Free A Quick Bite by Lynsay Sands Page A

settled on either edge of the bed.
    It was going to be a long night, Greg decided on a sigh.
    Fifteen minutes later the bedroom door closed behind them, leaving Greg to contemplate his conversation with the twins. They were a charming pair and obviously thought a lot of Lissianna, but then everyone who had been in this room tonight seemed to care about her. Including her mother, which was how he’d ended up here.
    It was Marguerite’s actions that everyone seemed concerned with. They all feared he would hold it against Lissianna that her mother had brought him here, and that because of it, he’d refuse to help her. This just served to confuse Greg. He had climbed into the trunk of his own volition and walked upstairs to be tied up, and while he didn’t understand his own actions, he could hardly blame Marguerite for them. Could he?
    Unable to answer his own question, Greg glanced toward the door, wondering when it would open again. As he recalled, there had been six people with Lissianna when he’d awoken to find them surrounding his bed. Four had already snuck back to see him. He guessed that meant he would probably be visited by at least two more people.
    He wasn’t wrong. Moments later the door was easing open, and a woman in a pale lavender baby doll was slipping inside. Greg watched her approach the bed and mentally gave his head a shake. If there was one thing that could be said for this family, they certainly had delightful taste in nightwear, he decided. Barring the male member, of course, he added as an afterthought as he recalled Thomas’s Spider-Man pajamas.
    “Hello, I’m sorry to disturb you,” the newcomer said quietly as she reached the bed. “But I’m Jeanne Louise, Lissianna’s cousin, and I wanted to talk to you about her.”
    “Jeanne Louise,” Greg murmured. “You’re Thomas’s younger sister.”
    When she nodded in surprise, he added, “And everyone thinks you’re in the bathroom when you really came here to ask me to try not to let my anger at how I came to be here affect my decision as to whether I help Lissianna or not.”
    “Oh,” Jeanne Louise breathed with amazement.
    “And you want to appeal to me to please help her,”Greg continued. “Because she really needs my assistance and you’re very worried about her.”
    “Wow.” Jeanne Louise sank onto the edge of the bed, her eyes wide. “You’re really good. I didn’t know psychologists could figure out stuff like this with so little—”
    “Your brother spoke to me earlier and mentioned that his sister’s name was Jeanne Louise,” Greg interrupted to explain. “He also expressed his concern for Lissianna and asked that I not allow anger at her mother to keep me from helping her.”
    “Oh.” Jeanne Louise smiled faintly. “Yes. He would. He and Lissianna have always been close.”
    “Does that upset you?” Greg asked curiously.
    She seemed surprised at the question, but shook her head. “Oh no, she and I are close, too. My mother died shortly after I was born, and Aunt Marguerite raised me, too, just as she did Thomas.”
    “The same mother as Thomas or—”
    “No, a different mother,” Jeanne Louise told him, then made a wry face, and said, “Father hasn’t had much luck with women. I was his daughter by his third wife. Thomas’s mother was Father’s second wife.”
    “Is there a sibling from the first wife, too?” Greg asked curiously.
    Jeanne Louise shook her head. “His first wife was pregnant when she died, but she hadn’t had the baby yet.”
    “Definitely bad luck with women.” Greg agreed, then said, “But you were also raised with Lissianna and Thomas by Aunt Marguerite when your mother died?”
    “Thomas was already moved out and living on his own by then, but Lissianna was there,” Jeanne Louise said. “She was a lot older and helped to take care of me. I suppose when I was little she was like a second mother or an auntie. Now we’re friends.”

    Greg stared at her blankly, his