Free A Quick Bite by Lynsay Sands Page B

brain rebelling at her claims. Thomas was old enough to have moved out on his own by the time this woman had been born? And Lissianna was old enough to take care of her like a second mother? There was no way any of that was true. The trio looked too close in age for him to believe it. He would accept that there might be a year or two age difference between Jeanne Louise and the other two, but that was about it.
    Before he could voice his thoughts, the bedroom door opened again and the woman with fuchsia tints and wearing the mint green baby doll entered. She hesitated on spotting Jeanne Louise, then made a face and closed the door.
    “I just thought I’d come talk to him,” she murmured as she approached the bed.
    “I know, Mirabeau. I came to ask him to help Lissi, too,” Jeanne Louise confessed, then grinned, and asked, “Do they think you’re in a bathroom, too?”
    Mirabeau smiled faintly. “No, I said I was going to grab a drink.”
    “And instead all of you were coming here,” Greg said, drawing surprised glances from both women.
    “All of us?” Mirabeau asked.
    Greg nodded. “Thomas stayed behind when the rest of you left. Then a brunette in a red baby doll came in.”
    “Elspeth,” Jeanne Louise informed him.
    Greg nodded again. “Then the twins…Juli and Vicki?”
    “Yes,” Jeanne Louise said.
    “And now you and…” His gaze slid to the woman with the black-and-fuchsia hair, and he queried, “Mirabeau?”
    She nodded.
    “Well…” Jeanne Louise sighed. “I guess if everyoneelse has been here, Mirabeau and I have rather wasted our time and bothered you for nothing.”
    “Not for nothing,” he assured her. “I’ve learned a lot.”
    She looked doubtful, but didn’t comment, and Mirabeau said, “We’d better head back before Martine or Marguerite catches wind of us and decides to investigate.”
    Nodding, Jeanne Louise stood, then hesitated before saying, “Lissianna really needs your help. You could make her life so much better by curing her phobia.”
    “Yes, you could, and we’d all be grateful,” Mirabeau added solemnly, then the two women left the room.
    Greg lay back in the bed again. He still had no clue what Lissianna’s phobia was. After Elspeth’s panicked reaction, he hadn’t bothered to ask any of the others. Not that he’d had a chance to ask the twins much of anything. The two were like a tag team when it came to conversation—if one wasn’t talking, the other was. They’d sat on either side of the bed, informing him that he simply had to help their cousin, it was vital to her future well-being, and she deserved a contented life. She was a good person, and it was simply heartbreaking that she had to suffer as she did because of “the phobia.” And she wasn’t the only one affected, according to them. Their aunt Marguerite was suffering along with her daughter as well as all those who loved her, and it simply had to stop. They sincerely hoped that he would be able to cure her and would be grateful until the end of time if he did.
    The short stint that had followed with Jeanne Louise and Mirabeau had been restful in comparison, but still Greg hadn’t asked them what the phobia was either. By that time, he’d thought he knew. Thomas had said it would be like his fainting at the sight of food. At the time,Greg had thought Lissianna’s cousin was just using the example to show how detrimental the phobia was, but then the man had mentioned her needing to be fed intravenously and so on, and he’d concluded that she did faint at the sight of food, or that she couldn’t bring herself to eat it. Either of which was indeed a phobia that needed curing.
    Greg didn’t understand what the alcohol had to do with her phobia, but it was possible that she was beginning to indulge in the stultifying liquid in an effort to forget the troubles in her life.
    No, he hadn’t bothered to ask what her phobia was, but he’d been speaking the truth when he’d told Jeanne Louise