by Ann Charles
“Happy to, my dark and mysterious knight-errant.” I patted his backside as I passed. “I’m always up for some celebration tequila.”
Inside the warm house, the heady smells of cheese and bacon greeted us. “Oh, man.” I rubbed my stomach, licking my lips. “I’m about to get knocked up with a big ol’ food baby.”
“Really?” Doc helped me peel off my coat and hung it next to his in the closet. He slid the mirror in there as well, leaning it against the wall. “I thought you were allergic to pregnancy.”
I looked up from pulling off my boots to find him watching me, his expression unreadable. Why did I feel like there was a question hiding somewhere in that statement?
“I am.” I set my boots by the door. “The last time I was pregnant, I was told there would be some joyful glowing happening. By month five, I realized that they meant ‘awful growing.’ Let me tell you, those Thanksgiving Day parade balloons had nothing on me pregnant with twins.” I met his grin with a scowl. “I’m serious, Doc. Sneezing without peeing became a daily goal that I didn’t always achieve. Not to mention the huge cantaloupes that I had to carry around.” I pretended to cup the melons on the front of me.
His gaze drifted down to my hands, his smile widening. “I’d like to see a picture of you pregnant.”
No, he wouldn’t. I didn’t know what type of fruit-based fantasy was playing in his head right then, but I could guarantee the preggo version of me that he was picturing was nothing even remotely close to the bloated, swollen, hot mess that was the real me back then.
“Who’s pregnant?” Natalie asked, joining us from the living room. She wore a long-sleeve pink thermal shirt that made her lips look rosier than usual. Her hair was loose, curling down her back. Her jeans were faded, hanging low on her hips. She glanced down at my stomach, grinning. “Is the kid Doc’s or some Hungarian devil’s?”
I leveled a fake glare on her. “I was talking about a food baby, smartass.” I chanced a glance at Doc, who was still focused on my chest. Or were we?
“Whew!” she said, pretending to wipe sweat from her brow. “After ending up in jail down in Arizona over New Year’s because of a crazy pregnant woman, I’m not ready for any more baby hormones to ride roughshod through my life.”
“You were in jail in Arizona?” Doc’s focus shifted from my imaginary melons.
“Only once this time, but Coop sprang me.” She crossed her arms. “Now, what’s this I hear about you guys having a little texting club that doesn’t include me.” She hit us each in turn with a hard glare.
Harvey must have been doing some chin-wagging.
“It’s Cooper’s fault,” I said, throwing her loverboy under the bus. Better him than me when it came to Natalie’s vengeance. “He didn’t want you to get hurt.” That wasn’t exactly the same thing as Cooper’s “too many cooks in the kitchen” comment, but it was gallant of him to want to keep Natalie safe, which I assumed was part of his reasoning.
Doc looked from me to her and back. “I’m going up to wash my hands for supper.”
“Chicken,” I called to his backside.
He pretended to flap his wings and headed upstairs.
I turned back to Natalie. “What’s for supper?”
“Cheesy bacon potato soup and fresh-baked sourdough bread, but don’t try to change the subject.”
“I wasn’t.” I lied, but I really was hungry.
A door closed overhead. I frowned up the steps. Had Doc been fishing about having a kid? Or was I reading something more into that?
Maybe.
Probably.
Or not.
Gadzooks! The idea of being pregnant made me want to hide in the hall closet along with the mirror. Growing a baby was not for wimps. Even though Doc wouldn’t leave me high and dry with a kid—or another set of twins—on the way, I’d sooner fight off a pack of Chimera than go through years of teething again. Not to mention all of those sleepless nights. Without enough beauty rest, I could give Medusa a run for her money.
Although Doc would make a good father, and he’d certainly want to get married if …
What in the hell was I doing? I couldn’t bring another kid into this world, being the killer that I was. Look at the nightmares I already had about monsters coming for my kids. I couldn’t imagine having to take care of a baby while …
“Earth to Vi.” Natalie waved her hand in front of my face, bringing me back from the brink of baby madness. “Is anybody in there?”
Jiminy Cricket, I must be ovulating. “What?”
“I asked what happened tonight. You’re wearing Doc’s T-shirt.”
Oh, that. “Doc and I played back seat bingo in Rosy’s garage.”
She reached out and flicked me on the forehead.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“I wasn’t talking about what happened with you two.” She grinned. “But Coop would cringe if he knew that you of all people had sex in his man cave where he kept his shiny Harley all those years.” Chuckling evilly, she rubbed her hands together. “I can’t wait to tell him.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t. He’s been looking for an excuse lately to shoot me.”
“Fine. But if he pulls this ‘don’t tell Nat’ shit again and you listen to him, I give no guarantees.”
“Deal.”
Apparently, she wasn’t done harping about being left out because she continued with, “Just because I had wild monkey sex with Coop doesn’t give him the right to run my life.”
“Had?” I repeated. “Why did you use the past tense?”
“Because I’m pissed at him right now.”
“So, you’re going to withhold sex as punishment?”
“Don’t be silly. That man is dyn-o-mite in the sack. He’s so good that even the neighbors have a cigarette afterward. Sleeping alone would be a waste of all that testosterone and sexual talent.”
“Okay, okay. I get it.”
She huffed. “I’ll just have to figure out some other form of punishment for him. Handcuffing him to the bed is too cliché, especially in his line of work. Maybe I’ll …” She focused back on me. “Anyway, what’s this business Harvey told Zoe and me about you letting the lidérc attach to you? He said Prudence showed up and helped you trap the thing in that mirror of yours.”
“That’s pretty much what happened in a nutshell.”
She held up her fist in front of my face. “Don’t make me tie you up and pluck your nose hairs one by one. You know I’m looking to vent some aggression after being left out of your texting club.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “No nose-hair plucking, please. I’ll tell you the full story after supper when Aunt Zoe is with us so I don’t have to repeat it, and I’ll add your name to the Paranormal Posse list on my phone.”
She lowered her fist. “Did you say ‘posse’?”
“Yeah. You remember when we were kids and formed that one with your cousins.”
“Sure.” She snorted. “I like posses. Count me in.”
“I will, but you have to tell Coop you twisted my arm so he doesn’t bark at me.”
“I’m happy to.” Her brow tightened. “Was Coop in danger tonight?”
I weighed that question for a moment. “Only a little. He mainly helped Doc and Harvey find me in the courthouse.”
“Helped how?”
“Jane’s ghost led him to me.”
“Jane helped? How cool is that?”
“None of today was very ‘cool’ in my book. If Prudence hadn’t possessed Harvey and helped, I might not be here tonight.”
She puffed her cheeks. “This is nuts, Vi. I left a crazy whirlwind down in Arizona for a spiraling shitstorm here.”
“You should have stayed down in Arizona.”
“And miss out on helping you kick ass? No way.”
I leaned in closer. “Did you spy on Hawke and Tiffany?”
“I tried, but Tiffany spotted me on her way back from the bathroom after I sat down and started hiding behind my menu. I
think she figured out my game and told Hawke before I gleaned anything juicy. They played it off as just a friendly lunch after that.”
“Crap. Well, it’s probably for the best. You going there alone was risky.” She’d have been better off having Freesia with her so it looked like a casual lunch meeting.
“Risky?” She guffawed. “Says the nutter who let a parasitic devil attach to her on a whim.”
I jutted my chin. “It wasn’t a whim, and you’re the nutter butter.”
She grabbed a fistful of my shirt, pointing her index finger at me. “Next time, you better include me.”
“But Cooper—” I started.
“Screw Coop. Now, pinkie swear you’ll include me.” She let go and held out her pinkie.
I locked pinkies with her. “Okay, but screwing Coop is your job.”
A smile warmed her whole face. “Yeah, it sure is.”
“Oh, gross,” I teased.
She blinked. “What?”
“You’re getting all moony-eyed about him now.”
Laughing, she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the kitchen. “Come see what your kid did downstairs.”
“Uh-oh.”
As she towed me toward the basement door, I dragged anchor next to Harvey, who was stirring a big saucepan full of creamy soup on the stove. “That smells like cheesy-bacon heaven.” I reached out to stick my finger in the soup and he slapped it away.
He looked at me, his shit-eating grin in place. “Did you finish checking out Doc’s pants?”
“What?” My cheeks warmed. How did he know about Rosy’s garage? Had he been listening when I told Natalie?
He feigned innocence. “I said, did you finish checking out Rosy’s place?”
“No, you didn’t.” I snapped his suspenders, earning a hoot of laughter from him.
“You’re right. Nice T-shirt. That’s one helluva love bite ya got there.” He pointed at my neck.
I covered the area with my hand. “There’s no love bite.” Honestly, I couldn’t remember if Doc had given me a hickey or not during the heat of the moment.
Harvey cackled and slapped his leg. “Girl, I’ve seen egg-sucking hounds look less guilty than you.”
“You are such a sucka-fool,” Natalie said when I joined her at the basement door.
“Takes one to know one, toots.” I followed her downstairs, stopping at the bottom to gape at the colorful Christmas lights strung up everywhere. The place looked like a sparkling cave. “Holy wow!”
Elvis strutted past, bobbing her head in tune to the Beach Boys, who were singing “Help Me Rhonda” from the boombox in the corner. I stared after the chicken, trying to figure out if she was really dancing, or if I was seeing things.
“Mom!” Addy rushed over to me. She wrapped her arms around my middle and squeezed me tight. “Do you like it?” she asked, resting her chin on my stomach as she smiled up at me.
I stared down into her bright eyes, which were sparkling with the reflection of so many lights. I’d almost lost this back in the courthouse. Blinking away tears, I hugged her and soaked her up. “I love it, Addy. Where did you get all of the hooks to hang the lights?”
“Aunt Zoe found them in her workshop. Come on, Mom. Dance with me.” Addy pulled me into the center of the room and twirled around me on the cobblestone floor, then started dancing the twist. “It’s perfect for Elvis,” she called over the music. “She’ll lay more eggs for sure now.”
I twisted my hips along with her, laughing as she hip-bumped me, my heart overflowing. “We’ll be up to our necks in them.”
Natalie joined us on the dance floor. She sang along off-key at the top of her lungs, making me laugh harder.
“I’m glad you like it, Mom,” Addy called over the music. “I didn’t want you to have to go into the dark anymore.”
I stopped cold, frowning at my dancing daughter. My pulse pounded, and it had nothing to do with twisting. “What do you mean?”
“You know, the dark place. Where the monsters hide.”
Natalie stopped, too, sharing my worried frown.
“Hey, Mom!” Layne called from the steps. “Can I get a falchion with my allowance?”
It took my brain a moment to stop freaking out on the sidelines about what Addy had said and get back in the game. “A what?”
“A falchion. It’s a single-edged sword.”
Another weapon, gah! I walked over to him so we wouldn’t have to yell over the music. “Why do you need a sword, Layne? You already have a trident.”
“I saw a drawing of one in that female gladiator book of yours. One of the warrior women carried it into battle. She killed a bunch of bad guys with it.”
The “female gladiator book” was what he called our family history volume, and there was no way in hell I was letting him have a sword like that. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Oh, man. Doc said you’d probably shoot me down.”
“Doc was right. Maybe when you’re older.” I grabbed him and pulled him in for a hug, and then kissed his cheek while he tried to fight me off.
“Come on, Mom. None of that mushy stuff before supper.”
I got one more smooch in before letting him go.
“Time to eat,” Aunt Zoe called from the top of the steps.
Both kids scrambled up the stairs.
Natalie walked over and shut off the Beach Boys. “She knows about the dark,” she said quietly.
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Maybe it’s a different dark.”
“She’s your kid, Vi. A chip off the old block, who’s next in line to kill.” She shooed Elvis back into her pen and closed the gate after her. “I don’t think it’s a different dark.”
I didn’t either. “Shit.”
“She’s going to be hell on wheels in her teen years.”
“Probably.”
Natalie came over and hip-bumped me. “Just like her momma.”
I bumped her back. “I wasn’t hell on wheels. You were. I was just an innocent bystander you dragged into your debauchery.”
“Is that smoke coming out of your ass or are your pants on fire?”
“You’re the one with smoke in your … you have … I mean …”
“Jeez! Stop, please.” She made a pained face. “You are truly a sad sack of suckerhood tonight.”
“Kiss my grits, law-dog lover.” I playfully pushed her toward the chicken cage.
She laughed. “Last one to the table has to tell your aunt that someone invited Reid to join us tonight.”
I gasped. “You didn’t!”
“Oh, hell yeah. You aren’t the only one wearing cupid wings around here.”
We raced up the steps, laughing and pulling at each other, bursting into the kitchen with Natalie in the lead.
“Violet Lynn,” Aunt Zoe chastised as she dished soup into bowls and handed them around the table where the kids, Harvey, and Doc all sat, along with Cornelius, who must have arrived while I was down in the basement. “How many times have I told you not to run up and down those stairs?” She did a double take when she looked at my shirt, but didn’t say anything.
I couldn’t remember how many times she had warned me about the stairs. She’d been saying it since I was younger than Addy and Layne.
“Nat,” she said, “will you grab the pitcher of lemonade from the fridge?”
“You’re like a heifer in a corn crib,” Harvey told me, slicing off pieces from one of the two loaves of sourdough that sat next to him on a cutting board.
I dropped a loud kiss on my aunt’s cheek before sliding onto the chair next to Doc, who squeezed my leg under the table. I pointed at the grinning old buzzard across the table. “I told you to stop calling me a cow.”
“Can I say you look as pretty as a red heifer in a flowerbed?”
“Red heifers are real lookers,” Doc said, his eyes creased with laughter.
“Zip it, Candy Cane.”
“How about hungry as a heifer in a bare pasture?” Harvey th
rew out.
“My grandfather used to say that, only he used ‘hungry as a billy goat’ instead,” Cornelius said, looking at me. “Violet is more of a sheep, though, with that hair.”
I aimed my spoon at him. “Don’t start with my hair, Pied Piper.” Back to Harvey, I said, “Keep it up and I’ll arrange to have one of your gold teeth yanked out the next time we visit Zelda’s dentist ‘friend.’ ”
“Watch it, boys.” Natalie set the lemonade pitcher on the table. “Violet is as excited as a calf in new clover tonight.”
I wrinkled my nose at her. “Had to get another bovine reference in, didn’t you?”
She blew me a kiss and slid onto the seat between Cornelius and Layne. “Hey, Corny.” She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Word on the street is that your noggin’ is overflowing with freakiness these days.”
He gave her one of his crooked smiles. “I’m chock-full of surprises.”
“I like surprises,” Addy said, dipping a piece of bread into her soup. “Which reminds me, Mom. Kelly wants to get me a baby bearded lizard next month for my birthday.”
“Absolutely not.” I didn’t even pause to think about that. Doc and I didn’t need a lizard joining us in bed, along with a chicken and whatever else the damned cat brought me as a “gift.”
She stuck out her lower lip. “Why not?”
“Elvis will eat it,” Layne answered for me. “It’ll be like a big nightcrawler.”
“No, she won’t. Lizards are too big for her to eat.”
“Fine, then Bogart will.” Layne slurped his soup.
“Bogart is a vegetarian, remember?”
“Here’s a novel idea,” I interrupted. “How about we don’t talk about eating worms or lizards during supper?” I looked at my son. “And please stop slurping your soup.”
“But you didn’t even think about letting me have a lizard,” Addy complained. “Doc, you like lizards, don’t you?”
The doorbell rang, saving Doc having to take sides.
Natalie grinned at me. “You lost the race, slowpoke.”
Which meant I had to tell my aunt who was most likely standing at the door. I cringed and stood. “I’ll get that.”
Aunt Zoe glanced up at me as she settled into her chair and put her napkin on her lap. “Did you invite Coop?”