"I do. One of the law clerks showed me how. And believe me, if I can operate something like that, anybody can. Of course we'll have to get an online account or something so we can get the music he wants, but it's easy after that."
"Then we'll see about doing that," Merrill smiled. "Come, I'll take you off the roof tonight so you won't have to climb down."
Merrill can float easily, just as I'd seen Gavin do. Merrill drifted both of us to the lawn outside his manor. "That must come in handy," I said, straightening my clothes when we reached the ground. "If I float, I have to be mist."
"I've never been able to turn to mist," Merrill sighed regretfully, leading me into the house. "I've often wished I could, but it wasn't to be."
Franklin was listening to a new iPod the following evening when I checked in on him. "Want something to eat?" I asked, peeking into his bedroom. He had a huge suite with a separate sitting area, shelves for his current reads, a large flat screen on the wall and a little bar area that held a fridge and a small sink.
"I want fried chicken," Franklin grinned at me, pulling the earphones from his ears and motioning me inside his suite.
"Are you supposed to be eating that?" I gave him a skeptical look, my hands on my hips.
"No, but you asked what I wanted." His color was definitely better and he offered a cheeky grin.
"You know what, I'll make some for you, just this once," I said, taking off for the kitchen. Franklin got his meal an hour and a half later, complete with his favorite mashed potatoes. I sat and talked with him while he ate.
"So, how long did the doctor say to stay off your feet and not do anything strenuous?" I asked.
"I'm not supposed to go back to work for four weeks," he said. "But I'll be bored to death by that time."
"Maybe we can get a laptop or something for you and you can play solitaire or one of those shoot-em-up video games. In between reading, of course," I said. "And I can cook, that's not a problem. The thing is, though, if I'm trying a new recipe, there's no way I can taste it to see how it turns out. If I try something new for you, you'll be the guinea pig."
"I'll be happy to," he said. "Can you make barbecue by any chance?"
"I don't make my own sauce," I said. "I've never tried; I only buy something already made. I can pull something off the internet, though, and we can try that out."
"Well, maybe we should do that," he smiled encouragingly. "I'm willing to try it."
"All right. Barbecued chicken or ribs?"
"How about both?"
"Okay. If it turns out all right, we can freeze some of it," I said. "But you have to be honest about how it tastes so I'll know if we need to try a different recipe."
"I'll let you know. Ask Lena to pick up anything you need."
"I'll leave her a list," I said. We talked for a while longer, Franklin finished his dinner and I took his dishes away. "Yell for me if you need something," I said before going through his bedroom door.
"Now, you don't want to help me into the bathroom," he replied a bit stiffly.
"Are you kidding? I once watched five hundred werewolves in human form take a whiz on the nearest trees. I'm used to it now." I left him laughing and holding his side.
* * *
"Honored One, here's another stack." Charles carried a pile of letters into Wlodek's study, setting them on the older vampire's antique desk.
"Would that there were ways to tell them to stop this already," Wlodek grumbled. "I thought we would have a year, at least, before they all learned of this and started requesting meetings."
"What are we going to do?" Charles watched Wlodek's face carefully as the Head of the Council leafed through one request after another.
"Many of these are much too young to be asking," Wlodek sighed, setting the stack aside. "All it will take is an older one placing compulsion or attempting murder—discreetly, of course."
"Of course," Charles nodded.
"We will have to bring her out in this year's meeting instead of next year," Wlodek grimaced. "She will not like this in the least, I am guessing."
Charles heartily agreed.
Chapter 2
"These are quite good," Franklin bit into the ribs I'd brought him. Lena had gone ahead and cooked the ribs for the most part, I'd just added the barbecue sauce I made and baked them a little longer while the chicken was cooking.
"It was a Kansas City barbecue sauce recipe I pulled off the internet on Merrill's computer," I said. "I think it's a little sweet; it has brown sugar and molasses in it."
"It's nice," he said. "Maybe not as good as barbecue I've gotten in Memphis but still good."
"Well, there you go," I said. "Does anybody make barbecue like they do in Memphis?"
"Possibly not," Franklin smiled and took another bite.
"Now," I said, pulling out a pen and a pad of paper, "tell me what else you'd like to eat and we'll see what we can do about that." I had a list of potential meals when I took his plate away, including meatloaf, spaghetti, stuffed peppers, beef stew, chicken and noodles, all sorts of things. It worked out well, too, that I could leave out a list of grocery items for Lena. She'd buy it during the day and leave the cooking with me. Cookies found their way into the menu, too—once a week.
"These are the best oatmeal cookies I've ever had," Franklin crunched into one.
"I use old-fashioned oats instead of the quick kind, which is what the original recipe called for. I liked these a lot better."
Franklin also got restless two weeks after he'd gotten home, so Merrill gave him permission to teach me how to drive in England. The Range Rover was the vehicle of choice; Merrill insisted we take that since it could take the abuse better (he has such a poor opinion of my driving). We drove all over the countryside. It was really nice, we didn't meet up with much traffic and I got to see a lot that I hadn't seen before. Franklin had a great time. We even stopped at a small café somewhere to get a cup of coffee and allow him to use the restroom.
We went out every night for four nights, after which Franklin pronounced me "fit to drive." We'd even gone into London the last night and wandered around. What I wasn't expecting on the fourth night, however, was to find Gavin at the house waiting for me when we returned.
"You look happy," he said, while giving me a brief hug. I still wasn't sure how I felt about him—or us, for that matter. Did I trust him? That answer was still a huge no.