard to do?”

Viviane’s eyes rounded. “Oh yes!”

“And he brought you a gift?”

Viviane fingered a pendant she was wearing. “I dropped this when I saw him last and he brought it back to me.”

Barb was impressed, despite herself. “That was nice of him. Give credit where it’s due - most people wouldn’t have bothered.”

Viviane smiled. “I thought it was a gallant gesture,” she said softly, that smile broadening to make her features glow. “Something fitting for a knight of old to do for his lady.”

Oh boy, she was smitten.

“Well, he must have wanted to see you again,” Barb acknowledged reluctantly. “Maybe it was an excuse. They like that - covering up a sweet gesture with what seems like a logical one.” Or a horny one. Barb couldn’t bring herself to say that when Viviane looked so hopeful. Instead she reached out one hand. “Let me see it.”

The pendant was a moonstone set in silver, an old piece and obviously of some value. There was a lot of silver in the heavy setting and the stone was probably the biggest and bluest moonstone Barb had ever seen.

She touched it with one fingertip and shivered at the coldness of the stone. “It’s beautiful and unique.”

“My mother gave it to me,” Viviane admitted.

A sentimental piece. The guy had played a sentimental card and, judging by Viviane’s softened expression, he had played it well. Barb frowned - that wasn’t the gesture of a guy determined to cut and run.

Maybe, just maybe, he was smitten as badly as Viviane but did a better job of hiding it. Barb ran her thumb across the stone and wondered.

Maybe.

“Right.” Barb released the pendant and gave her employee a smile. “Maybe you should cut him some slack. If he’s a creep trying to take advantage of you, you’ll know soon enough. That kind of thing is hard to hide.” She shrugged and finished her tea.

But Viviane didn’t look away. “Do you think he’s a creep?”

Barb turned her empty mug in that wet mark again, but she found it impossible to lie to Viviane.

“I don’t know.” Barb shrugged. “He could just be Grade A prime male, right to the bone.”

The younger woman flashed an impish grin. “Or maybe he just doesn’t understand that we’re meant for each other.” Before Viviane could say anything more, the man in question appeared on the stairs to the room above.

“Viviane?” he said, the low rumble of his voice filling the shop. His gaze fixed on Viviane and he smiled the kind of slow, sensuous smile that would make every woman with a pulse ready to surrender.

He was almost better looking dressed than half-naked, though it was a close call. He was certainly all man. Barb took a good look to confirm her conclusion and silently sighed with almost forgotten longing.

“Are you not hungered this morn?” Niall asked, the direction of his thoughts as obvious as the perfect nose on his ruggedly handsome face.

Barb snorted at her own reality check and took her cup to the sink. “One hundred percent prime, all right,” she muttered.

Niall frowned and Barb felt his gaze follow her. “I must apologize to you for this morn. I did not know the marvels of this washroom...”

Barb waved off his apology. “What’s done is done.” She fired a glance his way. “I and the Siberian Iris would appreciate no repeats.”

Niall bowed and Barb disliked that she was so easily impressed by his manners.

Viviane looked between the pair of them with obvious confusion. “You know each other already?”

“We met in the garden,” Barb supplied crisply, unable to resist tossing one hard look at the man in question. He held her gaze steadily and she credited him with not wincing.

But it wouldn’t hurt Viviane to have all the facts. “Funny what you said about not staying long,” she said flatly. “Viviane seems to think you’re here to stay.”

He inhaled sharply and Viviane gasped, her smile banished. She turned to Niall with dismay and Barb felt a surge of satisfaction that at least she’d moved everything out into the open.

“Go on, take the day,” she said with a cheerful wave and a wink for Viviane. Her employee was busy looking daggers at Niall, who was glaring at Barb. “Get your boy toy fed. It’s going to be slow today, anyhow, what with the rain.”

It would probably take them all day to sort that one out.

Barb almost wished she could watch.

* * *

To Niall’s relief, Viviane seemed disinclined to chatter, which could only mean that she was hungered as well. She marched along beside him, with nary a glance his way. And ’twas easier to not be tempted by her charm this way, that much was certain.

Though after a few moments, Niall began to wonder whether there was more at root than hunger.

“You seem less than amiable,” he ventured. “Did this Barb complain of my pissing in her garden?”

Viviane flashed a lethal glance his way. “So,
that
was how you met. Did you have a nice long chat?”

“Nay.”

The lady sniffed and hauled open the door of a shop, firing a glance over her shoulder that would have made a lesser man cringe. “Then isn’t it strange that you had time to tell her of your plans, when you haven’t told
me
.”

She let the door close right behind her, leaving Niall to open it again and stride after her.

“Viviane!”

“I have nothing to say to you,” she snapped, then made a show of examining the pastries on display. “After all, you’re not even staying.” She smiled deliberately for the man behind the counter, her manner turning sweet as honey. “Good morning, Joe.”

A burly man with thinning hair and perspiration on his pate smiled a greeting from behind the counter. “Morning, Viviane.” He jerked a thumb toward Niall. “This guy giving you trouble?”

Her smile broadened, though she did not even glance at Niall. “In a way, yes, but there’s no need to worry yourself.” For the first time, she looked at Niall, though the characteristic warmth in her eyes had faded.

That hurt lingered there again and Niall knew that he was responsible for it.

“I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” she added softly, the hint of vulnerability in her tone twisting a knife in Niall’s heart.

Oh, if she had not been a witch, he would have been a base villain! He could not help feeling the part, though he knew that she deliberately toyed with him.

The baker looked doubtful. “If you say so.”

Niall’s belly knotted at the smell of fresh bread and he knew he would not be able to think matters through without a good meal. He eyed the goods on display and his hunger grew a thousand-fold. They even had pastry filled with sausage meat, his favored treat, though the pastries were over small.

Niall frowned. Though ’twas not uncommon for merchants to cut portions to ensure higher profits. Surely even here there was a master of the market to ensure the measures were being met?

But no one seemed prepared to complain besides Niall.

“What would you like today?”

Viviane stepped forward and opened her mouth, but Niall did not like the gleam in the man’s eye. Why did this one take Viviane’s protection upon his own shoulders? And what would he desire of her in return? Niall could readily imagine and did not like the thought.

Indeed, he would win her favor once more by showing himself respectful of her honor. Then she would be irked with him no longer. Niall immediately stepped up beside Viviane and asked for a dozen of the small sausage-filled pastries.

After all, he wanted to ensure that they had enough.

Viviane caught her breath and flicked another cold glance his way, but Niall realized that his plan to win her favor was not working over well.

“Anything else, sir?”

“A measure of ale would be most welcome.”

The man behind the counter snorted. “Not here. No need for a liquor license in a bakery.”

Niall was astonished. “A man cannot break his fast with ale?”

“Only in the tavern, and on some days, not before midday,” Viviane confided in an undertone.

Niall shook his head. “And you call this paradise,” he muttered, earning a sympathetic grin from the man behind the counter.

“I’m with you. Nothing like a cold brew first thing in the morning to start the day off right.” He winced. “And nothing like the old L.C.B.C. to take the fun out of that.”

Niall knew of no Elsie Beesie, and thus knew not what to say. How could a woman keep a man from selling ale in the morn? He could not imagine, but dared not ask Viviane under this merchant’s bright eye.

The baker propped an elbow on the counter, clearly warming to a favored theme. “Nothing like the government putting their dirty fingers into everything, taxing the life out of us, that’s what they’re doing. I say they should get out of the liquor business, privatize the selling of booze like they’ve done in Alberta. They’ll never do it, though, bunch of weenies, because they’re making too much money to bear to give it up.”

He nodded crisply and Niall slanted a glance to Viviane. She looked as confused by this monologue as he, and he was startled to find himself again feeling a sense of kinship with her.

Niall nodded, because it seemed some acknowledgement should be made. “You speak good sense,” he allowed, and the baker sniffed approval.

“
Then
you’d be able to have your brew in the morning, because you can be sure I’d have it right on tap, right here.” He winked. “Though it wouldn’t be the most profitable enterprise I ever took on, if you know what I mean.”

Niall did not, but refrained from saying so.

“Usual for you, Viviane?”

“Yes, please, Joe.”

“And what is this concoction?” Niall asked her as the balding man bustled away to mix things together. He couldn’t help but wish that she would at least glance his way, even knowing ’twas her spell that left him yearning like a pup.

’Twas most disconcerting to have her resolve to ignore him before he could apologize, then proceed to keep his distance from her.

“Is it of the same ilk as Paula’s potion?”

Viviane smiled for the balding man, but not - Niall noticed with disappointment - for him. “Joe’s café au lait is so good that you’ll believe it’s made by magic alone.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and smiled again for the baker Joe.

That man beamed as he set a cup on the counter. The warm gaze he spared for Viviane was duly noted by Niall.

Who heartily disapproved.

Aye, this man wore a ring upon his finger, a gold band of import that could not be missed. And Viviane was not his spouse!

Niall was prepared to dislike this concoction on principle alone, at least until the steam rising from the frothing cup teased his nostrils. It smelled so exotic and unlike anything else he had known that he immediately decided to take Viviane’s advice.

Perhaps that would win her favor.

But nay, she seemed not to note his choice, not at all.

Niall’s mood soured yet further. When the tally was made, he tried to pay with one of the coins he had moved from purse to pocket on Derek’s vessel, but the baker frowned at it.