“A woman can enjoy the company of more than one man,” Stella said with an upturned chin.
“So they are swingers,” he heard Maisie say in a whisper, nudging River.
Everyone remained silent for a moment.
“This town is so freaking weird,” Iris said in disgust from the doorway. “This never would have happened in Chicago.” Then she spun around and flounced off.
“I’ve heard Chicago is a very dry town,” Dottie said absently.
Jack had no idea what that meant, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
A cat shrieked out back, and Jack realized if Dottie was inside, then no one was attending the fryer. With Jezebel outside, having snuck out the front door earlier…
Oh shit. They didn’t need another dead pet at the party. Maisie would probably have a heart attack.
He raced out the back door just as Dottie said, “What’s the fuss? Diego played his role in the great circle of life.”
“That’s exactly what I said,” Stella agreed amidst a flurry of other comments.
But Jack had already left the kitchen, and he had much greater concerns than what was—or wasn’t—on the menu for dinner. Jezebel was perched on the wrought iron bench out back, hissing at the fryer, which had overturned and caught a three-foot by three-foot section of the lawn on fire. The grease was slowly spreading down the hill, moving toward the kitchen.
“I smell something burning,” he could hear Dottie say. “Is the stuffing still in the oven?”
“Addy!” Jack shouted. “I need a fire extinguisher! And possibly baking soda!”
He heard multiple gasps and cries inside, but his attention was focused on containing the fire before it reached the house or the fence. He’d seen an extinguisher when he’d helped clean out the shed to create a studio for Adalia a couple of months ago, and they’d put it in the detached garage. The door was locked, but it only took one good ramming with his shoulder to get it open. The extinguisher was on the shelf, thank God, so he grabbed it and ran back to the fire.
It had inched closer to the house, but his new concern was Lurch, who was holding the garden hose.
“Lurch!” Jack shouted. “Stop!”
Lurch waved as he turned on the faucet. “Not to worry! I’ve got this covered.”
Then he sprayed a stream of water directly at the flames.
As Jack had expected, the reaction was instant. Flames shot up into the trees, sending Jezebel leaping off the bench in protest. He heard a few screams, and he pulled the clip out of the extinguisher and started spraying the flames closest to the older man as he made his way to the faucet and turned it off. Lurch’s sleeve was smoldering, so Jack doused it with the extinguisher and then grabbed his free arm and dragged him to the porch, where everyone had gathered to watch the flames. “Get away from the house! Go out front, and someone call 911!”
But someone must have already called—likely one of the neighbors—because he heard distant sirens approaching them.
Stella and Dottie grabbed Lurch’s arms and pulled him inside while River ran out the door with another, smaller, extinguisher. Finn was trying to herd everyone out front, and considering the resistance he was getting, Jack wondered if he had the hardest job.
Jack and River sprayed the flames closest to the house, but the water had spread the fire.
“River! Let the firefighters take care of it!” Georgie called out, her voice shaking with fear.
Then, as though obeying Georgie, River’s extinguisher ran out. He took a few steps back toward the porch. “Jack, we can’t contain it. Come on!”
But Jack wasn’t ready to give up yet. His extinguisher was larger, and he was determined to save the house. It was his house, his and his sisters’ and even the half-brother who still hadn’t acknowledged him, and he wasn’t going to give up on it. He’d hang in as long as he could, or at least until the fire trucks pulled up. The smoke burned his nose and he started to cough.
“Jack!” someone called out in a panic.
He glanced over his shoulder to see Maisie on the back porch with Iris. They were both watching with horror in their eyes, but Iris was sobbing loudly.
“Maisie!” he shouted. “Get my sister out of here! And make sure to tell the firemen it’s a grease fire!”
“Stop, Jack!” Iris cried out. “Let it burn!”
Then his extinguisher ran out, and even though he was tempted to ask Maisie to get the industrial-sized bag of baking soda Adalia had gotten at Costco, he knew it wasn’t enough to contain the fire, or even keep it from reaching the house.
Maisie ran down the steps and grabbed his arm with both hands, tugging. “Don’t be a hero, Jack. Your sister needs you.”
He glanced down at her in surprise, and then she was pulling him up the steps, and he was following. Just like he’d followed her through the party weeks before. Almost like he couldn’t help himself. He wrapped his arm around Iris’s back the moment he reached the top of the steps, and it caught him by surprise when a coughing fit racked his chest. Maisie and Iris led him through the house and out to the front yard.
Maisie tried to get him to sit on the front step, but he was determined to make sure the firemen knew what they were dealing with.
“Where are you going, Jack?” Iris called out as he pulled free and walked toward the fire trucks that were now parked at the curb.
“I told you we’ve been here before,” one of the firefighters said to his buddy. “You owe me ten bucks.”
“I only agreed to pay up if the crystal statue of the naked old guy is here.”
“It’s not,” Jack said, pissed they weren’t taking this seriously. “And it’s a crystal dick, not a crystal statue. There’s a grease fire in the back yard. An overturned turkey fryer. That guy over there”—he motioned toward Lurch, who was sitting under a tree—“needs to be checked out. He tried to douse it with water and may have been burned by the shooting flames.” Then he started to cough.
“Sounds like you need to be checked out too,” the first guy said.
“Just go save my damn house,” he grunted.
“Jack, come on,” Adalia said, grabbing his arm and tugging him away.
He was disappointed it wasn’t Maisie, but she was sitting on the front curb with Dottie, who looked like she was about to burst into tears. Finn was trying to keep everyone gathered together in the front lawn, including Stella, who seemed far more interested in the firefighters than she was Lurch.
Maisie glanced up at him, her gaze letting him know that she wished she were tugging his arm too. She seemed to like tugging him around, not that he minded. He was tempted to go to her, to kiss her in front of everyone, but Iris was standing by herself, tears streaming down her face, and he knew what he had to do.
His ex-girlfriend was right. Until Iris left for college, anyone else would be in second place. And as much as it killed him to admit it, Maisie deserved more than he could give her.
He went to his baby sister and pulled her into his arms, comforting her. Then he felt something brush his legs, and he smiled when he realized it was Jezebel. Tyrion was trotting behind her, wagging his tail as if nothing had happened.
Adalia cried out, “Tyrion!” then dropped to her knees and buried her face in his fur. “I was so worried about you! They wouldn’t let me go upstairs to look for you.”
“That evil cat found the dog?” Iris asked in disbelief.
“Looks like it.” Jack pulled away from Iris and sat down on the lawn to thoroughly examine the cat. When he declared her healthy, she nuzzled him under his chin.
“I swear you’re a warlock,” Adalia said in wonder. Finn was sitting down at the curb with Dottie and Maisie, but he kept glancing back at her.
“Animals have always liked him,” Iris said in a snotty tone. “A real sister would know that.”
Adalia’s eyes widened slightly, but then she said in a sweet voice Jack knew it must have taken some effort to summon, “I’m Jack’s real sister too. Same as y
ou. And while we don’t have as much history with Jack as you do, Georgie and I are trying to make up for lost time. But like I told you before,” she said, “Jack’s family is our family. We want to get to know you too.”
Iris rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Then she walked over to Jack’s car and rested her butt against the side.
“I’m sorry, Addy,” Jack said, horrified. It was like he’d left his sister in Chicago and some evil pod person had replaced her. What had happened to the sweet, funny kid he’d helped raise? But if he were honest with himself, she’d been changing over the last year as their mother had begun sinking into another depressive spiral. “I had no idea she’d be this surly when I asked if it would be okay for her to move in. We can move out if you want.”
Adalia released a snort-laugh. “Please. You should have seen me when I was her age. I had a chip on my shoulder too. She’ll come around. Give her time.”
“I only have nine months before she leaves,” he said, surprised to hear his voice hitch a little. Truth be told, part of him looked forward to his sister’s graduation in the same way a prisoner looked forward to being released. Once she was an adult, on her own, he wouldn’t have to worry about her so much. Of course, he knew it wouldn’t matter in some ways—he’d feel responsible for her no matter where she lived. It had become part of who he was.
“Trust me, Jack,” Adalia said. “Just love her and she’ll come around. In the meantime, I feel like I’m looking at my teenage self in an alternate dimension, and I’m fascinated. Besides, I spend half my time at Finn’s. Don’t you think about going anywhere.”
The firemen made quick work of putting out the fire, which had blackened the side of the house but not actually burned it. They gave Dottie a lecture about turkey fryers, but Stella kept interrupting to feel all of the firemen’s arms. Lurch actually took photos of her posing with them, which Jack couldn’t begin to understand. Then again, he’d never been the sharing type when it came to women. If he liked someone, he was all in.
The paramedics wanted to take Jack to the hospital to get checked out for smoke inhalation, but he refused since his oxygen saturation rate was fine. But they did end up taking Lurch, who had singed off his eyebrows and had burns on his arm. Thankfully, Stella went with him. One of the firefighters tried to get cozy with Georgie, asking her if she’d set the fire to summon him back, and River surprised Jack by getting between them, telling the firefighter she was very much taken. He had never seemed the jealous type.
The ambulance pulled away, followed by the fire trucks, leaving the Buchanans and their guests standing in the front yard, with a growing crowd of whispering neighbors watching them like they were a zoo exhibit.
“Show’s over, folks!” Adalia shouted while giving them a salute. “Go enjoy your turkey and tofu dinners, just like we’re about to go eat ours.” Then she walked to the front porch and turned around to face her family and friends. “I spent all morning making this dinner, so don’t you even think about leaving.”
Then she disappeared into the house.
“You heard the woman,” Finn said. “Trust me, you do not want her to go after you.” But he grinned, like maybe he wanted her to go after him.
Iris rolled her eyes. “Old people are so gross.”
Chapter Nine
“It’s time for us to announce what we’re grateful for,” Dottie said brightly. They sat around the dinner table, an unpleasant scorched smell in the air, and Maisie couldn’t help but reflect that Dottie had recovered awfully quickly considering she’d been close to tears half an hour ago.
Dottie had leaned against Maisie’s shoulder outside, feeling frail in a way that had scared Maisie—when had she gotten so old?—and said she felt guilty about nearly burning Beau’s house down a second time. Which, to be fair, maybe she should. But then she’d gone on about it being a sign that Beau was displeased with her, that she hadn’t done enough to help his grandchildren, and Maisie had told Dottie the truth: her theory was a bunch of BS. Because if Beau was pissed off enough to celestially cause fires, he’d do it in someone else’s house. He’d been too fond of this place to watch it go up in flames, especially with his hell cat and the majority of the relatives he tolerated in the danger zone.
Dottie had found that line of argument strangely reassuring, and as soon as Adalia had announced they were having dinner, like it or not, Dottie had rebounded. She’d ushered everyone inside and helped warm the food.
Now they all sat beneath poor Diego’s portrait on the wall—Adalia had insisted on hanging it up to honor him, although Georgie had put a Post-it note over Lurch’s junk. They’d served themselves food and were eating a little half-heartedly, even though everything was good. Finn kept peddling the squash to people, grinning like he’d reinvented the wheel.
Probably Maisie should be mourning poor Diego, who hadn’t had much of a life for a bird, other than those sweet seconds he’d spent in Jack’s arms. Or yearning for her sisters, who could have saved her from all of this madness by actually coming home for a change. But instead she found herself staring at Jack’s arm, propped up next to her on the table. She’d maneuvered to sit next to him, a decision of questionable wisdom, and she kept replaying the way he’d singlehandedly broken into the detached garage to get that fire extinguisher. She’d thought him sexy before, but now he was basically a hero, wasn’t he? He’d slipped upstairs for a quick shower before dinner, and his hair was wet, something that somehow made him more appealing. Probably because of the whole sex-in-the-bathroom thing. He caught her looking, and a corner of his mouth ticked up before he got it under control. Careful not to reveal herself to Iris, who sat on his other side with a more pronounced scowl than she’d had earlier, Maisie trailed her fingers across his upper thigh.
She wasn’t sure what the hell she thought she was doing—she’d said one night, and he’d written that “just friends” note—but she had been dreaming about him, and his note had trailed off in a strange way, and…
He jolted, and just as she was about to pull away—you didn’t jolt when you were happy about something—he lowered his hand to cover hers, squeezing it and holding it for a second before he gently moved it. To be fair, if his sister thought it was gross for random adults to be nice to each other, she’d think it beyond disgusting to be confronted with proof that her older brother had a sex life.
“I’ll start,” Dottie said when no one offered to take the lead. “I’m grateful to be here with my nephew and four of my grandchildren, and all of our wonderful friends.” The four grandchildren part was a puzzler, but Maisie figured she was including Iris in that number. Dottie would do something like that. “I know Beau would be proud to see us all sitting here together.” She frowned a little. “Although I do wish Lurch and Stella hadn’t had to leave early. Beau was always so fond of Lurch.”
Maisie mouthed, “Swingers,” to River, who stifled a laugh.
“River?” Dottie asked, turning to him.
He’d showered too, and the wet hair at the nape of his neck sent a little stab of memory through her. One time, when they were poor twenty-two-year-olds who couldn’t afford real haircuts, they’d cut each other’s hair. Maisie had done a pretty bang-up job, if she did say so herself—she’d just opened the shelter, and some of the dogs needed regular haircuts, so she’d had some experience cutting hair. River, on the other hand, had made her look like Bozo the Clown. But it hadn’t mattered. She’d loved that stupid haircut because he’d given it to her. Because he’d spent an hour and a half trying to get the sides the same length—which was why it had ended up so short.
He cleared his throat, his gaze darting around the table, and she knew what he was going to say before he spoke. A grin broke out on his face. “I’m grateful that Georgie Buchanan has agreed to be my wife.”
Adalia dropped her fork with a loud click and leaped—literally leaped—up from her chair. “Yes! I’ve been waiting for you to make an honest woman of her.”
Do
ttie was grinning like the Cheshire Cat, and Maisie couldn’t help but wonder if she’d planned his announcement—had she offered to give River an opening? Or had she just known he was looking for one?
Then everyone was getting up, Finn clapping River on the back and saying something about how he’d almost gone first—to which River huffed a laugh and said, “If you say so”—and Adalia squeezing Georgie and physically lifting her off the ground even though she was smaller, and Dottie flitting from person to person like a beneficent fairy, and Jack standing in the background a little awkwardly but with a sweet look on his face that said he wanted to take part and wasn’t sure how. His reaction squeezed her heart in a way she wouldn’t have expected given this was the moment she’d been dreading for weeks. No, for months. And it was then that Maisie realized she and Iris were the only people left at the table, one empty seat between them.
“I hate my life,” Iris muttered.
“I did warn you,” Maisie said, then added, “I think you could safely sneak away if you’re done eating.”
Iris tilted her head at the group of well-wishers. “Why aren’t you over there acting like half of marriages don’t end in divorce?”
Which was an opening of sorts. She shrugged. “Maybe I hate my life a little too.”
Iris lifted her cup of sparkling cider—Jack had taken away the champagne Dottie had poured for her—and said, “To hating life.”
“Nah,” Maisie said. “I’m not drinking to that. I’d prefer to hope my luck will turn around.” She glanced up. “Unlike poor Diego.”
His anthropomorphized smile in the portrait gave her the shivers. She wouldn’t want the painting in her house, staring down at her while she ate her breakfast.
Then Finn passed the table, pausing to look at her as he made an unnecessary summoning gesture to convey he wanted her to follow him into the kitchen. God, he was as subtle as a plane writing messages in the sky. Iris watched him with eyes that missed nothing before glancing back to Maisie to see what she’d do.
“We’re going to go check on the dessert situation,” she said, only to immediately get kind of pissed at herself for offering an explanation to a seventeen-year-old.
Getting Lucky (Asheville Brewing Book 3) Page 8