Tied Bond (Holly Woods Files, #4) (2 page)

“Mom, you might give her a heart attack if you hang him this year.”

“Good,” she mutters. “I might get some peace, then.”

I’d gasp in shock if I didn’t see the truth in her words. Or agree to an extent. Every year, it’s the same. Mom tries to decorate and Nonna kicks up a fuss. Last year, right after the demons had been hung up, Nonna went straight to see Father Luiz, claiming with her usual dramatic flair that Mom had been possessed by the devil.

Mom found herself having a shower in holy water at two a.m. that night.

Yeah. I can’t imagine what will happen this year if the crazy old bat is already losing her shit and all Mom’s done is open a few boxes.

The rumble of an engine cuts through the air, and both Mom and I turn to look at the road that stretches past the Bond family home. Drake’s cruiser pulls up, blocking the driveway, and I hear his groan before he even opens the door.

“Of all the things…” he grumbles, getting out and slamming the door. “She said two words and here I am. Keeping the peace, like peace exists in this family.”

I grin. “Hello, Detective. Is there a problem?”

Drake adjusts his belt and hits me with his icy, blue eyes. “You know damn well there’s a problem, Noelle. Or, according to Nonna, there is.” He slides his eyes to Mom, opens his mouth to speak, then throws his arms in the air. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to say to you, Kellie. I was told by Sheriff Bates that, if I didn’t get my ass down here to sort this out, I’d be on paperwork this week.”

Yeah… Drake and paperwork is like a toddler trying to grab out-of-reach candy. A nightmare.

I share a look with Mom. “You’re gonna have to find somewhere else to put the demons.”

“Can someone please explain to me what’s going on? And, by someone, I mean someone who isn’t totally insane and spewin’ Italian cuss words every five seconds?”

Mom rolls her eyes and hangs Lucifer the motion-sensor demon on the branch behind her. Drake’s eyes flit to the decoration before coming back to her. I bite the inside of my lip to stop myself from laughing.

“She hates demons,” Mom tells him.

“Funny, I figured that out myself,” he drawls.

“Are you sassin’ me, Drake Nash? I will go and tell your mama if you are.”

His back immediately straightens. “No, ma’am. Carry on.”

I put my hand over my mouth and turn away. Damn, I love it when she pulls the mom card on him. Since his mom came back to Holly Woods for six months three weeks ago, he’s been on his best behavior. Saying, “Don’t make me tell your mama,” is a surefire way to get him to hush up.

I’m torn between amusement and swooning each time it happens. He loves his mom to death and respects her just as much, and there’s something about a man who loves his mama…

“She hates my demons,” Mom continues after a moment. “Every year, it’s the same, but this year, she’s on a rampage. And, now, she’s called you! She’s lost her dang mind!”

“You know I have to talk to her, right?” Drake looks between us. “Shit. What the hell is that thing?” he asks, pointing at the demon behind Mom.

“Lucifer,” I answer.

“Lucifer.”

“Yes, Lucifer. He’s mom’s favorite demon decoration.”

“And y’all wonder why your staunchly Catholic, God-lovin’, Jesus-praisin’ Italian grandmother called the police.”

“Uh…yeah. It’s a damn decoration. It’s not gonna come alive in the middle of the night and suck out our souls.”

“You-a don’t-a know that!” Nonna exclaims, appearing in the doorway and waving her cane in our direction.

“Yes, I do,” I say, turning around. “We don’t have souls for it to suck out, Nonna. You already took them.”

“Why-a you-a—!” She comes at me with her cane pointed at me.

I dart behind Drake’s muscular frame and fist the back of his shirt. What? I’m fearless, but I’m not dumb.

“Nonna, maybe put the cane down,” Drake says softly. “Violence doesn’t solve anything.”

Nonna stops and lowers the cane. “You-a take-a the demons away-a?”

“Uh…I can’t take the demons.”

“Why-a not-a?”

“Because there’s nothing illegal about demon decorations on Halloween.”

“Pah! I take-a this-a to-a the mayor! You-a cops!” She turns and stalks back into the house. “You-a soft! In my-a day, they would-a have-a gone!”

“They would have been taken because Nonno was the Sheriff and everyone was scared of you!” I call after her. “No one is afraid anymore!”

“No-a meatballs for-a you-a!” she screams, slamming the front door behind her.

“If PMS were still possible for her…” Mom mutters, turning around and slicing a box open with a letter opener.

“I think I have a migraine.” Drake sighs then spins, wrenching his shirt from my grip. “And, for someone who says she ain’t scared of her, you sure look it.”

“I’m scared of the cane,” I point out. “Not her. I could take her out with one karate chop.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Can you karate-chop?”

“Maybe with my gun.”

“I’d have to arrest you for that.”

If Mom weren’t right here, I’d so be making a comment about handcuffs. He still hasn’t made good on all of those threats. If he doesn’t soon, I might just have to do it to him.

“Now y’all keep that talk for yourselves, thank you,” Mom bursts out like she knows what I’m thinking. “Or I’ll tell your mama, Drake.”

“That’s gonna get real old real quick, Kellie,” Drake replies.

“That isn’t a threat anyway,” I remind her. “She’s been married and divorced three times, Mom. She probably knows more ways to use handcuffs than he does.” I prod Drake in the arm.

He shudders. “Can we not discuss this? When I took that damn rat of a dog back to her place last night, I was five minutes away from running into my ex-stepfather. It suddenly made total sense why I had to dog-sit.”

“Wally?”

Drake groans, rubbing a hand across his forehead. “Of course it was Wally. Who else would she be secretly screwing?”

Mom gasps.

“We should take this to your car.” I grab him and drag him down the path, much to Mom’s annoyance.

Oh boy. She only wishes she could hear more.

Damn gossiper.

We get into the car, and I shoot Mom a glare as I slam the door. Defiantly, she grabs Lucifer and hangs him on his tree.

“That thing is weird.” Drake looks right past me at it. “I might have to be sick for the next two or three Fridays.”

“Just the Fridays?” My lips slowly tug up on side one. “Isn’t that suspicious?”

“I’ll figure it out,” he mutters, leaning back in his seat. “I’ll look on Google.”

“The last time you looked on Google, you diagnosed yourself with a potentially life-threatening disease.”

“Hey.” He looks at me, his bright eyes glinting with restrained laughter. “The symptoms were identical. How was I supposed to know my appendix wasn’t about to burst and fill my gut with poison?”

I put my hand on his knee. “Honey, you had indigestion. And gas.”

“It was severe.”

“Oh, I know. I had to sleep with you that night.”

“Shut up.” He flicks the back of my hand, a grin on his handsome face.

I try to keep my raised eyebrows and half-pursed lips, but his smile is so infectious that I can’t do anything but return it.
Damn him.

“Okay,” I say. “Now, tell me about your mom.”

“She’s…busy,” he answers vaguely, scratching at his jaw.

“With Wally.”

“And Derrick Hugh.”

“At the… At the same time?”

He stops scratching and, instead, rubs his hand down his face. He cuts his eyes to me, and horror shadows them. “Don’t—why would you suggest that? She’s almost sixty, Noelle. That isn’t right.”

“She’s not that close to sixty. Old people have sex, you know.”

“She’d take offense at you calling her old.”

“You’re the one who thinks she’s too old to have sex.”

“And, once again, our conversations are going in circles.” He sighs heavily. “She’s seeing them both. Separately. And I’m not sure they know about each other, but when Derrick came in to fix the broken pipes in the station bathroom yesterday, he fuckin’ winked at me.”

My tongue darts out to wet my lips. “Winked at you, huh? Saucy.”

“Sweetheart, I love you, but I swear to God, if you don’t take this seriously…”

I laugh and kiss his stubbled cheek. “She’s a big girl, Drake. She’s old enough to make her own choices.”

“Historically, she hasn’t made good ones.”

“Neither have I, but you still put up with me.”

“I can’t get rid of you.”

“Excuse me. I seem to remember trying incredibly hard to get rid of
you,
” I point out. “You were the one attaching yourself to me like a limpet to a rock.”

He grins widely and leans over. His hand curves around the back of my neck, and when he pulls my face into his, he’s still smiling. “It worked.”

“Hmmm,” I muse back, smiling a little myself. Warmth spreads through me when our lips touch. “Don’t you have to get back to work?”

“Yeah, but Nonna’s crazy actually saved me a phone call. Mom wants us to have dinner with her tonight.”

I wrinkle my face up. “Will Rat Dog be there?”

“It didn’t try to eat your Louboutins, Noelle. That mark is from when you threw it into your coffee table last week because your client’s deposit check bounced.”

“That was a lot of money. And that’s a total lie. I’d never treat my babies that way.” Except that I did.

What? I was pissed off.

“If you say so,” he says. “Still, I’ll pick you up at six, yeah?”

“And Rat Dog will be in a cage, right?”

He stares at me flatly as I get up. “Probably not. She doesn’t know
I
have a cage for it.”

I groan and slam the car door. He laughs, and I flip him the bird over my shoulder. I love his mom. She’s wonderfully quirky—the good kind, not the Nonna kind—and sweet, if you ignore that she gives my ring finger a pointed look every time I see her. I do. I’m used to it.

But that dog?

No.

I don’t even know what it is, hence its nickname of Rat Dog. It’s the tiniest, yappiest ankle-nipper I’ve ever freaking met. It’s obsessed with my shoes, and the last time I stayed at Drake’s and it was there, I found it eating my underwear out of his laundry basket.

Yeah.

There’s a chance I screamed and Drake came running downstairs completely naked and wet from the shower, his gun in his hand.

Clothing: not optional in case of emergency.

I’m looking forward to seeing the little creature again as much as I’m looking forward to Amelia’s bachelorette party next weekend… Not at all.

“Kellie! Take-a it down-a!” Nonna screeches, waving her cane above her head. “It is-a cursed!
You must burn it! Demon
!” she says in Italian.

Gio squawks. “Demon! Demon! Demon wench! Kellie, demon wench!”

“Liliana, shut that dang bird up right now!”

On second thought… Dinner with Drake’s mom and Rat Dog doesn’t seem so bad after all.

I
f there’s one thing anyone should know about the older generation of Holly Woods, Texas, it’s that they’re horribly sentimental. The only time my mom ever moved house was to move into Dad’s, which Nonna and Nonno had owned at one point.

It is, to Mom’s great delight, a thorn in Nonna’s side that, when Nonno died, the house went to Dad.

Take Miss Rosie for example—her café once belonged to her aunt. Melanie’s bookstore-slash-coffee-shop was once her mom’s. The inn on the edge of town has been in the Cooper family for three generations at least. Giovanni’s, my favorite Italian restaurant? Four generations.

My point is that they don’t like to let anything go. If the prevailing religion in town were Jewish instead of Catholic, there’d probably be a foreskin bank on Main Street that’d hold everyone’s cockhead skin ever.

Drake’s mom is no different.

Gianna Moretti, previously known as Gianna Nash, Gianna Thornton, and Gianna De Luca, has owned the same house since she was eighteen and her grandmother passed away, leaving her mom out of the will and passing it straight down. Despite her recent trips around the United States, the possession of the house never changed. It’s been rented out here, there, and everywhere—but the second it was known she was coming back, that house was empty.

It was as though no one had ever lived there.

Now, though? Now, the Moretti/Nash house is full of life. It’s as if she never left.

It’s kind of terrifying.

If there’s anything else anyone needs to know about Gianna Moretti, it’s that she’s one of the most intimidating women I’ve ever met—second only to Nonna. If you didn’t know her, you’d think she’d walked straight out of the ’50s. She’s classy and elegant, the epitome of a complete lady.

She also swears like an absolute sailor. She can cut you down with a single look. And I have seen a crowd part for her to walk through it like she’s goddamn Moses.

I want to be her when I grow up. Because I’m pretty sure I’m nowhere near grown up despite the fact that I’ll be thirty next year.

Scratch that. I’m certain I’m still secretly eight years old.

Actually… Not even sure it’s a secret.

“You’re not wearing any shoes,” Drake says as I open my front door.