Rattling the Heat in Deadwood

by Ann Charles

  By the time I returned to the living room after Addy was back to sleep, Doc was passed out as well. Giving up, I grabbed another blanket and made myself comfortable in the recliner for the night.

  This morning, I’d woken to daylight coming through the living room windows and the smell of French toast in the air. After peeking out at the six inches of winter wonderland glistening in the sunlight, I headed for the shower. I heard Addy and Doc talking in the kitchen and smiled as I climbed the stairs, enjoying the warm comforts of Doc in our home.

  Then I remembered who was coming for dinner today and groaned. Too bad my father had a heavy-duty four-wheel drive Blazer with studded snow tires that six inches of snow would barely even slow down.

  Fast forward several hours to me elbow deep in sudsy dishwater as Aunt Zoe worked her magic at the stove. The house was quiet thanks to Doc taking all three kids to the Rec Center to burn off some energy, which I suspected had more to do with getting them out of our hair as we prepared for company. Harvey had headed back to Cooper’s place to shower, shave, and put the finishing touches on the homemade pies he’d made yesterday to bring to the meal. Cooper and Reid had gone to work, leaving Natalie, Zoe, and me to clean and make dinner.

  With an hour until hurricane landfall, aka my parents’ arrival, Doc dropped off the kids. I let the water out of the sink and dried my hands, meeting him in the dining room.

  “How was the Rec Center?” I asked.

  For over a month, Doc had been taking my kids to the Rec Center to do something other than swim and play air hockey. My suspicions were based on my kids’ continual differing stories every time I asked them what they’d done while there. However, Aunt Zoe insisted I keep my big nose out of it and allow Doc the opportunity to make his own memories with my children. I knew she was right, but that didn’t stop me from inquiring whenever they came home.

  Doc gave me a quick peck on the mouth. “We had fun.”

  “Doing what?”

  He grinned. “Rec Centering.”

  I crossed my arms. “You care to elaborate?”

  “Not today, Tiger.” He shook his keys. “I need to go shower and shave at home before your parents arrive.”

  “Hey, Doc, will you do me a favor?” Natalie caught up with us at the door.

  “Sure.”

  “Will you go to my apartment before you come back and bring the two paper bags full of wine and beer that I forgot on the floor by the door? I have some of Violet’s dad’s favorite beer in there.” At his nod, she handed him the key to her place. “Thanks!”

  I went as far as the front porch, taking in the crisp, pine-scented air, deep blue sky, and glittery snow. It was going to be a beautiful day, I told myself. Everything would work out just fine and dandy. Doc would charm my parents. The food would be delicious. Harvey would be on his best behavior. My kids would end up with great memories of another family get-together. I would survive to see another day.

  I looked up at Doc. “I’ll see you soon?”

  “Is that a question?”

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to make a run for it.”

  He took my face in his hands and gave me a soft kiss. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world, Killer. I’ll be back in two shakes.”

  I waved him off, and then marched back inside and started giving orders to the kids to bathe and get spruced up for their grandparents. Natalie trailed up after the kids to oversee the troops.

  Not twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang.

  In my mind, it sounded like the toll of the death knell.

  “They’re early,” I said to Aunt Zoe.

  She tossed me her oven mitt. “Check the roast for me. I’ll get the door.”

  After looking at the roast, I grabbed a bag of fresh lemons and the squeezer from the drawer. I’d sliced and pressed a few lemons when I realized I wasn’t hearing any voices in the dining room or living room. Maybe Aunt Zoe was helping my parents carry food in from the Blazer. It wasn’t like my mother to show up empty-handed for a family meal.

  Two lemon squeezes later, Addy came running into the kitchen. “Hey, Mom?”

  I smiled down at her, noticing her freshly washed hair and clean face. Natalie had done well. “What, honey?”

  “Who’s that man Aunt Zoe is kissing on the front porch?”

  I did a double take. “Kissing?”

  “Yeah, she’s out there without her coat kissing some guy. Grammy always says going out without your coat is a good way to catch a cold.”

  I set the lemon squeezer down on the counter. “Are you sure it’s not Reid?”

  She jammed her hands on her hips. “Don’t you think I’d know it was Reid if I saw him?”

  Maybe not if his face was lip-locked onto Aunt Zoe’s. I wiped my hands on the dishtowel and headed for the door to see for myself. Trying to be discreet, I peeked out the front window next to the door.

  I gasped. “Oh, no!”

  “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  “Never mind.” I pointed at the stairs as I grabbed the door handle. “Go upstairs right now.”

  “But I already—”

  “Right now, Adelynn Renee!”

  As she stomped up the stairs, I yanked open the door and stepped outside on the porch, closing the door behind me.

  “Get your lips off of her, dammit!” I punched Dominick Masterson in the arm.

  A car door slammed somewhere close by, echoing through the cold, crisp air.

  He released Aunt Zoe, holding her steady as she swooned against him. “Hello, Violet.”

  When he looked in my eyes, a wave of nausea rocked me back a couple of steps.

  “What are you doing here?” I grabbed Aunt Zoe’s arm, hauling her from his clutches. “You promised me you wouldn’t come near her.”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “You can’t change your mind! Not about this.”

  “I want Zoe.” He spoke as if it were a fact, pure and simple, and I should not only understand but bow to his will.

  “She’s not a toy, Dominick. You don’t get to just have her because you want her.”

  I heard the front door creak open behind me. “Hey, Vi,” Natalie started.

  Criminy! I didn’t need another female falling under his stupid-cupid spell. I shoved Aunt Zoe toward Natalie. “Take her inside, Nat.”

  “What’s going on? Is that—”

  “Now, Natalie! I’ll explain later.” After the door clicked shut behind me, I faced off with good ol’ slick Dominick. “If you don’t leave my aunt alone, I’m not going to capture your damned lidérc.”

  He adjusted his dashing blue scarf that I’d seen Aunt Zoe tugging free during his kiss. “We made a deal, Scharfrichter.”

  “And you staying clear of my aunt was part of that deal.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since I included it at the restaurant.” I was reaching there, because we hadn’t officially agreed on that stipulation.

  His dark gaze narrowed. “Fine, we can play this your way. However, if you fail to bring me the lidérc, the deal is off and I will return for her.”

  “Hi, honey,” a familiar voice said from the base of the porch steps.

  Mom!

  Oh, hell. Now my parents show up? Their timing couldn’t have been worse.

  I peeked around Dominick’s shoulder. “You’re early.” I gave him a wide berth as I stepped down the stairs Doc had shoveled and salted earlier. It wasn’t wide enough to keep my stomach from cramping for a moment.

  I gave my mother a hug, careful of the bowl of what looked like coleslaw in her hands. She smelled like summer wildflowers, same as always. “You look really pretty with your hair like that,” I said. Her blond hair had strands of various-colored ribbons twirled down through her wavy locks, reminding me of a 1970s record album cover. I envied her lack of crazy curls everywhere.

  She looked toward the porch and frowned. “Where did your friend go?”

  I turned. Dominick was gone. I glan
ced around the yard. Totally gone.

  “Maybe he went inside.” I shot a worried glance at the front door, hoping Aunt Zoe or Natalie hadn’t let him inside. “You look nice in that color of green,” I told her, leading her up the steps. “It matches your eyes.”

  “Thank you. Susan picked it out for me. You know how smart she is when it comes to fashion.”

  Was my mom referring to Susan’s street-hussy summer line of clothing or her pole-dancer fall collection? I pinched my lips together, having promised my father the last time we talked that I would work harder on not fighting with my backstabbing sister in front of my mother.

  “Where is Susan?” I asked, fingers crossed she’d decided to skip coming up here to steal my boyfriend.

  “She drove separately.”

  Damn! Maybe she’d slide off the road and careen over a cliff on the way up to Deadwood. One could hope.

  The door opened as we crested the top step and Natalie stepped out to welcome my mother inside. “Hello, Hippity-Hope. You look smokin’ hot, wild child.”

  “Nat!” My mom loved Natalie as much as me, I swore. Probably more since Natalie didn’t fight with Susan all of the time. She looked Natalie up and down. “And you look as gorgeous as always,” she said and hugged her. “Punched any boys lately?”

  “Only one, but he’s made of steel, so he didn’t even blink.”

  Over Mom’s shoulder, I mouthed to Natalie: Where’s Aunt Zoe?

  Natalie thumbed toward the house.

  I prayed that meant Dominick wasn’t in there with her.

  “Let’s get out of this cold,” Natalie said, leading my mom inside.

  I was following behind them when my dad called my name from around the front of the house. I slipped and slid back down the steps and along the sidewalk in my slippers. He stood at the back door of his Blazer holding out a casserole dish for me to take.

  “Hey, Pops.” I kissed him on the cheek, and then took the dish from him. “When you have your hair longer and wavy like that you remind me of Quint.” Only my father had a solid sprinkling of gray around the temples. He was a tad thinner than my brother, too, especially now that Quint had bulked up some in the muscle department, but Dad still looked as big and strong as when I’d been a little girl riding high in his arms.

  “Where do you think he got his good looks?” he jested, winking at me. His hazel eyes looked yellowish-green in the bright light. He shut the back door of his Blazer. “Your mom likes it better a little longer. She says I look more like the rowdy boys from her younger, hipper days.”

  Ah, my mom, Hope Parker, the flower child. She used to love to put me in headbands and bell-bottoms when I was a kid, even though it wasn’t the style. Every now and then she’d paint a daisy on my cheek, too, and claim I looked “far out.” The things I’d do to make my mom happy back then were bananas.

  “Hey,” Dad said as we neared the porch steps. “Who was that guy your aunt was kissing out here when we pulled up?”

  Shit, he’d seen Dominick’s public display of bewitchment. “That’s just an old friend of hers.”

  An old troublemaker was more like it. I should’ve known Dominick would be back for more. Aunt Zoe was one hell of a catch with her classic, graceful beauty, not to mention her brains and wit. Reid had really messed up when he’d let her go way back when, but I might be a tad biased.

  “That’s some friend.” Dad opened the door for me even though he was balancing three times as many dishes and bowls as me. “He practically had her bent over backward.”

  “How was the drive up?” I asked, changing the subject.

  Inside the house, Dad paused to wipe off his boots and share his load with Layne, who acted as if his britches were full of Mexican jumping beans at the sight of my dad.

  I left the two of them to their usual bonding routine, joining Aunt Zoe in the kitchen. She was doing my job squeezing lemons. I set the casserole dish down on the counter next to her. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, her face set in a frown. “That son of a bitch didn’t even give me a fighting chance.”

  “I warned him off.” I handed her half a lemon. “I told him if he tried messing with you again, I wouldn’t deliver his precious lidérc.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. He countered that if I didn’t deliver the lidérc, he was going to come back for you.”

  She sighed, shaking her head. “I shouldn’t have gone with you yesterday. I got cocky, figuring I could handle it, but I underestimated him.”

  “Both of us did. Trying to keep Dominick under control is like holding a tiger by the tail.”

  “A very sexy tiger,” she added, squeezing the lemon half.

  “With very sharp teeth.”

  “And an amazing mouth.”

  “Aunt Zoe,” I chastised.

  A small grin flitted over her face. “Sorry, but he is as good as his word in that department.”

  Well, he’d apparently had a lot of time to practice. “Better than Reid?” I pressed.

  Her grin faded. “No. Reid still wins, hands down. He has the whole package deal going for him, damn it.”

  Good! I needed to make sure she kept thinking that way.

  “I’m going to figure out a fix,” she told me, grabbing another lemon half. “A way to block Dominick from getting into my head.”

  “That’s the spirit,” I whispered as my dad joined us.

  Layne followed on Dad’s heels, a bounce in his step. For years, my father had been the leading man in Layne’s life. Quint stepped up whenever he was home, but his photojournalist job kept him away a lot. Layne thought my dad was the bee’s knees and wanted to be just like him when he grew up. He’d even used shoe polish to “dye” his sandy blond hair black once, so he’d look more like Dad.

  “Hey, Sis,” Dad said, setting down the dishes and bowls. He came over and joined us at the counter, planting a kiss on Zoe’s temple and then pulling me into a warm hug. “How are my two favorite girls doing? Keeping out of trouble?”

  I soaked up his hug. “You know me, Dad. I’m always extra good.”

  He let me go and walked over to the tray of vegetables sitting on the table. “Sure you are, especially at getting into trouble.” His grin reminded me again of my brother. “Who’s your new boyfriend?” he asked Aunt Zoe.

  “He’s not my boyfriend, Blake. Just someone I met recently who’s extra amorous.”

  “Really?” Dad picked up a carrot, giving me one of his you’re-busted looks. “Violet seemed to think he was an old friend.”

  I shrugged. “What do I know? I try to keep my nose out of Aunt Zoe’s love life.”

  She let out a loud, good-natured guffaw. “You’re hilarious, Violet.”

  “What? I sort of do.”

  “I doubt that.” Dad took a bite of the carrot, crunching on it. “So, when do I meet this doctor of yours?”

  “He’s not a doctor,” I said, licking my suddenly dry lips. “And you need to promise me that you won’t harass him about his long-term plans for me and the kids.”

  “Come on. No harassing?” Smile lines fanned from the corners of his eyes. He moved over to the roast Aunt Zoe was pulling out of the oven, inspecting it over her shoulder. “The whole reason I drove your mother through the snow and ice was to pick on the new guy.”

  “I mean it, Dad. Promise me you’ll—”

  The doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get that,” I told Zoe, giving Dad a poke in the shoulder. “But we’re not finished here.”

  “Whatever you say, Goldilocks.” He reached for a piece of the roast, but Aunt Zoe smacked his hand, laughing as he pinched her in the ribs.

  I headed for the front door, looking up the stairwell. What had Natalie done with my mother? And where were Addy and Kelly? Layne was sitting in the living room, his face glued to the television.

  The doorbell rang two more times as I pulled open the door. “I’m coming. Hold your …” The sight before me made me snarl wit
hout thinking. “And here I’d hoped Satan had called you back to Hell for the holidays.”

  My sister’s smile was so fake it looked plastic. “That hurts, big sis.” Susan fake pouted for a second or two, and then linked her arm in Cornelius’s, who stood next to her in his Abe Lincoln garb while holding out a bouquet of blue and pink dyed Gerber daisies. “Look who I found.” She leaned into him, squishing her perky boob against his shoulder.

  Cornelius gave me his usual crooked smile. “Hello, Violet. Your littermate was waiting for me at the end of the drive.”

  “Of course she was. She’s accustomed to picking up men curbside.” The man-stealing bitch. “When did you get back?”

  “I caught a flight late last night.” He shoved the daisies at me. “This is the day I’m to meet your family, correct?”

  I’d forgotten that Susan had made a point of inviting Cornelius, my pseudo-boyfriend, to dinner. “Uh, yeah, sure.” I stepped back. “Come in.”

  Susan pushed me aside, pulling Cornelius into the foyer after her. She took off her long coat, wearing her usual mini-skirt and thigh-high black boots. Today she’d added a gold sweater that fit like a bathing suit. I rolled my eyes, taking Cornelius’s coat and hat.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he whispered to me when Addy and Kelly came down the stairs and distracted Susan.

  “You’re telling me. Doc is coming today, too.” When he stared at me, I added, “The tall medium.”

  “Oh, that is another issue then. Would you like me to leave?”

  “Of course not. Stay and have dinner with my family. But mum’s the word on me and my abilities.”

  “Which abilities would those be?”

  I smirked. “The breathing fire and tightrope walking ones.”

  “Ah. You’re referring to your occupation in real estate.”

  I opened my mouth to correct him and then closed it. That did sort of describe me at work, especially with Jerry putting up those damned billboards left and right.

  He straightened his sleeves. “That was a joke, Violet.”