Page 19 of Montana Born

Chapter Eight

Brow furrowed, Billy slid beads onto a wire while Elle watched from across the kitchen table. As was their little routine, she visited during on an evening or on the weekend, usually hoping to be fed.

Her cousin, Deana, was a fabulous cook used to her unmarried relatives popping in with growling stomachs and feeble excuses.

When a lock of blond hair fell across Billy’s face, Elle itched to sweep it back. Instead, she smiled at him. “I love the colors you’re using this time.”

“They are shades of pink,” her sullen nephew replied. She never tired of his creations, often hating to return one in exchange for another. He rarely allowed her to keep one longer than a couple weeks.

“Can I keep this one?” She pointed at the one she wore.

“No.” He looked to the kitchen where Deana cleared her throat.

“It would be nice to let your aunt keep some Billy. The bracelet box is full.”

For a long moment, his gaze locked to the sparkling bracelet on her wrist. “I suppose you can keep it. Let me check my box first.” He got up and sprinted to his bedroom.

Deana let out a sigh. “We’re going to be on Hoarders if he doesn’t stop making bracelets. It will be a very sparkly episode.”

Elle laughed. “Good luck with them getting Billy to give up any of his creations. That will be a show worth watching.”

Deanna’s eyes widened and she pointed at the patio doors to her back yard. “Queue the freak parade.”

Twins Lori and Sandy appeared followed by Aunt Janet. They carried pool floats, beach bags and what looked to be a small air mattress.

“I don’t think your pool is big enough for all of that.” Elle studied the above ground pool. “What are they up to?”

Unable to resist, she went to the sliding doors and stepped out.

“Hey!” Her aunt narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t tell me you were coming over here. I could have used a ride.”

“You have a car.”

“I hate driving the damn thing.”

“What are you doing with all that stuff?”

Lori turned to her, revealing a fully made up face. “We’re taking pictures for online dating sites. Trying something different. Also for our social media profile pictures.”

Her face red from blowing up a beach ball, Sandy nodded and grinned. “We’ve decided to advertise for twins and get married at the same time.”

There was a beat of silence as Elle couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“Nobody is going to marry you freaks!” Deana called out from the kitchen window. “Pictures by an above ground pool with all that crap, scream white trash.”

“Takes one to know one,” Sandy screamed back.

“Make me a sandwich,” Aunt Janet said settling into a foldout chair and lifting up a camera that would make professional photographers drool. “Model photography makes me hungry.”

Deana’s sister, Jennifer, traipsed to stand by the pool and posed like a pin-up girl. She wore a string bikini, a huge multicolored hat on her head and bright yellow sunglasses. “I go first. This extreme wedgie is giving me a rash.”

Elle chuckled at the scene she’d left at her cousin’s house. An argument over who’d pose with what prop culminated in a tug of war with a blow up flamingo, which ended when Lori fell on top of Aunt Janet. The chair collapsed and when Jennifer hurried to help, Deana’s Great Dane stuck his nose in her butt.

Before long, everyone laid around talking and laughing. The flamingo was the only thing remaining in the pool.

Not wishing to go home, she headed toward a coffee shop instead deciding the smell of coffee and other people who were not trying to kill an inflatable flamingo would be a perfect place to get some light work done.

Once parked, she pulled her messenger bag from the back seat and walked down the sidewalk to The Coffee Bean.