2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3) (9 page)

Tara turned to follow her gaze. “Oops.”

“Oops is right. Don’t make any sudden movements. Don’t
look them straight in the eyes. Especially not my mother. Act like this is all
perfectly normal. Average. Expected. You know exactly why you’re here and where
you’re going.” She said it in a careful monotone, like they were trying not to
wake a sleeping grizzly bear that would rip their faces off.

“I got this. No problem,” Tara said as the car came to
a stop behind the U-Haul.

“Don’t tell me Fynn is moving out,” William Hemmings
said as he unfolded himself from the front seat of the rental car. A Buick.
Acceptable American transportation.

Elizabeth Hemmings, on the other hand, could be seen
through the windshield, looking completely stricken, holding her hand to her
throat in a show of terrified concern.

Probably wishes she had a dishtowel to wring.

“Nice to see you too, Dad,” Catherine called out,
nodding her head toward her mother. She descended the porch, leaving Tara
behind, coming around the U-Haul to give her father a hug that brought her back
to her childhood, him smelling just like Daddy should smell, the same cologne
he always wore.

“You look terrific,” she whispered next to his ear.

“And you… well, there’s a whole lot of you around now,
isn’t there?” He pulled away. “I can’t believe it. Just can’t believe it.”

The last she had seen her parents was at the wedding,
so it was an understandable surprise. “Isn’t it crazy?” She cradled her belly,
realizing as she did so that she hadn’t even put on a coat to come outside. Too
busy being caught off-guard by Tara to properly dress herself.

“And who is this big lug?” he asked of the golden retriever
stepping all over their feet and whipping them with his tail in a frenzied need
for attention.

“This is Magnus.” She ruffled his fur. “He used to
knock people down; this is an improvement.”

“Elizabeth,” William Hemmings called back into the
car, “in case you didn’t know, we’re here.” Chuckling, he headed for the trunk.

“You made it! Hope you didn’t have any trouble finding
the place,” Fynn hollered, coming around the house from the garage and almost startling
Catherine out of her skin. She hadn’t even realized he’d come home from
measuring the kitchen for his next job. He hadn’t bothered coming in the house—probably
because she’d expressly told him to keep his ass off the furniture and feet off
the floor until they got here. She’d never said a thing about popping his head
in, though.

“No problem at all. Didn’t even need that GPS.” Her
father motioned vaguely toward the dash. “Just a good old reliable map.”

Fynn’s steps faltered as he took in the truck. Then he
focused his gaze on Catherine. “Trying to move out right under my nose?”

She could hear her father laughing at their similar
sense of humor. He’d taken a real liking to Fynn.

Elizabeth Hemmings finally opened the passenger door
and got out, adjusting her plaid scarf and wool overcoat with her gloved hands.
“Catherine, you are going to catch your death out here. You should have a coat
on. And in your condition.” She shook her head.

“My condition makes me hot most of the time, Mom.”
Though she was feeling the chill right now, and not just the one coming off her
mother.

“I’ll get you your coat,” Fynn offered.

“I’ll get it. Just tell me where. I’ve only been inside
once and that was in the dark with a flashlight,” Tara said from the porch,
alluding to their breaking-and-entering episode that had gone south, back when
Fynn was just an aggravatingly hot stranger with something Catherine wanted badly
enough to go on the lamb for it. And Tara had been there for her, ready to go
to jail or get shot; whatever happened first.

“Tara?” Fynn blurted in surprise.

“Hey there! Just passing through.” Hands up in
surrender.

“From New York?”

“Yup. I was on my way to where I’m going and you guys
were right here, so I thought I should stop,” she babbled, coming down off the
porch. “Not that a drop-in of such distance is appropriate,” she added,
deferring to Elizabeth Hemmings.

“What a nice surprise,” Elizabeth said without a hitch,
when there should have been hitches all over the place. Tara was the one
responsible for most of what went wrong when it came to her daughter’s life. The
instigator of madness, standing before her.

“Get real,” Catherine humphed under her breath.

Elizabeth Hemmings had obviously not lost any of her
superpower hearing and gave her daughter a look that warned she would send her
to her room. Not that she could possibly enforce such a punishment at this
stage of the game.

“Dad, why don’t I help you with those,” Fynn said,
heading for the trunk where William was emptying out their bags.

“So, Mom, I hope you had a nice, easy trip.” Catherine’s
words were stilted as she fought to swallow the frustration of being made to feel
like a child all over again.

“It was a plane ride,” her father shrugged, like there
was nothing that could be done about that mode of transport. “And then, it was
like pulling teeth to get a decent car.”

“It seems you procured a fine specimen,” Fynn offered,
taking a nice slow walk around the Buick to show his appreciation, gaining even
more points with his father-in-law.

William nodded toward Fynn. “See, Elizabeth, that’s
what I’m saying.”

“I just didn’t see the big deal. It’s a rental. It
isn’t a life choice that will define you forever,” she retorted.

“You aren’t going to catch me in one of those sardine
cans. Not even for a minute. No way. I could feel my balls receding at the
thought.”

“William!” Elizabeth screeched.

Catherine’s eyes bugged out. That was not the father
she remembered.

“I’m serious.” He turned to Fynn. “The woman at the rental
counter was a complete idiot. I gave her my name for my reservation and she
says, ‘Hemmings? You’ve been upgraded to VIP in our green rental program.’ So I
say, ‘What the hell is that?’ and she says, ‘Prime rentals on our electric
fleet.’ So I ask her, ‘You have a
fleet
of electric cars?’ You know,
because I want to know if I’ve just walked into hell on earth. Well, turns out
they only have
one
car so far, but they are damn proud of it. Worse yet,
somebody named Hemmings of all things is their only taker, and they thought I
was him. As a repeat electric customer, the guy gets ‘priority’ status. Positive
reinforcement, I guess. Everyone gets a medal; we’re all winners here. God,
since when is Minnesota the new land of fruits and nuts? I thought we had lo
about a couple thousand miles between us and them.”

Catherine cringed.

“I guess they’re a little bit of everywhere now,” Fynn
said, winking at her.

“Oh, you mean Cat’s rental—”

Catherine elbowed Tara in the ribs to cut her off
before she had to explain her use of a Smart car—not just once, but twice—to
her father, who would be appalled to learn that the idiot behind that counter
was speaking of his own daughter, Catherine Marie Hemmings, who had been raised
better than that.

“So, Mom, Dad, you had a long trip, I’m sure you would
like to come in,” she said, overly welcoming, trying to drown out Tara’s
protestations over the physical assault. Suddenly having her mother traipse
through her marital home and see where she missed a spot while dusting was
better than being outed as the electric car VIP of Minnesota.

“You know, when you add together all the time: driving
to the airport, getting there early to go through security, waiting to board, getting
on the plane, taking off, flying, landing, going through baggage claim, getting
the rental, getting
to
the rental, and driving here, we probably should
have just driven out.”

“Oh, William, don’t be such a crank,” Elizabeth
chided.

“I’m just speaking the truth. It’s almost the same
amount of time when you really look at it.”

“And only you would really look at it,” she countered.

“Could have saved ourselves an arm and a leg if we
only had to pay for gas,” he grumbled, following his wife to the front steps, unwilling
to let it go without his point being made.

She shook her head. “That’s a lot of driving for one
day.”

“There’re two of us,” he pointed out. Not that her
mother ever drove when her father was in the car.

“Will you be joining us?” Elizabeth Hemmings asked Tara.

“No. She was just on her way out, actually,” Catherine
prodded, eyeing her friend, begging her to get on the same page.

“Yes, I was on my way out. Don’t let me get in your
way.” Robotic. Like she was reading from a cue card, and poorly.

“I’ll call you,” Catherine mouthed to her friend, crossing
her heart like kids used to do.

“What on earth was that about?” Fynn whispered as they
carried her parents’ bags to the guest room while William and Elizabeth
Hemmings busied themselves with shrugging out of their winter gear and hanging
it in the coat closet—her mother probably organizing the whole coat closet
while she was in there. Not that Catherine hadn’t already torn apart and
reorganized the closet, like she had done to every closet, though unlikely up
to Elizabeth Hemmings’ standard.

“How should I know?”

“You knew nothing about it?”

“Do you
think
I knew anything?”

He ceded her point that she’d been a banshee about
anyone being in the house or at the house or around the house for the weeks
leading up to today, coming after both Fynn and Cara with a wet dishrag,
following behind them with the vacuum, dusting underneath them, sweeping around
them, and generally doing her best impression of her own mother in an
exhausting attempt to prove she was running a lovely home here. Of course she
wouldn’t have accepted Tara coming and messing everything up.

“And what’s with the U-Haul?”

“It’s Tara. It could be anything. Maybe she was
evicted. Maybe she thinks she can rent it and use it as a mobile home, drive
the country and finish out her PINK list.”

“Her what?”

“Nothing.” Catherine waved it off. She’d never shared
that little gem with him—that her friend was a whore with a sex bucket list.

“Was she planning on moving in? Because we already almost
have two kids and she isn’t the best influence on Cara,” Fynn asserted.

A jolt of protectiveness ran through her. “Tara needs
to watch her mouth and tone it down, but Cara adores her and they get along
famously.”

“That’s because they’re at about the same intellectual
level.”

Catherine cringed even though she had thought as much
herself at times. It wasn’t Tara’s intelligence, though; it was her spontaneity
and verve that was childlike. She wasn’t jaded. She truly believed she could do
anything she wanted to do. It was kind of endearing at the same time it was
completely unnerving and overwhelming and sometimes downright impossible to be
around.

“Have you heard anything from Jason recently?” she
asked, setting the bags she’d carried in the corner while Fynn swung the others
onto the bed.

“No, why?”

“Because they aren’t seeing each other anymore.”

“No surprise there.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s Tara.” Blunt.

“So, whose palm do I have to grease to get a tour
around here?” William Hemmings bellowed from the other room.

“I think he means you,” Catherine said.

As they headed down the hall and out into the family
room, they found her parents wandering the space, looking at this or that,
though her mother was more than likely doing less perusing than inspecting.

“Nice place,” William said to Fynn. “You build it
yourself?”

“The house? No. I stick to building on a smaller
scale. I actually bought it from the original owner. Put in some of my own
woodwork here and there, though.”

“Those built-ins next to the fireplace are beauties.
Your work?”

“Actually, yes. I added them and changed out the
mantel too.”

“Reclaimed?”

Fynn smiled. “It is. From an old barn.”

Fast friends. Men’s men. Though William Hemmings was more
of a putzer than builder, working on odds and ends and fixing this and that.

Catherine turned to her mom who was fixated on the
Christmas tree in the corner.
Dammit!
She’d forgotten to plug in the
lights. Now, instead of providing a festive glow, the tree looked overly busy
and sad standing there. And the scented candles for a homey vibe were lined up
on the table, unlit. Tara had distracted her from such finishing touches.

“So, Catherine, there is little of you around here.” Her
mother scanned the walls and shelves.

“I still have a lot of boxes in the attic. I wasn’t
really sure what I wanted to do with the place, and now that I’m pregnant, I figured
I should hold off on that stuff until after the baby is born.”

Her mother cocked her head just so, showing her
opinion of that choice. “You might have to wait until after the baby goes off
to school then,” her mother noted. “Life is about to get real.”

“Not ideal,” Catherine said under her breath, catching
Fynn’s slight shake of his head at her crossing the polite line.

“No, it is not,” her mother agreed, obviously deciding
to embrace instead of reprimand the comment. “Babies do not tend to come into
the world easy.”

“If you are talking about labor, Mom, Fynn and I took
a class.”

“I am talking about the fact that it takes a while to
get your feet back under you with all the changes they bring.”

“And by a while, you mean years? Because Lacey never
took a break from anything. She’s working and juggling it all. And Georgia’s
doing just fine too. Is this your advice for everyone or just me?” Polite was
long gone now.

“How is Georgia anyway?” her mother asked, refusing to
engage in the rest.

“She’s doing fine—“—
even though she’s become a
total bitch.
Catherine didn’t want to discuss Georgia. Didn’t want to talk
about her being one of
those
mothers who judged the rest of the mothers
out there for every shortcoming. Besides, Elizabeth Hemmings would probably
side with Georgia.

As a distraction, Catherine rushed over to the tree to
plug in the lights, then shuffled to each lamp in the room to turn on an
ambient glow before shutting off the overhead that was really only good for
conducting surgery. There,
this
is what the room was supposed to look
like. The perfect family room for a perfect family Christmas.

“Well that is unique,” her mother said tightly.

“The purple was Cara’s idea,” she explained, defusing
her mother before she could get started.

“No, it is… nice,” Elizabeth choked out, fighting with
her personal demons between being polite to her hostess and teaching her
daughter what was proper in celebrating Christ’s birth.

“Whoa, Elizabeth, you have got to come see this
beauty,” William Hemmings said from the kitchen.

Her mother hurried toward the sound of her husband’s
voice, seeming to be relieved to have something else to focus her attention on.

“Avocado green. Corded. And goddamned rotary at that!”

“William! What has gotten into you?” Elizabeth
reprimanded.

“This is a prime piece of telephone equipment.” He
picked the receiver off the wall as if he were about to make a call. “All metal
insides?” he prompted Fynn.

“It’s completely original. Guy who used to live here
put it in. I’m surprised he left it behind,” Fynn said proudly, knowing that
Catherine had been dying for him to get rid of the hideous old thing.

William nodded appreciatively. “You could maim a guy
with a phone like this, not like all that modern namby-pamby stuff that would
only do serious damage if dropped from the Empire State building. No, you could
tear this guy off the wall and give an intruder a good wallop. Something that
would put him out cold until the police arrived. No need to shoot him when you
have a phone like this in the house.”

“That’s nice, dear,” Elizabeth said, then turned to
Catherine under her breath, “It’s called humoring him.” And there it was: she
was finally part of the wives’ club. Included.

But then her mother turned into her mother all over
again, wasting no time looking around the kitchen and taking in the scenery on
her first voyage in there, instead heading straight for the hooks that held
Catherine’s freshly washed dishtowels, commandeering one. She almost yelled,
Drop
it and step away from the dishes!
She’d forgotten to run the dishwasher the
night before and it was whirring away now, but she’d done the breakfast dishes
by hand and left them air-drying on the rack next to the sink when Tara showed
up. It was like her mother couldn’t help herself, or more like she
was
helping herself. A wet dish was a dish in need. And a dishtowel was control and
security in terry cloth form. She wouldn’t be surprised to find her mother had packed
dishtowels in her carry-on luggage just in case her daughter was too stupid to
have any of her own, and further, the airline was too stupid to keep track of
her luggage. Some people needed guns or crosses or garlic wreaths around their
necks. Her mother only needed a dishtowel to protect her from bad guys or bad
news or monsters or whathaveyou.

It made her ass twitch. And she had two weeks of this
ahead.

“You don’t have to do that, Mom,” she said, holding
back the rest.

“Nonsense, it’s just a few things.”

Exactly.

That was the difference between them right there. It
was a few things that were out of the way and could dry on their own, versus
it’s just a few things that can easily be dried in no time. Irreconcilable
differences in their views of the world.

When she finished what needed finishing, and Catherine
stepped in to put the dishes away before her mother started opening and closing
cabinets of her own accord, and in doing so indirectly pointing out where
things
should
be, her mother tossed the towel over her shoulder like she
owned it. “See, only took a moment and now it’s done.” Catherine bit her lip,
making a mental note to buy her mother dishtowels for Christmas—a thoughtful,
practical, and pointed gift.

“It is just so nice to finally be able to picture where
you are living. It truly is lovely here,” her mother said, as they finished up
the tour. There wasn’t much Elizabeth Hemmings could say about the four-dormer Cape
Cod. A nice, traditional home on a pretty piece of land. Family room—check.
Dining room—check. Kitchen—check. Three bedrooms and two full baths
upstairs—check. Nice first-floor guest bedroom and private bath downstairs, a
space that Fynn also used as his office for billing and paperwork that was all closed
up tight in a rolltop desk like the old-fashioned guy he was.

So instead her mother focused on the petty details. “You
do realize you have a
mouse
in the house?” she pointed out in Cara’s
room. Elizabeth Hemmings was not a pet person at all, let alone a mouse. In
fact, she was the first to bait traps and set them in the bread drawer each
fall at home when a field mouse or two would inevitably find their way into her
kitchen. “And what is that hanging from his cage?” she asked. “A stocking,
because he can’t come out for Christmas,” Catherine explained.
See, I have
rules, Mom.

In the family room, her mother stopped to straighten pillows
on the couch, not because she sat down and messed up those pillows, but because
tweaking was one of her specialties. And in the linen closet, she procured her
own bath towels since she noticed her daughter had forgotten to put some out after
cleaning the guest bathroom one final time this morning. She also offered to
change the sheets on the guest bed, in her own way of asking if they needed
changing—because a proper hostess always provides clean sheets for her guests.
But of course Catherine knew that and had even taken perfectly clean sheets out
of the closet and tumbled them in the dryer with a dryer sheet in order to make
them smell fresh as fresh could be. Not that she would ever get recognition for
it.

“Are you two hungry? I can make lunch,” Catherine
offered—because a proper hostess always offers her guests something to eat or
drink, and right now it was one in the afternoon, ergo lunch.

“We ate on the road to save you the trouble,” her
mother said dismissively.

Catherine was pretty certain it was really,
to
avoid your cooking
. And even though she should have been happy that it
meant one less meal to serve, the problem was it was a meal she could actually handle.
Deli sandwiches. Nothing to burn or overcook or undercook or otherwise screw
up.

“What’s the plan for dinner?” her father asked. “One
thing’s for certain, that tuna melt I had isn’t going to hold me over forever.”

“Oh William, you can’t possibly already be thinking
about dinner.”

“What else does an old man have to keep him going but
a good meal?”

“We are not here for them to cook and entertain us,”
her mother said. Translation: remember this is your daughter we’re talking
about.

Then, as if she hadn’t just said something completely crappy,
she turned to Catherine and asked, “So, when will Cara be getting home?”

“Yeah, where is that little firecracker?” her father
seconded.

“The bus comes through in a couple of hours.”

“Where’s her bus stop? Far?” her mother wanted to
know.

“At the end of the driveway.”

“That’s nice. Although it would be nice if you could
see it from the house.”

“It would. But one of us takes her up there in the
morning and goes to meet her in the afternoon. Plus, there’s Magnus. He even
senses the bus and he is off like a shot. Poor guy gets tricked by the UPS
truck all the time.”

Magnus’s collar jingled as he raised his head to
acknowledge he was being talked about, hoping it would be followed by one of
the words he knew like
dinner
, or
walk,
or
treat.
When
none of those words got uttered, he laid his head back down with a thump on the
wood floor.

“Well, I think that your dad and I will go and get
settled in.”

“Oh… yes… feel free to… get settled,” Catherine said as
her mother shuttled her father out of the room.