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Xavier hesitated and then said, “Proof.” He sat down beside Frankie, next to the Venus, and took the bowl of ribs away from him. Frankie looked like he was going to protest and then shut up and reached for the coleslaw instead.
Agnes passed him a fork as Shane said, “Okay, we need a plan. So part A is, Frankie walks Maria down the aisle tomorrow and scares Brenda so that she confesses all to Xavier. Good luck with that. Part B, Casey Dean sees Frankie, makes his move, and I ... arrest him.”
“Casey Dean is Shane’s bad guy,” Agnes said to Xavier.
“And Shane’s going to arrest him,” Xavier said around his rib. “Would that be cardiac arrest?”
Okay, Agnes thought, and reached for the deviled eggs. They were all eating and talking. She could eat now, too.
“And then part C, Frankie and I discuss Lisa Livia’s inheritance,” Shane said, fixing Frankie with a look that said, You and me, Uncle Frankie.
Frankie tried to look old and frail and innocent. “Ha,” Agnes said, and he gave up and passed the coleslaw back to her.
“And if Brenda doesn’t freely confess to murder?” Xavier asked.
“She’ll fuck up something else,” Shane said. “You be ready for it.”
They all began to talk at once, arguing out the best plan, overlapping each other’s words as they reached over each other to get to the food, arguing and eating, Lisa Livia finally joining in as Carpenter pulled up a chair next to her, making Joey and Agnes scoot over, which brought her close to Shane.
Right where I want to be, she thought, and watched to make sure everybody had enough food. When the table was pretty much cleared she said, “Okay, here’s my last word: Nobody shoots anybody tonight. We’re a team now, one big happy family. We need each other. If everybody shows up here tomorrow breathing and with all working body parts, and I do mean everybody, I’ll make breakfast. Anything you want. But if anybody hurts anybody else on the team, I’m going to be upset. Understand?”
Joey and Frankie looked in different directions.
“And nobody wants Agnes upset,” Shane said.
Joey and Frankie nodded.
“Good.” Agnes shoved her chair back. “Now let’s all get some sleep. And somebody check on Garth, please.”
“I’ll check on the lad,” Frankie said, getting up. “You’re not fucking Irish,” Joey said, getting up to go with him. “Family,” Agnes said, steel in her voice.
“I can’t wait for the holidays,” Xavier said, and left them to their slumbers.
Shane followed Agnes up the stairs to the second floor as she said, “Do you think any of this is going to work?”
“It’s a place to start,” he said. “We’ll play it by ear—what’s wrong?”
Agnes had stopped at the top of the stairs. “Maria and the bridesmaids are in three of the bedrooms up here, and Carpenter and LL are in the other one. We’ll have to use the housekeeper’s room again?—”
“Nope,” he said, and steered her toward the attic stairs, his hands on her waist.
She hesitated and then went along, saying, “I suppose you’re right,” sounding exhausted. “That whole saving-the-attic-bedroom-as-commitment thing was dumb.”
“Nope,” he said, letting his hands slide down to her hips, patting her beautiful round butt as she climbed in front of him. His world was going to hell, but Agnes still had a great ass and right now that was enough.
She opened the door at the top of the stairs and then went into the bedroom on the right, and the moonlight flooded the room from the low windows, making it feel almost underwater, peaceful. The big low bed had looked inviting before, but now Agnes said, “Oh,” with an ache in her voice that was almost a moan, and he felt the same way.
Shane looked at her in the dim light, round everywhere. “Long day.”
“I need a shower first,” she said. “I was in jail.”
“Been there,” Shane said, and watched her pad across the hardwood floor to the half-finished bath on the other side, telling himself that she was exhausted and they were both mind-fried from thinking about the next day until he heard the shower go on, and then he gave up being the Sensitive Guy and stripped and went in to join her.
She hadn’t turned the lights on in the bathroom, either, so he found her by the moonlight coming through the skylight, making the soap blue on her wet skin. “Hey,” she said, but it was a soft welcome, not a protest, and his hands slid on her soapy lush curves, and he forgot the next day and lost himself in Agnes and in the feel of her hands as she stroked the soap over him, and the soft sound of her giggle and sigh under the water, and the taste of her as she tangled her tongue with his, the way her body yielded to the shove of his, the way she shivered against the scrape of his beard, drew breath at the slide of fingers, and urged him on, hungry for him as he invaded her, but mostly the way she wanted him, wrapped herself around him and demanded him, and by the time they fell onto the bed, she was so hot, so desperate for him, and he was so insane for her, that he drove into her, into the shock and the need, into everything she was, obliterating himself in her, nothing but him in her, rolling in those satin sheets, until they both exploded, and when he came back to the cool blue room and the moonlight and the quiet with Agnes shuddering in his arms, holding on to him as if she’d never let him go, for the first time in his life he thought, Don’t let go, and held on.
The sunlight woke Agnes up because it came in at such a funny angle, and then when she realized where she was, she sat bolt upright and said, “Oh, my God!” and Shane sat up, too, and said, “What?” reaching for his gun, which, probably for the first time in his life, wasn’t within reach because she’d kicked it last night, flailing around. Even Rhett jerked awake under the windows and looked around.
“I overslept. I think.” Agnes looked around for a clock, but there wasn’t any. “Do you have a watch? What time is it?”
