by Jayne Blue
I wiped a hand over my face. I peered at Charlotte through two fingers. All the color drained from her face and she froze with her back against the headboard and the sheets drawn up to her chin. I looked down. I had on a pair of boxers so I slid out of bed and went for Janet. My head throbbed and my back stiffened, but I was pretty much at full strength.
“Janet,” I said. “Would you mind waiting outside?”
“Would you mind not being a shithead and introducing me to your friend?”
Charlotte made a little squeak and I realized Janet was right, as usual. I was a shithead. I stood between Janet and the end of the bed. I put a hand on Janet’s shoulder and thrust the other one toward Charlotte.
“Janet, this is Charlotte Marek. Charlotte, this is my sister-in-law Janet. She was just leaving.”
Janet didn’t miss a trick. She raised a ruddy brow and threw her head back. “Marek,” she said through tight lips. “Charlotte Marek. As in …”
“I’m fine,” I said, trying to head her off. “Thanks for stopping to check in on me. I took a flight of stairs the hard way and threw out my back.”
“Hmm. Not badly, I take it.” Janet said the last bit through a tight-lipped whisper, but she plastered a smile on her face and had the good graces to at least look a little embarrassed.
“I’ll call you later this afternoon,” I assured her.
“Oh, uh ... you won’t have to. Joey’s on his way. Patrick and Laurie are already setting up in the kitchen. I made your favorite: potato soup.”
My cheeks flamed at the same time my traitorous stomach growled. Janet heard it and her face broke into a smile.
“Well,” she said, looking at Charlotte. “Sorry for the intrusion, but there’s plenty. I’m sure you’re both starving. Good to meet you.”
Charlotte’s mouth dropped open and she lifted a hand from beneath the covers. She wagged her fingers at Janet and forced a smile. “Er ... likewise. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Hmmph.” Janet eyed me again and gave me a firm slap on the chest with the back of her hand. Then she crossed her arms again and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
I turned to Charlotte. She buried her face in her hands. Putting a hand on my back for support I went to her and sank down on the bed. “Shit,” I said.
She looked up. “Indeed. So Janet. Joey’s wife, I take it?”
“Uh ... yeah. My oldest brother.”
“I gathered that part.”
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t think to call them. I wasn’t thinking very well at all last night.”
Charlotte’s face fell and I wanted to kick myself. I reached for her and lifted her chin with my finger. “That’s not what I meant. I just meant it’s a small-ass town and I come from a big-ass family. It was only a matter of time before my whole shit show swooped in. It’s my fault for not calling them first.”
Charlotte closed her fingers around my wrist and pulled it away from her face. “I’ve really made a mess of things.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I never should have shown up like I did. It’s just when I heard that scanner and … ugh.”
I shouldn’t have done it, but I laughed. It was so hard not to. A deep line of worry creased her brow and her cheeks flushed. It took everything in me not to kiss her. She was damn sexy like this. But she didn’t find my humor the least bit amusing. She slugged my shoulder.
“I need to get out of here. I’m not ready to face … er ... what did you call it? Your whole shit show?”
I scratched the stubble on my chin and nodded. “Yeah. Right. Just ... uh ... give me a few minutes. I’ll get rid of them.”
Charlotte gave me a sideways glance, questioning my ability to deliver on my promise. Hell, I doubted it myself. Janet, as Charlotte was already starting to find out, was a bit of a force of nature. She’d had to be to keep my brother Joe Jr. in line. To some degree, she’d kind of done it with the rest of us too.
Leaning forward, I put a kiss on Charlotte’s forehead in an attempt to smooth away her worry lines. Charlotte drew in a sharp breath and desire shot through me. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Charlotte must have sensed my thoughts. She gave me a light shove and I pulled myself away from her. Every muscle in my body felt stiff, but I pulled on a fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt.
Charlotte’s clothes were strewn all over the floor. I put a hand over my face when I realized her skirt and torn underwear were probably still in the front room. When I looked back, Charlotte was just figuring that out for herself.
“Give me five minutes,” I held up my hand. “Just ... just wait here. I’ll handle everything.”
She gave me well-earned, dubious look just before I closed my bedroom door and headed out to the kitchen firing squad.
The thick aroma of boiling potatoes and garlic hit my nose. My stomach flipped and my mouth watered. I figured that was probably a good sign where my health was concerned. That is, if I could make it through the next twenty minutes without the women in my life trying to kill me.
Janet stood in front of the stove wielding a long wooden spoon around in her gleaming stewpot nearly as large as a witch’s cauldron. Steam wafted around her head as she turned her arm. For an instant, I could believe Janet Killian did practice a kind of witchcraft. The heavenly smell of potato soup drew me in and made me forgive her intrusion.
That lasted all of five seconds until she caught my eye. She set her jaw and grabbed the towel off her shoulder. Before I could dodge, she flicked me in the ass with it and pointed the business end of her spoon at me like a weapon. I didn’t doubt for a second she possessed the skills to do murder with the thing.
“Marek?!” she whisper-shouted. “Are you kidding me? As in brand-spanking-new Chief of Police, Marek?”
My brothers Joe and Patrick sat at my kitchen table. When I looked to them for help, they put their heads down. Joey sipped a beer that he’d taken from my fridge. Traitors. My basement door opened over Janet’s other shoulder and Laurie, Patrick’s wife, came up carrying a bucket and a mop. She froze when she caught Janet’s tone of voice.
“It’s not what you think,” I said and realized how lame that sounded. But it was all I had.
“What’s going on?” Laurie said. She set the bucket down and put her hands on her hips. She moved closer to Janet. The two of them were polar opposites. Janet was brash with the flaming red hair of her County Cork ancestry and the temper to match. Laurie was quiet and demure. A natural blonde, she had fine-boned features and tiny hands.
Janet wielded her spoon again, pointing it at me. “Benny here brought a girl home last night.”
“Janet,” Laurie said in her soothing soprano voice. “How’s that any of our business?”
“Because she’s still here and she’s the new boss’s daughter.”
I sank into an empty chair at my kitchen table. Joe gave me a shrug and popped a potato chip into his mouth, something else he’d raided from my pantry. Laurie didn’t react. She just moved around Janet and opened my cupboard to pull out the soup bowls. It was the Killian family solution to every problem. We ate. Come to think of it, there wasn’t much drama a good meal couldn’t diffuse.
“You just gonna leave her in there?” Janet asked.
“What do you mean?”
Janet wiped her hands on her towel and tossed it to the counter. She turned to me and put her hands on her hips. “That girl in there: were you thinking she was going to slink away into the fog or were you planning on giving her some dignity, not to mention her clothes back? For the life of me, Benny, you make no sense.”
“Well, I was kind of hoping the lot of you would clear out so I could deal with this without an audience.”
Patrick snorted a laugh. Laurie came to him and put her gentle hands on his shoulders.
“Fine, I’ll be blunt,” Janet said. That got a laugh from me. Joey stared down the neck of his beer bottle.
I heard a crash from down in the ba
sement then thundering footsteps. Laurie gave me a sheepish smile and moved around Patrick. “I’ll send the little beasts outside.”
I wiped my hand over my face again. When I told Charlotte my shit show had arrived, I hadn’t realized how much of it. Laurie yelled down to the basement and sixteen feet clamored up the stairs. She opened the back door to herd her five kids and Janet’s three straight out into the yard. They ranged in age from sixteen to four, six boys and two girls.
“Hey, Uncle Ben!” they shouted one by one. I waved as they thundered by and couldn’t help but smile as I heard their joyful yelping as the oldest, Joey the third, promised to untangle the tire swing.
Once the kids were out of the way, Janet sank into the chair next to me and put her hand on my arm. “Benny, are you serious about this girl?”
My shoulders dropped and I looked toward my brothers for help. The cowards wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“I just met her,” I answered. Looking back down the hallway, I tried to see if Charlotte had emerged. My bedroom door was still shut and a sliver of light flickered beneath it.
“Well,” Janet said. “You know you can’t deal with this the way you normally do.”
“Excuse me?”
Joey and Patrick both stifled a laugh into their hands and I wanted to murder them where they sat.
“I mean”—Janet lowered her voice again—“go in there and invite this girl to lunch with us. Now.”
“I’d love nothing more,” Charlotte said. It seemed she had some magic of her own, because she practically materialized in front of me. She looked adorable with her hair pulled back, her face scrubbed clean of makeup and wearing my gray Ohio State University sweatshirt. But my heart filled with lead when I realized the jeans she wore weren’t mine. She must have found them in the back of my closet along with a collection of other clothing items past girlfriends had left here over the years. She gave me a wide smile and reached across the table to shake Joey’s hand.
“Charlotte Marek,” she said. “I’m a friend of your brother’s.”
Joey’s mouth dropped open. He looked just like my dad then, with his wide-eyed stare and twinkling blue eyes under heavy black eyebrows. He shook her hand and she moved to Patrick.
“Patrick,” he said. Patrick was the biggest of the five of us at nearly six foot six. He had a barrel chest and a deep baritone. But his warm blue eyes crinkled at the corners as he gave Charlotte a big smile.
“Can I help you ladies with anything?” she said. “I can whip together a mean salad if Ben has anything green in his fridge that’s supposed to be.”
Janet and Laurie laughed with her at my expense. Laurie shot Charlotte a conspiratorial wink while Janet threw her arm around her and led her deeper into the kitchen. It was a nice gesture, but Charlotte was about to find out the only thing true Irishmen ate with their potato soup was beer.
After that, I had no chance to talk to Charlotte alone. The Killian Collective practically swallowed her. But Charlotte held her own. She fired back when Joe told off-color jokes and laughed when Janet tried to brain him with a spoon for doing it in front of the kids.
When we finished eating, I tried to get her alone and give her an out if she wanted it, but Tabitha, my six-year-old niece, wouldn’t hear of it. She was Patrick’s daughter and had a mass of black curls that wouldn’t stay put. She climbed on my lap and thrust a book in my hands. It was Beauty and the Beast and she loved how I did the voices. Before I could protest, I realized I had a bigger audience than Tabitha. Her twin sister Tamera pushed her way onto my other knee.
Charlotte stood leaning against the wall near the kitchen. She tilted her head and gave me a big smile, ready to enjoy the show. “Come on over,” I said. “You can do the princess voice.”
“Oh no, I’d pay admission to hear you do it.”
“Yeah, Uncle Ben. You’re funny when you do it. Do it. Please?” Tabby looked up with me and her nose started to run. She wiped it on her sleeve.
“How can I argue with that,” I said and started in.
I got an unlikely rescuer in Janet. She snaked an arm around Charlotte’s shoulder and drew her back into the kitchen. “So, you’re an accountant? You mind if I pick your brain?”
I shrugged when Charlotte looked back at me and mouthed “You’re on your own” to her. She made a gun with her hand and shot me, but went willingly with Janet, leaving me to once upon a time in a fairytale land far, far, away.
Tabby and Tammy had heavy lids by the time I finished and sunlight faded from my bay window. I slid the girls off my lap and let them curl up on either end of the couch. I found Charlotte still in the kitchen. She looked up and gave me a genuine smile when I walked in.
“Oh heavens,” Janet said. “I didn’t mean to steal your girl so long.”
“I don’t mind,” Charlotte said, but she yawned. “But I really do have to get going. It was lovely to meet you and thank you so much for the soup. It was delicious.”
“Anytime,” Janet said. She set her chin in her palm and finally let me lead Charlotte away.
I walked her out to the driveway and turned to her, not knowing what to expect now that I had her alone.
“I’m sorry,” I said simply. “I know they’re all just, uh, too much sometimes. And this is only half of them.”
“Right,” Charlotte said. “There’s still Father Ian and Mike the plumber. Janet told me all about them today too.”
I dropped my head. “God. I really am sorry. They did a number on you. It’s my fault.”
Charlotte put her hand on my chest. “No, really. I enjoyed them all. Plus, Janet’s got me roped into coming to the office later in the week to look over the books for the landscaping business. She thinks their current accountant has been cooking them and Joey’s too soft to call him on it.”
I winced and drew her to me. Her head fit just in the hollow of my chest and I kissed the top of it. She smelled clean and sweet with the hint of Janet’s cooking lingering in her hair. “You don’t have to do that,” I said.
She took a step back and smiled. I don’t know what I did. If I gave a look or if there was just something inside of her that made her face fall. Whatever it was, I wanted nothing more than to kiss her right there in front of all my nosey neighbors and half my family who I knew were probably watching from the bay window.
“I know,” Charlotte finally answered. “But she offered to pay me. It’s not personal, it’s business. I’ll see you around, Officer.” She gave me a little salute and took a halting step backward.
I should have said something. I knew it. But something stopped me. Maybe it was all those prying eyes. This was uncharted territory for me and I didn’t want to screw it up. I hated myself at that moment. I couldn’t give Charlotte what I knew she deserved. She tilted her head to the side and gave me a questioning look. Then she climbed into her car and drove away.
Chapter Eleven
Charlotte
Later that week, when my father came over for dinner, things felt a little quiet and lonely. It had always been like this for us. All growing up, my time with Dad happened just a few weekends a year and for two weeks over the summer. I cooked his favorite, a spiral ham and mashed potatoes. But we ate in comfortable silence. I wondered what it would have been like if my parents had stayed together. Would they have had more children? Would we have had a bustling house filled with laughter and swearing like I imagined Ben’s had been growing up?
“What’s going on in there?” Dad said. He used his fork to point at my forehead.
I thought about telling him. I stopped myself because I didn’t even know if I had anything to tell. I couldn’t define Ben and was too afraid to try. The truth was, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. He’d called me twice after that day at his house. Both times he wanted to take me out and both times I’d found a reason to say no.
“Nothing major,” I said. “Just thinking about work. I’m sorry. I know that’s breaking a dinner rule.”
My father’s
belly laugh warmed me. He had deep folds on either side of his mouth and worry lines furrowed his brow. “That’s your mother talking. She who’s never had a job a day in her life.”
“She always said you were her job.”
Dad swallowed a mouthful of food and considered my words. “I suppose I was. Does she still bitch about me?”
“Not overmuch. I think she’s been happy, for the most part.” Dad twirled his fork in his mashed potatoes, then set it on the side of his plate.
“That’s all I ever wanted. I just wasn’t the one to give it to her.”
His face darkened and I regretted even saying anything. “She just wasn’t cut out to be married to a cop.”
“Yep. I was already on the job when we met. I’ll have you know I did warn her. The sleepless nights, the worry. She was always afraid when the phone rang after dark, even when I was in the next room. It was sort of a conditioned response. It’s a hard life for a woman ... or a man, I guess. A partner.”
I laughed and put a hand on his wrist. “Easy there. Your political correctness and social evolution are much appreciated and duly noted.”
He smiled broadly. “See? Who says old white guys like me can’t change.”
“Certainly not me.”
“Well, she did the right thing. Lilly, I mean. This isn’t the life for her and it wasn’t the life for you. It still isn’t. I’m proud of you. You’ve got a real job in a real office with people who respect you.”
My heart flipped. “What are you talking about, real job. What you do is a million times more important. I just count.”
Dad reached over and grabbed my empty plate. He stacked it with his and rose. “I mean a clean job. You don’t have to wallow in the dregs of life like I had to. Why you wanted to come out here with me I’ll never understand. But I’ll never stop appreciating it.”
He went to the sink and sprayed the plates clean before loading them into my dishwasher. I went to the fridge and pulled out the bottle of wine I had chilling. I poured us each a glass and handed one to him. We clinked rims and I put my arm around him. “You’re not so bad for an old curmudgeon.”