Mistletoe in Mayhem (Whiskey Sisters)

by L. E. Rico

  Now, he nods in response to my question.

  “She has. I’m surprised Jameson hasn’t discussed it with you.”

  “Dude, you should know that when it comes to Jackson, it’s just the two of you. I love the little guy with everything I’ve got—but I know you’re his daddy, and I would never get involved with the parenting decisions you and Jameson make.”

  My brother considers me for a few beats. He doesn’t look particularly surprised, but he does look particularly thoughtful.

  “I appreciate that, Scott. Really.”

  I nod my appreciation of his appreciation and leave it there—not wanting to make too much of it.

  “Anyway,” he continues, “Myra has a son who’s a year older than Jax. She suggested we take them to that street fair they have up in Duluth. The kids hit it off right away. James actually went to high school with Myra…”

  “Oh, right—that she did mention. In fact, James seemed to have a very good opinion of Myra…”

  “Yeah, well, Jameson did manage to point out that she was proud of me for seeing an age-appropriate woman.”

  I snort.

  “Sounds like her. But I can’t say she’s wrong…”

  He holds up a palm to stop me from lecturing. “I know, I know. Seriously, no more coeds for me. Not worth the hassle. Or the drama. Besides…it’s kind of nice, you know, to be with a grown-up again. Someone who gets the whole kid thing. Because, believe me, you don’t realize how demanding, all-consuming, and—frankly—terrifying it is to become a parent.”

  My turn to hold up hands.

  “You don’t have to tell me, Win. I see what you guys go through with Jackson.”

  “Anyway, so…uh…how are the wedding plans coming along? Set a new date yet?” he asks, echoing the same tentative tone I employed when broaching the subject of Myra.

  “Um, yeah…Father Romance seems to think we can move it out a few weeks. There’s a spot in September, and Doc Douglas says he’ll sign off on Hennessy being a maid of honor so long as she does the strict bedrest between now and then—and agrees to roll down the aisle in a wheelchair.”

  He nods. “Yeah. That’s good. James has always wanted that church wedding. But I wasn’t into it, so we got married outside. In the middle of summer. Jeez, I thought I was going to melt.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” The words are out of my mouth before I can even think about what it is that I’m saying. I don’t wish I’d been there. Because I know, without a doubt, that I’d have fallen in love with Jameson the second I laid eyes on her. And, well, let’s just say that one of us would’ve been very unhappy. And I know, as sure as I know the sun will come up tomorrow morning, that it wouldn’t have been me.

  I shake my head as if there’s a pesky gnat circling me.

  Win smiles, reading my mind.

  “I think we both know things would be very, very different right now if you had been there,” he says—again without a hint of sarcasm.

  And suddenly there’s something I need to ask him.

  “Win, you’ll come, won’t you? To the wedding, I mean? I know it’ll be kinda weird, and if you don’t want to, I’ll totally understand…”

  “No…I think I’d like that,” he says quietly, suddenly, busying himself with plucking some non-existent lint from his slacks. “Do you…would it be okay, maybe, if I—”

  “Brought Myra?” I supply before he can stumble and bumble too long. “Yeah. I mean, you know, I’ll have to get the Jameson seal of approval, but I’m pretty sure she’ll be okay with that.”

  He nods. “Yeah, James is pretty great that way. I’ve been such an ass to her, and she…she still cares about me, that I’m happy…”

  “Well, she loved you enough to marry you, Win. She’s not the kind of person who can just turn her feelings on and off. Though sometimes I wish she could at least dial them back a little. Now with Henny on bedrest, she’s like a mad woman running around and helping Bryan get things ready for the twins, planning a baby shower, she’s even going to interview their nanny candidates! Anyway, all that plus the extra shifts at the hospital, chasing Jackson around all day, picking up the slack at the bar… It’s a lot. And then there are the cookies—”

  Win’s face creases with concern, as if I just told him there may or may not be a bomb strapped to my chest under the Project Peace t-shirt I’m wearing.

  “Cookies? What cookies?” he asks sharply.

  The unexpected flip in tone makes me laugh.

  “Dude, they’re just cookies!”

  “They weren’t…oatmeal raisin by any chance?” he asks, still looking way too serious for a conversation involving baked goods.

  I shrug. “Yeah, actually, they were. She said Henny mentioned them, and ever since, she’s…how did she put it? She’s ‘had a hankering’ for them. Though how she’s finding the time to bake them almost every day is more than I can figure out.”

  Win looks genuinely worried now. Enough so that I realize he’s not overreacting or pulling my leg. All at once, I know. I know that he knows something I don’t.

  “What? What the hell is it?” I demand, sitting up straight and leaning across the table toward him.

  I have a bad, bad feeling about whatever it is that’s going to come out of his mouth next.

  My brother starts to say something, then stops. He closes his eyes for a long moment, takes a deep breath, and tries again.

  “Scott…is it…possible…that James is…that she might maybe, possibly…be pregnant?”

  The word explodes through my head like the aftershock of a nearby blast. The kind that you see in the adventure movies. The kind that sends the fleeing good guys flying through the air, leaving them with ringing ears, blurry vision, and scrambled eggs for brains. All symptoms that I, coincidentally, possess at this very moment.

  “P-pregnant?” I echo shakily, scouring his face for any sign of a joke.

  But there aren’t any signs of anything but sincerity.

  “When we were expecting Jackson, Jameson was baking around the clock. Oatmeal raisin cookies. Then, when the baby came, she just…stopped. Never baked them again. Never bought them or ate them again. It was the only craving she ever had. Come to think of it, it was the only ‘symptom’ she had that she was pregnant…”

  There it is again, that “P” word, and it has just as big of an impact the second time he utters it. I really wish he’d stop saying it…

  I shake my head, falling into the comforting arms of denial.

  “Nah…” I mutter, trying desperately to sound normal. “We’d know. She’d know. And she’d have told me if she were,” I reason, more for myself than for my brother.

  But Win isn’t convinced.

  “You said she’s been extra tired, right…?”

  I nod distractedly.

  “And has she been especially…emotional?”

  I think of the baby who died. But that was perfectly understandable. Who wouldn’t have cried about something like that?

  “Um, a little, I suppose…”

  My brother reaches out across the table and grabs my forearm. Hard.

  “Scott, I think maybe you should go home.”

  “Yeah…”

  I don’t move.

  “Like now, Scott,” Win says firmly.

  I’m nodding as I get up and somehow manage to stagger out of his office and down the hall—just in time to run into Millie returning from her pie errand.

  “Oh, Scott! Hi! I’m glad you’re still here. Janet Lahti asked me to give this to you,” she says, holding out a plastic bag branded with the logo from the Little Slice of Heaven Pie Shop.

  “Yeah, thanks,” I mutter, taking the package as I stumble out onto the sidewalk and—somehow—to the solitude of my truck. Where I can panic in private. And think about the sandy beaches of Pochotillo, Mexico.

  Chapter Seven

  Jameson

  August

  “Lovejoy?” I read the name from the application form atta
ched to the clipboard that Bryan has provided for me—along with a pen. “Penelope Lovejoy? She sounds like a stripper. No—a porn actress. Bryan, you aren’t trying to hire an adult entertainer to watch my sister’s children, are you?”

  I don’t mean to sound so accusatory, but he is, after all, a man. And men sometimes do stupid things for reasons they themselves don’t always understand.

  “Are you out of your mind, Jameson?” Bryan asks, scowling at me.

  His finger is poised midway between his body and the intercom button on his phone—about to have Helen send in the potentially X-rated nanny candidate.

  “No,” I say indignantly, even though I know I sound like I’m short a few donuts of a dozen. “I have to ask the hard questions. It’s what Henny would want me to do.”

  My brother-in-law blinks hard, starts to say something, then stops, a goofy smile appearing on his face.

  “You know what? You’re absolutely right. She’d have taken one look at Penelope Lovejoy’s application and asked the same question. Probably to the woman’s face.”

  Now that make me smile.

  “But no,” he continues. “She is not, in any way, associated with the adult entertainment industry. In fact, all of these candidates have been thoroughly vetted—so don’t feel as if you need to make that particular query again. Okay? Cause you’re my sister-in-law, Jameson, and I don’t want to ever hear the word ‘porn’ coming out of your mouth again. Okay?”

  Still smiling, I roll my eyes and shake my head.

  “Point taken. I promise. Proceed.”

  He pushes the button, and we hear Helen’s voice—both from the intercom speaker and from outside the office door, seeing as how she’s only sitting about twenty feet from here.

  “Yes, Mr. Truitt?” she asks in a voice that’s totally foreign.

  The Helen on the phone is deferential. Something she definitely is not in real life. Clearly Bryan has had a talk with her about playing the part for these proceedings. I wonder what he had to bribe her with? A vacation maybe? A bonus? A new car?

  “Helen, would you please send in Miss Lovejoy?” Bryan requests.

  “Certainly,” she says.

  I don’t have time to ask him about my suspicions in regard to Helen because the nanny wannabe is sticking her head through the door about two seconds later. Bryan and I are seated side by side behind the desk in his office, a single, hard, cold folding chair situated directly in front of us on the opposite side.

  “Hello?” Penelope Lovejoy asks more than says as she pops her blonde-haired head through the door. Blonde hair that I realize is in pigtails as she enters the room fully.

  I glance down at the mini-dossier in front of me.

  Pigtails?

  How old is this girl…er…woman?

  Twenty-five, apparently. She’s tall—not quite six-foot but close enough—with long, lean legs that seem to fold in under her when she perches on the deliberately uncomfortable chair.

  “Miss Lovejoy, I’m Bryan Truitt,” Bryan says, extending a hand across the desk. “And this is my sister-in-law, Jameson Clarke. She’ll be joining us for the interview.”

  When she looks to me after shaking Bryan’s hand, I offer up mine and find myself staring into the deepest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. Cerulean is the color that comes to mind. Something from a romance novel I read when I was a teenager, I think.

  “Pleased to meet ya!” the young woman says brightly with a lilting accent that it takes me a moment to place.

  “Australian?”

  I don’t mean to speak the word aloud, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

  “That’s right! I’m from the Gold Coast. Came ova here for a semesta abroad and neva went back! And please, nobody calls me Penelope. I’m Penny.”

  I’m a few beats behind as I translate her Australian pronunciations to my Midwestern ones. Aside from the semestah/semester and nevah/never differentiations, her “Penny” comes out sounding like “Pinny.”

  “Um…great. Nice to meet you, Penny. I’m not familiar with the Gold Coast…”

  She’s on my comment before I can even finish it, pushing the tortoiseshell glasses from the tip of her nose up to the bridge.

  “It’s the sixth-largest city in Australia. Just about sixty-six kilometers north of Brisbane—the capital.”

  “Is it?” Bryan asks. “I thought Sidney was the capital…”

  “No, afraid not. It’s Brisbane. I know every capital of every country.”

  “Well, that’s very…impressive,” I comment, for lack of a more appropriate adjective.

  “Oh, I know lots of facts,” she informs us, waving a dismissive hand. “In fact, that’s part of my nanny protocol.”

  “Protocol?” I echo. “You have a…protocol?”

  She laughs at herself.

  “Well now, I suppose that sounds a bit pretentious when I say it like that doesn’t it? No, no, I just have a philosophy about how children should be raised.”

  “And what is that, exactly?” Bryan asks.

  She rolls her eyes—not in annoyance, I realize—more like she doesn’t know where to begin.

  “Yahh…all right…well, I think little ones should be kept on their toes all the time…” She stops and peers at us. “Not literally, mind you,” she says, then starts to laugh again. “You should see your faces! You’d think I meant to string them up by their thumbs! Nah, I just mean that I like to pepper them with questions and trivia and quiz them. You know, keep them thinking all the time. A busy mind is a happy mind, my mum likes to say. Mind you, not that the little devils don’t deserve to be strung up by their thumbs sometimes!”

  She chuckles, as if she’s seen more than her fair share of “little devils.”

  Penny Lovejoy is odd. She talks fast, and I can’t really get a read on her…except to say that there’s something about this non-porn star that I like. Very much.

  “And when they do deserve it,” I find myself saying, “what do you do then? What is your philosophy on disciplining a child?”

  Those blue, blue eyes lock onto mine, and her face hardens.

  “Spare the rod, spoil the child, my mum always says. That’s why I keep a cricket bat in my handbag at all times.”

  I feel my jaw unhinge, allowing my mouth to hang open. When I glance over at Bryan, his brow is furrowed in confusion…or horror—I’m not sure which.

  After a tense moment, Penny’s face crumples, and she lets out a guffaw loud enough—and forceful enough—to disturb the pile of papers on Bryan’s desk.

  “Hah! Now, don’t get yer knickers in a knot!” she howls, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Nah, nah, I’d nevah lay a hand to a rug rat. Nevvvv-ah,” she assures us, her Australian accent drawing out the last word and dropping the “r” on the end. “But I have been known to send exceptionally difficult little buggers to the ‘naughty corner.’ I think you might call that a ‘time out’ here?”

  I nod, still trying to figure out if she’s serious or not.

  “Yes…Yes, we do…”

  “Ah, well then, you understand. I find that a few minutes—away from the toys, and the other little ankle biters, and the telly—is just the thing. Sometimes, a little lie down is even better.” “Better” comes out sounding like “betta”…and I’m loving it.

  “All right then, Penny, that does it for the preliminary interview. I’m sure my sister, Mrs. Truitt, will want to speak to you further,” I say, indicating that this vivacious young woman has my seal of approval.

  Bryan looks equally pleased as he stands up and shakes her hand again.

  “That’s bonzer, mate!” she exclaims. And, while I’m not quite sure what that means, I’m pretty sure my sister is going to like it. And her.

  I follow Penny out so I can use the bathroom—for about the fourth time in an hour—when the young woman stops and turns to face me, putting a hand on my forearm and peering at me with an intensity that makes me a little uncomfortable.

  “Okay, truth now—it’s rea
lly you, isn’t it?” she asks with a knowing smile.

  “Uh…I’m sorry…it’s me what?”

  “Awww, don’t go gittin’ all squirly on me, now! It’s your kiddiwink that wants lookin’ after, isn’t it?”

  I feel as if I’ve stepped into an Australian version of The Twilight Zone. Or Black Mirror. Or whatever bizarre, alternate-universe show happens to be streaming this week.

  “Penny, I don’t think I understand what it is that you’re asking me…” I offer weakly.

  That’s when her expression changes from sly certainty to shock.

  “Oh! Oh, no! Now I’ve gone and stipped in it!” she exclaims, putting a hand over her mouth and shaking her head. “You don’t know yit, do ya?”

  “Know what…yet?” I ask, suddenly afraid to hear the answer.

  “That you’re up the duff!”

  I stare at her and blink, trying to figure out what she’s trying to tell me…and why whatever it is has me breaking out in a cold sweat. When I don’t respond, she puts both of her hands on my shoulders and speaks slowly and carefully so I won’t miss it.

  “You’re. Preggers.”

  I don’t miss it this time. As much as I wish I could.

  Chapter Eight

  Scott

  August

  I’m surprised to find Jameson up when I arrive at the house she shares with Bailey and Walker. I’m also surprised that neither of her two sisters is home at the moment. It’s a rare bit of privacy in an insanely busy household—and I’m incredibly grateful.

  “Hey there,” she says, looking up from the book she’s reading on the couch. “I’ve been waiting up for you.”

  “Yeah, so I see,” I say, sinking down into the couch next to her and pulling her feet into my lap so I can rub them.

  “Mmmmm….that feels good,” she murmurs, closing her eyes. “It’s been some kinda day.”