2 Days 'Til Sundae (2 'Til Series Book 1)

by Heather Muzik

  She dropped into one of the chairs at the table and fingered the plane tickets, one for each of them—theirs were open-ended (the big spenders) and her departure time was days ago. She had planned to give it one more try today before getting on a plane this afternoon, but the unexpected and all too real cross with Joel Trager this morning—one during which she was unprepared and unsteady—was certainly not ideal. She’d already screwed up her intentions to turn around and be civil and sweet and normal for a change in the hope that such a move would put him back on his heels and unnerve him in a good way—a way that gained her Caramellie. As things had been left, she would need more time to come up with something brilliant after the rhetoric at Home Depot had only stoked the flames of disgust and aggravation between them, and considering the flight scheduling limitations, that would mean another night here. Right about now she was feeling awfully homesick for the assholes on the streets of New York who pissed her off generally rather than personally. It was dog-eat-dog in the city, but here it was Fynn-eats-Catherine Hemmings—seeing as how Catherine Marie hadn’t been heard from in days.

  At the very least, she could check flight availabilities for this afternoon and tomorrow and see what they were looking at. If there was a flight in four hours, maybe they could pull off a smash-and-grab and get out of the state before they were caught. Or if they couldn’t make the last direct flight today, they could plan a more subversive move—turn her lawyer into a hooker and sex the toy out from under him. Tara would certainly take one for the team—she’d probably do it just for shits and giggles, come to think of it.

  She grabbed her purse and looked inside for her phone but came up empty. She scoured the surfaces of the furniture and was about to get down on her hands and knees and search the floor when she heard Georgia’s voice outside the window.

  “I hear you. No, I’ll pass it along. No problem, Connor.”

  Catherine was at the door in a shot, swinging it open to find the startled visage of her best friend on the other side.

  “Uh, wait a second, she’s right here.” Georgia guiltily handed her phone over, shrugging her shoulders to say it wasn’t her fault.

  She covered the mouthpiece and whispered viciously, “What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing,” Georgia whispered back.

  “How did you get my phone anyway?”

  “You left it here.”

  “But why did you answer it?”

  “Because I thought it might be you telling us where the hell you went!” Georgia answered righteously.

  Catherine put the phone to her ear and walked by her friend, trying to calm her beating heart and find a voice that made life on her end sound normal.

  “Connor!”

  “Hey sis, what you up to?”

  “Not much, just livin’ the dream,” she joked casually.

  “Why’d Georgia answer your phone? Aren’t you at work?”

  “Nah, I took the day,” she said. When he didn’t reply, she filled the pause with a tasty morsel that she figured would explain a day off. “Georgia’s pregnant, did she tell you?”

  “Wow, no,” he choked out.

  “I wanted to celebrate the news so I took the day off to hang out with her in the city.”

  “Sounds great.” His words were congenial but his tone was total disinterest, like he feared she would start in on a play-by-play about shopping and gossip—girl talk was painful to men’s ears, like a high-pitched whistle to dogs. “I’ve been trying to reach you,” he added before she shared any more.

  “You haven’t left any messages,” she pointed out.

  “I was calling you at your apartment, where I have left several messages,” he countered.

  “Oh… well, I… I….” she stammered, searching. “My voice mail service has been acting up. I’ll have to look into it. And you know you can always reach me on my cell.”

  “Anyway, I wanted to let you know—”

  “About this weekend?” Catherine offered.

  “Yeah. I invited Mom and Dad—”

  “I already know, you little shit.”

  “Come on. It isn’t that bad.”

  “For you maybe. That was dirty, setting this up to force me out.”

  “This has nothing to do with me asking you to meet Lacey and me for dinner the other night.”

  “Yeah right.”

  “Seriously. This just came up.”

  She used silence to assure him she didn’t believe it.

  “I swear I didn’t plan this,” Connor stressed.

  “Listen, I’ll try to be there.”

  “You have to come.”

  “Oh yeah, for your big announcement.” The air quotes on her end were wasted.

  “It isn’t that big.”

  “Well Mom certainly thinks it is. When she finds out that you guys aren’t announcing an end to the ban on children….” She shuddered audibly.

  There was a loaded pause on the other end.

  “Holy shit!” she exclaimed. “You’re having a baby?” The words came from miles away just to get from her mouth to her own ears. She looked out at the lake, her go-to spot these days to commune with nature and her cell phone.

  “Not me actually,” he snickered nervously.

  But she ignored his joke completely. “You just told me… what, two days ago… two fucking days ago you were so certain—”

  “And then yesterday my dear wife told me that fate or God or whatever intervened,” he said, in disbelief as well. She could imagine him rubbing his hands through his thinning hair.

  “You might want to stop that or you’ll be bald by the time you’re a father,” she cautioned.

  “I’m going to be a dad… and you’re going to be an aunt. It’s unbelievable isn’t it?” He was most definitely not upset, she noted—even a little hyper.

  “So now you’re really going to be the golden boy. You’re giving Mom exactly what she most pines for, and I’m still the schlep with nothing to offer.” She was unable to stop the drop of envy that coated her words.

  “Oh come on. It isn’t like that and you know it.”

  “It’s very much like that, Connor. Why couldn’t you have slipped one past the goalie a little earlier… or later? But now?”

  “You know I wasn’t planning for this.”

  “I know,” she said begrudgingly. “But dammit, now I’m surrounded by married pregnant people.”

  “And someday you too can get knocked up… maybe even out of wedlock. Mom would love to share that with all her friends.”

  “Shut up!” she squealed.

  “I really wanted to let you know before this weekend because I didn’t want you going in there blind. I know this is hard for you.”

  “I’m more worried about you right now,” she admitted.

  “I think that this news has just catapulted me into maturity. Maybe I was still that scared little kid somewhere deep inside; now I need to be a man. A man with a child on the way.”

  “I’m proud of you, kid,” she said seriously.

  “That means a lot.”

  “By the way, any clue what the parents’ announcement is going to be?” she asked hopefully.

  “They have an announcement?”

  “Mom said so.”

  “Maybe it’s about the move.”

  “I don’t know. I’m afraid secrets are about to come out.”

  “What kind of secrets could William and Elizabeth Hemmings possibly have?”

  “They could be illegal aliens,” she said seriously, “from Canada.”

  “You still hung up on that? It was just a flag, Cat—not even a big one. Besides, what would that matter?”

  “Nothing to you, golden boy; I was worried about me.”

  -34-

  “So what’s the next step?” Tara asked, pulling a T-shirt over her still-dripping hair.

  “I give up,” Catherine said, defeated. She was languishing in mind and body, flopped across the bed. She had tried this Caramellie rescue ei
ght ways to sundae and nothing worked. They couldn’t even steal something right. And now Lacey was going to have a baby—sayonara to favorite daughter status, the outlaw was about to eclipse her on the list. And there was Georgia, having a baby too. All while she was in the middle of nowhere in her life and time, with a barren womb and no prospects.

  “Earth to Catherine,” Georgia said, her hands cupped around her mouth for that megaphone quality.

  “What?”

  “I asked what happened on the phone. You’ve been a zombie ever since.”

  She hadn’t even heard Georgia speak. Her own thoughts were too damn loud.

  “It was just Connor being Connor,” she said, brushing it off so the envy didn’t come out and make her look worse than she felt.

  “It sounded like Connor on speed to me,” Georgia said, leveling her with a truth-telling gaze.

  “Lacey’s pregnant,” she admitted begrudgingly. “It seems I’m going to be an aunt.”

  “Seriously?” Georgia’s green eyes spread wide, like huge emeralds in milky white skin that was dotted with the tiniest freckles. “I thought you said—”

  “I guess someone in more control had different plans,” she said tightly.

  “Lacey got herself knocked up on purpose?” Tara asked.

  “I was talking about the man upstairs.” Catherine pointed toward the ceiling.

  “She was doing the guy upstairs behind your brother’s back?”

  “It’s God, genius. She’s talking about God.” Georgia shot her a look that went beyond questioning her intelligence to questioning the wisdom of raising children in Jersey schools—Tara being her prime example of a graduate. “So that’s what the special family dinner is all about?” she asked, dismissing Tara and turning back to Catherine.

  “Yup.”

  “That sucks,” Georgia commiserated. “Can’t compete with that kind of news.”

  “Yeah, somehow your womb’s success isn’t going to be quite enough to put me over the top.”

  “Sorry,” Georgia said with a grin. “I tried my best.”

  “Okay, enough pregnancy talk. I’m afraid you guys will make me ovulate, and I’m not about to get knocked up right now,” Tara said seriously. “I’ve got a lot more fun to have and dudes to do before I settle down.”

  They both looked at her for a second and burst out laughing.

  “What? I’m totally serious. I like my life the way it is, thank you.”

  “As long as you’re happy in the sluthouse, who are we to judge?” Georgia agreed.

  “Like you never enjoyed the company of men other than Thomas?”

  “Not nearly so many or so often,” she pointed out, her tone light and unfettered.

  “Whatever,” Tara said. “Let’s get down to the real business here. What the hell is the next step?” She turned her attention to Catherine again.

  “Nothing—God, I don’t know,” she groaned helplessly. “I ran into him again this morning. The guy is friggin’ everywhere. And all I ever do is put my foot in my mouth or kick myself in the ass or show him my nipples or fall flat on my face whenever I’m around him. I just can’t figure out what I’m supposed to say to change his mind.”

  Georgia and Tara looked at each other knowingly.

  “And after last night, I’m afraid our criminal days are behind us. At least they should be,” Catherine added.

  “But I was just gearing up to take another swing!” Tara protested.

  “We can’t afford another swing. He’ll know it’s coming,” Catherine said definitively.

  “But what if he assumes we can’t possibly be that stupid? Then he won’t be on guard, right? And if he isn’t on guard, then we should be that stupid and try again,” Tara reasoned.

  “This is like playing a live-action game of rock-paper-scissors,” Georgia grumbled.

  “All I know is that he was just as ornery as usual this morning.”

  “But no more ornery?” Tara verified.

  “Well, no… but that doesn’t really mean—”

  “It means everything. If we didn’t really piss him off with what we did last night, why not take one last try? We can grab the dollhouse and be up in the air by tomorrow afternoon. Heck, we can hop in our getaway cars and drive out of here tonight and be done with it if you want.”

  Georgia and Catherine looked at each other, weighing the options—the car had been plugged in all night, she just might make it across the state line. And Georgia’s car could go for miles and miles on a full tank of gas.

  “The problem is that the May-gnificent festival starts tonight in town,” Catherine said. “Drew told me about it this morning at breakfast.”

  “You went out for breakfast without us?” Georgia exclaimed. “I ate junk food here while you had a hot meal? With Fynn’s sister?”

  “Stay focused, Georgia,” Tara reprimanded. Then she turned to Catherine. “What is this festival of which you speak? Sounds like the perfect cover.”

  “First of all, a cover is more like a fake identity,” Catherine noted.

  “Terms—shmerms. I’m just saying that a town festival means the townspeople will be at it. Sounds like the perfect time for a little robbery.” Tara’s eyes were alight with mischief.

  “But what I was trying to say was that Joel Trager won’t be at the festival. Drew said he doesn’t go to those things. Avoids them like the plague.”

  Tara hardly skipped a beat. “Then we will go to the festival and talk to Drew. Maybe we need some additional men on the team. Maybe she’d be willing to help out. She’ll be there, right?”

  “Yeah,” Catherine admitted.

  “She’s his sister. Why would she help us?” Georgia asked plainly, her expression still wounded from the affront of a missed meal.

  “Because she’s his sister,” Tara reiterated, stressing what she felt was the operative term.

  They both stared at her blankly.

  “I know I’m not the only one with siblings here. Don’t you get it?”

  “No,” they said in unison. “Jinx, you owe me a coke,” they added in unison again, dissolving in giggles.

  “People!” Tara bellowed, stopping them short. “Now how did you end up dining with Drew this morning?” Her voice was full of refinement and poise.

  “She wanted to talk—apologize for her brother—for the confusion—”

  “BINGO!” Tara said. “She’s ripe for the picking.”

  “So when’s lunch?” Georgia asked, licking her lips, as if that finalized the matter. “You’re taking me out.” She pointed at Catherine. “You owe me one.”

  “Us,” Tara chimed in.

  -35-

  “Come on, Catherine; get out of the car….” Georgia coaxed, like she was trying to lure a puppy close for a pet—

  But this puppy knew it was actually about to be leashed and dragged somewhere awful like the vet, so she sat stubbornly in the backseat of the car.

  “I have the keys; it’s not like you can go anywhere,” she taunted, rattling the metal ring in her hand.

  Catherine was unfazed; being left in the parked car was just fine by her. They didn’t even have to crack a window.

  “Stop being such a brat and get over here,” Georgia finally snapped.

  “I just want to get some sleep,” she said weakly. She could hear obvious sounds of merriment nearby and she wasn’t in the mood to go there. She wanted to sulk and mope and crawl into a hole to live there for the rest of her life. “I’ll stay here and close my eyes for a while and catch up with you later.”

  “Like I believe you for a second.”

  “Seriously, last night is catching up to me. Your snoring and her watching porn all night.” She motioned toward Tara.

  “And the alcohol.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Catherine mocked.

  “That’s it, so help me Catherine Marie I will tan your hide right here and now if you don’t get your ass out of the car,” Georgia growled through gritted teeth.

  “Nic
e one, Mom,” Tara laughed. “Though you might want to chill with the swear words when you’re dealing with your children.”

  “Don’t get me started on you.” Georgia gave her the evil eye. “You’re not helping.”

  “Oh, come on—” Tara whined.

  “Zip it.”

  Tara stepped to attention, a reflex action to mom-speak, but quickly started making faces at Catherine behind Georgia’s back.

  “Get over here right now,” Georgia growled at Catherine. “And don’t think I can’t see what you’re doing, Tara,” she added with a sigh.

  “Wow! Do moms automatically grow eyes back there upon conception?”

  “Yeah, smart-ass,” Georgia spat.

  Catherine slipped out of the car, holding her hands protectively behind her like she was shielding her backside from a spank. She hadn’t gotten spanked in decades, and yet the reaction to Georgia’s tone was immediate and visceral.

  “Good. Now we’re all going to have some nice Nekoyah fun at the May-gnificent festival… if it kills us,” Georgia said purposefully.

  Walking three abreast, they headed toward the commotion on Main Street. There were booths of crafts, and vendors of food, and games for prizes, and contests for glory. It was all the standard fair of any small-town festival or carnival.

  “Do you see Drew anywhere?” Tara asked, impatient to start working on her latest scheme to commandeer Fynn’s sister for the dark side.

  “Do you really need me for this?” Catherine moaned, feeling much less certain of the plan now that they were actually here, and she hadn’t had the highest hopes in the first place.

  “If you don’t want to do this, then why the hell should we do it?” Tara pointed out. “Shit, if I was doing this for myself I’d just sleep with him to get what I want. Ever think of doing that? It would solve everything—you’d probably get the key to the city for turning Joel Trager’s frown upside down and de-scrooging him. Come to think of it, if you need me to—”

  “No,” she said quickly. Tara screwing Fynn turned her stomach—not even for want of her Caramellie could she live with that image. He was off-limits. He could be the profiteer in a business deal or victim of a crime—not Tara’s bedfellow; not for anything.