“Actually, you were talking to both of us,” she announced dryly, pushing a coffee at him before moving on to deliver the other to his father as she continued, “You were complaining so loudly it was impossible for me not to hear, and your voice was growing in volume. I thought I’d better come inform you of that before Holly overheard your whining.”
“I wasn’t whining,” Justin muttered and then grimaced because he knew he had been and said, “Well, if I was, I deserve to, don’t you think? This situation is some kind of hell.”
Sighing, Matild turned from giving his father his coffee and eyed him sympathetically. “I know it must seem so to you right now. But the situation isn’t as dire as you’ve convinced yourself.”
“The hell it isn’t,” he argued with amazement. “My life mate is married. I can’t claim her.”
“You are forgetting one thing,” his mother said solemnly.
“What’s that?” he asked shortly.
“That you only can’t claim her yet,” she said, and then pointed out, “You do have one very large advantage over her husband, son, and that is time. You are immortal. He is not. All you have to do is be patient and wait for him to die of old age or whatever end Death deals him and she will be yours.”
Justin stared at her blankly for a moment and then exploded. “Are you insane?”
Matild blinked in surprise and then gave a short laugh. “No, I don’t think so. But then they do say if you think you’re crazy you’re not, so perhaps if you think you’re sane you’re really crazy.” When he didn’t even smile at her words, she sighed and asked, “What is wrong with my reasoning?”
“You must be joking,” he said grimly. “There is no damned way I can just sit by and wait fifty or sixty years for that bastard husband of hers to die.”
“Why not?” she asked reasonably.
“She sleeps with him,” he snapped, furious at the thought of having to stand idly by imagining Holly sharing a bed with her husband for fifty years or so. He couldn’t do it. She was his.
“He has a point, Mattie,” his father said solemnly.
“Oh . . . yes . . . I see,” she said with a frown, and then brightened suddenly. “But darling, you are forgetting something else.”
“What’s that?” he asked dubiously. Certainly the last thing she’d claimed he’d forgotten had not been terribly helpful.
“She is immortal now. He is not. She will be able to read his mind and you know how impossible it is to live with someone when their every thought is open to you.”
That one had possibilities, he admitted. But . . . “She can’t read minds yet.”
“Then I suggest that is the very next thing you teach her,” his mother said firmly.
Justin hesitated and then asked, “But what if I teach her to read minds and she can’t read him? What if he’s a possible life mate for her too?”
Her expression turned somber at that question and then she simply asked, “Do you not think it is better to find that out as quickly as you can, so that you can move on if it is the case?”
“The chances that her husband is a possible life mate to her too are pretty slim,” his father said reassuringly.
“Are they?” Justin asked. “They grew up together. Have all the same experiences, and have loved each other all their lives.” He paced across the room restlessly and then whirled back to ask, “Just how the hell do nanos decide who would be your perfect mate?”
“I don’t know,” his father admitted quietly.
Sadly, Justin didn’t know either . . . and that worried him.
“Your parents are . . .”
Justin shifted his gaze from the road to Holly when she hesitated and suggested dryly, “Weird?”
Chuckling, she shook her head. “No, not weird,” she assured him and then added, “If anything, my parents get that crown. They dig up dead -people for a living . . . and they like it.”
Justin smiled faintly, his concentration returning to the road until she said, “I was kind of impressed, actually.”
That drew his attention again and he arched an eyebrow. “Why? Because my father was as handsome and charming as myself?”
Holly laughed outright at his words, but then admitted, “Yes, your father is handsome, and yes, he looks almost exactly like you . . . and yes, he was charming.”
“Where do you think I got it?” he asked lightly.
She shook her head at that, but said, “Actually, what impressed me was how your parents are together. They seem still to love each other after so very long together,” she said with obvious admiration, and then grinned and added, “That or they put on a good show for visitors.”
“That wasn’t a show,” Justin assured her. “They really do love each other that deeply after all this time.”
“Pretty impressive,” Holly murmured.
“Not so impressive,” he assured her, as he turned onto the street where Jackie and Vincent lived. “They’re life mates. All life mates are like that. The nanos are good at pairing up -couples.”