Skin Deep (25 page)

Calland finally stopped laughing enough to
take over Noah’s story. Not that Noah was telling the story any
longer, but again, he’s a man of few words. Very few.

“So,” Calland began, still chuckling. “Leah
got the bright idea to surprise me and Noah by hitting us with
balloons filled with whipped cream while we were pulling the
Christmas tree out of the attic for Mom. Being the ditzoid she is,
she didn’t fill them up enough so they just bounced off of us.
That’s why she got dunked!” He hooted with laughter again, holding
his stomach and wiping tears away as he sputtered about the way
Leah had looked after he stuck her head in the sink. Noah was
smiling too, but he was more reserved about his glee.

I raised my eyebrows and shook my head when
Luke and Brandon both slapped high-fives with Calland and Noah, and
when Luke caught my eye, he just grinned and shrugged. They
disappeared toward the garage with my brother and I heard Brandon
asking for details on how to fill the balloons for maximum
splattage. Guess I need to watch my back at home from now on.

I turned to my mom and asked her if she
needed my help with anything. She told me to take over stirring the
gravy for her before she asked, “Emma? Did I hear a dog barking
when you guys came in?”

Uh-oh! I forgot about Doug with everything
going on! “Um…well? I didn’t think you’d mind if we brought Doug.
He’s Luke’s-” I shut up because it was pointless to talk to her
anymore since she’d ran out of the kitchen calling for him.

Jenna and I looked at each other and shrugged
as we heard Mom start cooing to Doug in the living room. Leah came
in shaking her head and stood beside us as we heard the
click-click-click of Doug’s nails on the wood floors as he followed
my Mom back into the kitchen like she was the greatest thing since
sliced bread. His goofy doggy grin was plastered across his furry
face as he thumped his ass down on the floor as if waiting for
something.

Mom peeked over my shoulder, finally
decreeing that the gravy I’d been stirring was done before she
shooed us away from the stove. Then we all watched in confusion as
she set about filling a small plate with little portions of ham,
mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese, stuffing, and even
a deviled egg. When she was done, we all stared, dumbfounded with
eyes wide and mouths gaping, as she plopped herself down on a chair
at the kitchen table, pulling the one out beside her and patting it
for Doug to hop up on.

Doug complied, looking every bit the
sophisticate as he sat tall and proud on the chair. My mom began
feeding him small bites of food from a fork, and Doug, being the
perfect polite gentleman, was calmly and gently closing his lips
over the fork, his little front teeth lightly scraping the morsels
off the tines before chewing, swallowing, and patiently waiting for
the next bite.

I felt heat at my back an instant before I
heard Luke whisper in my ear, “Is your mom feeding my dog from a
FORK at the kitchen TABLE? Oh, God. She’s feeding him egg. Is that
egg? That’s egg. Oh, shit, he’s staying here tonight. Seriously,
he’s not coming home with us because his egg farts are the
worst!”

I giggled, turning my head to look at him and
when I did, I noticed that everyone in the family had gathered
silently in the kitchen, including my niece and nephew, watching my
crazy mother feed a huge yellow lab at the kitchen table like it
was an everyday thing.

The silence finally registered with my mom.
Either that or she felt all of our eyes boring into her in
disbelief. She looked up and glared at each of us before saying,
“What? You’ve never seen a dog eat Thanksgiving dinner before? It
IS a holiday, you know, and he’s part of the family now, too. I’m
just sad that he can’t have the turkey, too, but its bad for dogs.
Now all of you, go wash up for dinner, and Calland, you can set the
dining room table. Leah, you help. Emma and Jenna, start carrying
food into the dining room. Move!”

We all sprang into action, and so the day
went. You’d swear that Doug was one of Mom’s grandchildren, the way
she spoiled him and doted on him as well as Hayden and Jarrod.
Thanksgiving dinner with everyone crowded around the table went off
with only minor hiccups, those mainly being Calland throwing the
dinner rolls at everyone instead of passing the basket around,
Calland refusing to let me have any mac & cheese until my mom
threatened to beat him with a wooden spoon (again), and Calland
teaching Hayden how to fling peas across the table at her mom with
her spoon. (Sensing a pattern here?)

After dinner and dessert was done, everything
cleaned up, and the leftovers designated (I got ALL of the mac
& cheese, bitches! Muahahahaha!), the guys headed into the
living room to watch football, the kids took Doug out back to play,
and me, my mom, and my sisters all sat in the kitchen playing
double solitaire.

We spent a few pleasant hours just enjoying
everyone’s company before we started to disperse. Everyone was
giving hugs and kisses and punches (that was Calland, go figure)
and grabbing their designated bag of leftovers. I helped my sister
and Noah get everything into their car, including a miraculously
half-asleep Hayden, and headed back in to get my stuff and say bye
to my mom and dad. When I got to the door, Mom was hugging Luke and
Brandon and pushing them out towards me. Luke had my coat over his
arm and Brandon had my bag of leftovers, but I didn’t see Doug.

I gave her a quick hug, telling her Happy
Thanksgiving and thanking her for a great dinner before I asked
about Doug. “Um, Mom? We need to-”

She pushed me toward Luke with a smile and
wave, shouting, “Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for coming and spending
the day with us, come back soon, okay?”

I shouted to be heard over her. “Mom! We need
to get Doug! Remember? The dog you fed at the kitchen table?”

“He’s fine, Emma. Bye now!” With that, she
turned and shut the door in our faces.

I turned to Luke, a bemused expression on my
face and nodded as he sputtered, “Did? Did she just-? She just
stole my dog!”

I grabbed his hand and Brandon’s, pulling
them towards the car as I said, “Yep. She did. We’ll come get him
tomorrow. Let’s go home and watch a movie or something, okay?” We
got in and Luke started backing down the drive. “Besides,” I
continued, “she fed him eggs with dinner, remember?”

Luke nodded his head as he drove away from my
parents’ house and Doug, a slow grin spreading across his face and
Brandon started laughing. “Oh, yes. She did, didn’t she.”

My phone rang around one in the morning when
Luke and I were snuggled up together in bed. When I answered, my
mom shouted, “Emma! Come get this dog! Oh, God, he keeps farting
and its stinking up the whole house! Seriously! Your poor dad is
wearing a clothespin on his nose!”

I just laughed and simply said, “Goodnight,
Mom. Happy Thanksgiving!” before I hung up on her and cuddled back
up to Luke.

Chapter 17

“Good morning, Floyd Grim’s office, how can I
help you?” It was the Monday after Thanksgiving and everything was
back to normal. Well, as normal as could be with the wacky people
in my life.

“Hey, sweetheart. Did you have a good
Thanksgiving?”

That weird raspy voiced creepy guy was
calling me again! “Can I help you, sir?” I asked, hesitantly.
Although I had told him about the weird hang up calls and the other
calls Creepy had made to the office, Floyd wasn’t in the office
with me at that moment. He was down in Domestic Relations Court on
a custody case that was scheduled for a half-day trial, which meant
he wouldn’t be back in the office until around noon, unless they
settled early. Given the case that it was, I had no hopes of that
happening.

“Just wanted to check on my beautiful girl
and to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving. Did you get the rose I left
for you last Wednesday?”

Oh. My. God. He had been to my work? That was
him? I tried to keep my voice calm as I asked again, “Sir, is there
something I can help you with?”

“Don’t ignore me, Emma. I asked you a
question. Did you get my rose?” His voice began to rise, still
retaining its raspy quality, and becoming even more creepy, if that
was possible.

“Um, I’m not sure what you are talking about,
sir. Now, if-”

“NO! You lie, Emma. You lie and you got my
rose because I saw you get it. I saw the way you smiled when you
held it up to your nose and smelled it. It smelled beautiful, just
like you. Why did you lie to me, Emma? Why?” His voice was
plaintive, almost whiny now.

I took a deep breath, panicking as his words
began to sink in. He’d seen me pick up the rose? He was watching
me? Oh, shit… “Sir, if there’s nothing I can help you with or you
aren’t calling for an appointment, I must insist that you not call
here anymore.” I couldn’t mask the shakiness of my voice, and I
prayed that he wouldn’t pick up on it, wouldn’t know how much he
was affecting me.

I replaced the phone onto its cradle, trying
to make myself believe that the man wasn’t shrieking in rage when
I’d done so. The phone rang again immediately after I lifted my
hand from it and I jumped, jerking my hand back and letting out a
shriek. I didn’t want to answer it, but I had no choice.

“Hel-hello? Floyd Grim’s office?” I stuttered
into the phone.

“Emma?”

Allie’s voice rang through the line and I
shuddered in relief. “Allie! Oh, thank God!”

“What’s going on, sweetie? What happened?”
she asked, her voice rising with concern.

I explained quickly about the phone call I’d
just received and she hung up as soon as I was done, telling me
she’d be at the office in minute before she clicked off the phone.
When she got there (she must have broken land speed records getting
there) I was still shaken. I picked up the phone at her urging and
called the police to make a report. They weren’t very helpful, the
officer on duty only reluctantly taking a report down to have on
file and gave me the report number quickly before hanging up on
me.

I turned to Allie, shaking my head in
disbelief and rage.

“What’s wrong now? They took the report,
right?” she asked.

“Yeah, but he didn’t want to. He just kept
telling me that there’s really nothing that they can do because he
didn’t threaten me and hasn’t caused me harm in any way. I
explained that he’d been calling repeatedly, but he said the same
thing basically. I have no number that shows up on the Caller ID to
prove that all the hang ups were him and blah blah blah…grr!” I
threw my hands up.

Allie stayed with me, saying that she had had
her mom go take over at her store so she could be there with me.
When Floyd came in the office, looking tired but satisfied (he won
his case), I filled him in. He was concerned and told me that he’d
be getting me some sort of recording device for my phone
system.

The next morning, he’d left a box sitting on
my desk and I hooked everything up, impressed by the gadget that
allowed me to record my phone conversations by pressing a little
button on the little box that I attached to the hands free/headset
outlet on the phone. It made me feel a little more secure having
that option, but I didn’t get any more calls for the rest of the
week.

On Friday night, I had Luke swing me by my
house to check on it. I’d finally moved out everything that I
wanted and told Leah that she could live there as long as she had
the utilities switched over into her name and made the mortgage
payments on time. She’d been pretty good about it so far, and for
being such a ditz, she really was responsible.

I grabbed the few pieces of mail that hadn’t
been forwarded to Luke’s house and we headed home. I thumbed
through the mail, most of it junk, as Luke drove us home. One of
the envelopes was plain white with my name typed on it, no address,
and no return address. I felt a chill skitter down my spine as I
turned it over in my hands a couple times before I took a deep
breath and opened it. My breath whooshed out on a sigh of relief
when I pulled out a brightly colored piece of paper with birthday
party information printed on it for an old friend of mine and
Allie’s son’s third birthday.

Shaking my head at myself, I tossed all the
mail into my purse and reached over to grab Luke’s hand. When we
got home, Brandon and Allie were sitting on the couch with Doug
laying at their feet and Jackson was in the kitchen making
microwave popcorn.

I grinned at Jackson before trotting over and
giving him a hug. “Hey! When did you get back? Did you have a good
Thanksgiving?” I asked him.

Luke walked over and did the
one-armed-macho-man-hug thing with Jackson while he replied to my
questions. “I got in about an hour ago and yeah, it was okay. Not
as fun as yours sounded, though!”

I grinned at him and we spent the rest of the
evening trading stories and watching movies. I curled up with Luke
in the oversized armchair and Allie sat between Brandon and
Jackson. I could have sworn there was a few times that I saw Allie
slap hands away from her. I’m not sure whose hands they were, but
judging by the red creeping over Allie’s cheeks, she wasn’t totally
against them touching her.

I looked at the clock, surprised to see that
it was almost two in the morning, stretched and climbed off of
Luke. He stared up at me, asking if I was ready for bed. I nodded
and we said our goodnights before heading up the stairs. I turned
to look at Allie and winked, then waggled my brows at her. She
glared at me, well, tried to anyway, but her lips twitched and she
winked back.

We got up early the next morning and I went
over to Jenna’s house for a while since Luke had a couple things to
do at the stop. When I got there, Noah and Jarrod had gone out for
a “men’s day” and Hayden was begging Jenna to have a “grill’s day”
and let her give her a makeover. Seeing the potential for mega
laughs at my sister’s expense, I joined in with Hayden’s cajoling
and we cracked Jenna in about five minutes.