Four Weddings and a Fireman (11 page)

“He'll still worry. But even a short smile can make a big difference. Hospitals are stressful.”

“I know. And he was being a total jerk. He wanted to put Nick on Facebook!” The thought still made her furious. She fully expected Vader to share her disgust.

But he just shrugged. ­“People react to trauma in different ways. I've seen all kinds of crazy-­ass shit. Fire's eating up her house and some lady's looking for the coupons she clipped that day. A lot ­of people put up a shield. It looks like they don't give a shit, but they're just protecting themselves. That's his best friend in there and he's freaking out. Give him some slack.”

She screwed up her face and pretended to check her watch. “About a half hour ago, didn't you have your hands around his throat, about ready to haul him out back and beat the tar out of him?”

“Yes. That was different. He was being an ass for no reason, except that he needed a good ass kicking. If I had to be the one to do it, I wasn't about to back down.”

As if drawn by a magnet, she glanced over at him. The lights from the big dashboard silvered his face, molding the strong lines of his features. The haircut really did wonders for his face, bringing out the beauty of his eyes and balancing his muscular jaw with his jutting cheekbones.

“How did Tracie like your haircut?”

“What?”

“That nurse said Tracie was going to love it. Did she?”

Vader slanted her an enigmatic stare. “Yes. She said she wants to paint me after she's done with her next round of chemo. She's an artist.”

Oh mercy. Tracie must have been the woman in the wheelchair. How could she be so shallow as to immediately jump into jealous-­woman mode?

“Did you rescue her or something? How do you know her?”

Vader hesitated a long time, all the way from San Gabriel Boulevard to the turnoff to her street. “I've been to the hospital a few times. You start to recognize ­people. Sometimes you get to be friends. Tracie's in that category. She's a friend of my mother.”

“Oh.” She puzzled over that for a moment. Vader never talked about his mother, but now she'd come up twice in the same evening. “Is your mother an artist too?”

“No.”

Monosyllabic answers were not Vader's usual style. Determined to get a real answer out of him, she waited. Finally, reluctantly, he added, “She's in the hospital a lot. For tests and things.”

Cherie remembered Soren's stupid teasing about Vader's living with his mother and wished she'd throttled him. “I'm sorry,” she stammered. “What . . . how long . . .”

Vader pulled up in front of her house with a jerk. “Here we are.” He swung his big body out of the driver's seat before she could protest. How very odd. Vader was usually such an open book. Why didn't he want to say any more about his mother's hospital visits? Much as she wanted to pry, she forced herself not to push it. She certainly understood wanting to keep certain things secret.

But why on earth had Vader asked her to marry him, if he didn't even want to talk about his mother?

She hurried after Vader as he ate up the dark walkway with his long legs. None of them had thought to leave the light on. The bougainvillea that arched over the front door dangled creepy tendrils in their path. Vader brushed them aside like cobwebs.

“You need the key, silly,” said Cherie, catching up. She elbowed him, which had about the same effect as nudging a boulder. It wasn't until he stepped to the side of his own accord that she reached the door. “And if you don't want to talk about it, just say so. You don't have to run away.”

“I'm not running away. I'm trying to perform our errand in an efficient manner. I'm sure Nick is waiting for his toothbrush and pillow. He'll want some different clothes. Underwear. Any medications? What about a favorite teddy bear?”

“Are you joking?” In the darkness, she fumbled through her purse for the key. An odd sound, like that of someone clearing their throat, caught her attention. Must be Vader. More of his strange behavior. “How would I know? What grown man has a teddy bear?”

“Um, Cherie . . .”

But the tension of the evening was finally bursting out of her. “Why do you always have to think the worst of Soren and Nick? I know they act like juvenile idiots, but they're not that bad, in fact they have their good points, if you'd only let yourself see them.”

“Cherie.”

“What?” At the glint in his eye, she realized she'd been successfully distracted. He didn't want to talk about his mother, so he'd shifted the conversation to Nick's hypothetical teddy bear. How infuriating. She clenched her teeth. “Oh, very clever. But if you didn't want to talk about it, all you had to do is say so, not accuse Nick of having a teddy bear.”

“What's wrong with having a teddy bear?”

The noise came again, and this time she was looking right at him, and didn't see any sign of his Adam's apple moving. “Did you make that sound? That
hmm, hmm
.”

“No. That's the girl behind you, the one who's been trying to get your attention for the last two minutes.”

“
What?
”

She swung around wildly, nearly colliding with a girl in the shadows. She was slender and light, and had somehow managed to hide on the front porch without Cherie suspecting a thing. Cherie screamed and grabbed at her, peering into her face.

“Holy catfish on a spit. Is that you, Humility?”

 

Chapter Ten

“A
s of eleven days ago, I'm not Humility, Chasti—­”

Cherie clapped her hand over her little sister's mouth. “It's Cherie.” She couldn't think straight. Trust Humility to show up in the middle of a crisis. But at least she was safe. But what if Mackintosh had followed her? In the end, relief won out, and she pulled her sister into a tight hug.

When her sister gave a strangled screech, Cherie released her, but kept her hands on her shoulders. “What in blue blazes has been going on? We've been worried sick.”

Humility sucked in a breath, and said in a tone of hushed excitement, “You aren't supposed to use profanity. Is that profanity?”

“No, it is not. Blue blazes is just . . . just a phrase. And anyway, I can use profanity now. I do it all the time.”

“No, you don't,” came Vader's warm, rumbling voice from behind her. “She never uses bad words, cute little stranger. Take it from me.”

Cherie swung around. For a moment she'd forgotten Vader was there. Crap, there was no way she could keep him out of this. He was about to get a big ol' dose of Harper family craziness. “This is my little sister,” she told him. “So you shouldn't talk to her like that.”

“He can talk to me like that,” said Humility, quickly. “I don't mind. I think I might actually like it.”

“Let's go inside,” said Cherie. She gave a quick glance around the front yard. Was that a man's shadow behind the camellia bush? Or was it just the potato vine?

While she was squinting into the suddenly ominous landscaping, Vader took Cherie's purse from her unresisting fingers, found the key, and disappeared inside. When he turned on the front light by the door, a yellow shaft of illumination flooded the porch. Cherie caught her breath. Her sister was an absolute mess. Her dress—­the pinafore required in the family—­was streaked with dust, and the long-­sleeved blouse underneath was ripped at the elbow. Her fine, light brown hair hung in clotted shanks around her shoulders and her small, kittenlike face looked pale and pinched, as if she hadn't eaten in a while.

“Sweetie, are you okay?” Cherie cupped Humility's cheek, needing to feel for herself that her sister was in one piece.

“Yes, but why'd you have to live such a long ways away?” The hometown twang in her sister's voice brought Pine Creek rushing back in all its wooded loveliness—­the crowded homestead where they all lived crammed together, the old junkers behind the house, the chickens pecking in the yard.

Dizzied by the rush of remembrance, Cherie tried to let go of her sister but couldn't.

“Are
you
okay, Ch—­ Cherie?”

“Yeah. Yes. Fine. Come on in, Humi—­ Okay, so you're no longer Humility. What do you want me to call you?” She steered her sister through the door, then cast another quick glance behind her. Gardam Street, with its mix of older Victorians and newer tract homes, looked as placid and quiet as ever. Maybe they'd gotten lucky and no one had followed Humility. She shut the door behind her, then locked it for good measure.

“I was thinking about Trixiebelle. Wow, this is some house.” The thin girl cast a wide-­eyed glance around the large, brilliantly colored, velvet-­draped living room. Cherie imagined it through the eyes of someone who'd never worn anything other than washed-­out hand-­me-­downs. She must be awed by its beauty, stunned by its luxurious textures and lush tones. “Looks like a whorehouse.”

“Humility!”

“Trixiebelle. And look at your hair! Prophesize would send for the razor if he saw that color.” She tilted her head. “I like it, though. Reminds me of the red fox that used to eat our chickens.”

“Where'd you get Trixiebelle from?” Cherie winced at the extra dose of Arkansas that had suddenly appeared in her own voice.

“I just always liked it. Remember my pet mouse, from way back? I called her Trixiebelle.”

“Seems kind of complicated. Why not something plain and simple?”

“Like Cherie? What is that, Italian or something?”

“It's close enough to my real name, but completely different, that's why I chose it.”

“Real name?” Vader, in all his testosterone-­packed glory, stood in the doorway with a can of Coke. “You mean I've been calling you a fake name all this time?”

“It's not fake. It's the name I chose. The name I prefer.”

Frowning, he handed the Coke to Humility-­Trixiebelle. “Here. You look like you could use a pick-­me-­up.” Humility stared at him as if he were a king-­size Justin Bieber.

“I'm not calling you Trixiebelle,” said Cherie. “How about just Belle?”

“No. But Trixie'd be okay.”

“Fine. Trixie.”

“Okay.” Humility, now Trixie, guzzled her Coke, her gaze riveted to Vader. When she finished, she handed the can to Cherie, then stuck out her hand. “Hi there, handsome. My name's Trixie. What's yours?” As an aside, she added, “That don't sound half bad, does it?”

Vader, after an amused glance at Cherie, played along. “My name's Derek, but most ­people call me Vader. Even my mother.”

“I'm not most ­people. Or your mother.” She lowered her eyelashes and gazed demurely up at him, like a Southern belle who'd just been dragged through a dusty cornfield.

Every warning bell in Cherie's brain started clanging in double time. “Humility . . . Trixie . . . come with me. Vader, give us a few minutes. Come to think of it, don't you need to get back to the hospital?”

“You want
me
to get Nick's stuff? He might not like me pawing through his underwear drawer.”

“Grrr. Fine.” She grabbed her sister's wrist and pulled her down the hall to Nick's room. No way was she leaving her alone with Vader until she had a grip on the situation. In a flurry she grabbed a change of clothing and a pillow and snatched his toothbrush from the boys' bathroom, never once letting go of her sister's wrist.

“You live with
boys
?” Trixie asked, with breathless awe. “Boys who aren't brothers?”

“They're very brotherly. They might as well be brothers.” She didn't want Humility—­Trixie—­getting any wrong ideas.

“What about the big, handsome one in the living room? Does he live here?”

“No. He doesn't. And put Vader right out of your mind. He's too old for you and . . . what am I even talking about? What are you up to? Have you forgotten the whole Creed?”

The Creed, which their father had developed when he'd moved them all to the backwoods and decided to create his own personal cult, didn't permit flirting or ogling or any attention to the opposite sex before marriage. Of course, marriage happened young.

“No, I haven't forgotten. I came here so I
could
forget. You're not the only one who had enough. If I'da stayed one more week I'd be married by now. And probably pregnant.”

A shudder passed through Cherie's body, head to toe. That's exactly—­well, almost exactly—­why she'd left.

“You'd better tell me the whole thing. Come on.”

She dragged Trixie back to the living room and thrust the armful of Nick's things at Vader's chest.

“I'm coming back,” he said firmly.

“There's no need.”

“The hell there isn't. There are a few little details someone better fill in for me.”

Cherie looked in despair at his rock-­solid body. His legs, bulging against the fabric of his jeans, were planted on the floor like young oak trees. Nick's toothbrush looked like a twig in his huge hand. “Like what?”

“It's a long list, but we'll start with your real name.”

“It doesn't matter,” she hissed. “I don't use that name anymore.”

“It matters to me.”

They glared at each other, until Trixie threw up her hands in exasperation. “Oh for mercy's sake. Her real name is Chastisement.”

“Chastisement? That's not a name.”

“I agree.” Cherie marched to his side and tried to tug him toward the door. Nothing doing, of course. When Vader didn't want to be tugged, nothing could budge him. “Why don't you take that toothbrush to Nick before his teeth rot out of his head?”

“I'm not done yet. What kind of family names their daughter Chastisement?”

“That's nothing,” said Trixie. “Our youngest brother's named Celibacy, 'cause after he was born that's what my father said he was committing to. We call him Cel for short. We got another sister named Forgive-­Our-­Sins.”

“Thirteen,” said Vader. “You said you had thirteen brothers and sisters.”

“Yes, but you're not going to meet any others . . .” Another horrible thought struck her, and she swung around to Trixie. “Is it just you, or is anyone else about to show up?”

“Just me. I guess I'm the only other sinner in the bunch, except Jacob. Everyone else either toes the line or cozies up to Father while acting up behind his back.”

“You just came here from Arkansas? Alone?” Vader asked.

“I been saving up. The Greyhound bus don't cost that much. But it took a lot of eggs. And I could only skim a few every day. It took me a coupla months. I thought about stealing it from the bed mattress, but I just couldn't.”

The mattress, Cherie remembered, was where their father kept all the important things, from birth certificates to cash. She'd snuck in to grab her birth certificate before she'd left, and it had been the most nerve-­racking experience of her life.

She had a lot to talk to Trixie about, but she couldn't say a word with Vader still here. Squaring off with him, she raised her chin. “I'll call you, Vader. I promise. But right now, my sister and I really have to talk.”

His warm brown eyes seemed to penetrate all the way through her soul. For a moment, she wondered what it would feel like to actually tell him everything. Shivering away from that thought as if from a hot iron, she held his gaze. Finally he gave a reluctant nod.

“I'll bring Soren back, then leave you guys alone. One thing, though.”

Cherie relaxed, letting out a pouf of breath. If Vader said he'd leave them alone, he would. He was always true to his word. “What?”

“I want Trixie to have my phone number.”

“Excuse me? She doesn't even have a cell phone.”

“Yes, I do!” Trixie dug in the pocket of her dull blue pinafore. “It's a disposable one, I picked it up for fifteen dollars at the bus station in Little Rock.”

“Get rid of it,” ordered Cherie.

When Trixie didn't react quickly enough, Cherie snatched it from her hand and dunked it in the fish tank. “It's disposable, so we're disposing of it.”

“But
Cherie
!”

“I don't want anything here that can be traced. Your being here's bad enough. I mean, it's good, and I'm glad you came. And I'm going to take care of you. But I don't want anyone else following behind. You know what I mean.”

Huge storm clouds gathered on Vader's forehead as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, I don't know what the hell is going on here, but is there some kind of danger to worry about?”

“No,” said Cherie quickly. The last thing she needed was for Vader to get involved.

He narrowed his eyes at her, clearly unconvinced. “Listen, Trixie. Do you know anyone else in San Gabriel?”

“Just my sister. I would have known Jacob if he hadn't left for college. And you!” Her face lit up. “My first real live San Gabriel man.”

“He's not a man,” said Cherie quickly.

Vader looked offended by that news. But Trixie was hitting the ground running in terms of flirtation, and this particular one had to be nipped in the bud.

“I mean, he is a man, a fireman, a very nice,
older
man than you. Too old.”

“A
fireman
?” Trixie's eyes, blue where Cherie's were gray, acquired a blatant sheen of hero worship. “He's so tall and strong,
and
he's a fireman?”

Vader raised an eyebrow at Cherie. With that one gesture, the heaviness in her chest eased. She knew Vader's ways; with anyone else, he would have curled his lip or plastered a leer on his face. But obviously, he realized Trixie was an innocent, and he had no intention of playing any games with her.

Although Cherie had to wonder just how innocent the former Humility Harper actually was. She seemed ready to flirt with a lamppost.

“Trixie, even though I'm not as old as your sister makes me sound”—­Vader frowned in Cherie's direction—­“I want you to think of me as your older brother.”

“Which one? Justice-­Denied? Righ­teous-­Be-­Thy-­Name?”

“Huh?” Vader shook his head. “Doesn't matter. Think of me as a whole different kind of brother. One without a weird name.”

“Vader ain't exactly your common run-­of-­the-­mill name either.” Trixie opened her eyes wide and fluttered her eyelashes.