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“I do.” He grinned. “You should know better than to get in my way.”
“Oh, like you could do anything against me?”
“I’m sure I could think of something.”
I laughed at the mischievous look on his face. There was something familiar about the way I felt at that moment. It wasn’t the crush. It wasn’t even like anything I’d felt with a man before. Then I realized that it reminded me of the times when my brothers and I sparred verbally, all in love and fun. Great. Just what I needed, another big brother.
As he walked me home, I realized that if this had been an actual date, it would have been the best date I’d had since I’d moved to New York. Maybe even since before that. I couldn’t remember a date where I’d had that much fun, been that at ease with someone.
It hadn’t been a date, though, even if he had picked up the check. In spite of all the bonding we’d done, he still didn’t come close to touching me—no hand holding or even near-miss brushing of hands as we walked, no arm draped around my shoulders. But did that really matter? I’d had fun. I enjoyed being with him.
When we stopped in front of my building, I said, “Well, thanks for dinner. I’m glad we did that. Otherwise, it was going to be mac and cheese in front of the TV.”
“I’m glad you joined me. I think I needed to get out.”
There was a long pause. I wondered if I should invite him up. I hoped he was wondering if he should kiss me good night. Before I made a decision about what to do, he said, “See you in the morning,” then turned and headed off toward his place. He didn’t even try to hug me or shake my hand.
With a deep sigh, I climbed to the third floor. The apartment was still empty when I opened the door. Both roommates must have made their own dinner plans. The light on the answering machine was blinking, so I hit the PLAY button as I removed my coat. “Uh, this message is for Katie,” my mother’s voice said. Someday maybe she’d get used to newfangled things like answering machines. “This is your mother. I need you to call me as soon as you can. I have big news for you.”
My mother will wait to tell you about a death in the extended family so it won’t ruin your day, and she hates answering machines, so the fact that she’d actually left a message and had said she needed me to call as soon as possible could mean only one thing: a death or serious injury in the immediate family. One of my brothers must have accidentally shot another brother while they were out hunting, or something equally dire.
I wished I’d invited Owen to come up with me so I’d have someone nearby when I got the bad news. My hand shook as I picked up the phone and dialed home. When my mother answered, I could hear a quaver in my voice as I said, “Mom, it’s me, Katie.”
“Frank! It’s Katie!” Her voice sounded like she was talking away from the phone. Then she spoke into the phone. “Hi, honey, that was fast. I wasn’t expecting to hear back from you tonight.”
“You said to call as soon as possible,” I reminded her. The fact that she’d left a message would have made me call back right away. If she just wanted to chat, she’d keep calling over and over again for hours instead of leaving a message. She always said she didn’t want to be a bother or make anyone feel obligated to call her back if it wasn’t important. “What is it, Mom? What happened?” I asked.
“We have some news for you,” she said. She didn’t sound grief-stricken, so I allowed myself to relax slightly.
I kicked off my shoes and sat down on the couch. There was no such thing as a short conversation with my mother, so I needed to get comfortable. “What kind of news?” I asked warily. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she told me she’d found an exciting new job for me or the perfect man for me to marry in a nearby town so I could come home from New York right away. My parents weren’t thrilled about me being in New York, to put it mildly.
“Good news. We’re so excited. Your brother Frank Junior won the Rotary Club raffle at the homecoming game.”
“That’s nice,” I said. It certainly wasn’t call-everyone-right-away news. They usually raffled off something like a shotgun or a duck blind.
“It was two round-trip airline tickets to anywhere in the country, and he gave them to your father and me so we could come visit you. Isn’t that exciting?”
“Wow,” was all I could say—literally. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see my parents. I hadn’t seen them in a little more than a year, and I still suffered the occasional pang of homesickness. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to see them in New York in the middle of everything that was going on.
My parents in New York was a frightening enough idea. They’d never left Texas in their entire lives, as far as I knew. They found Dallas huge and intimidating. I couldn’t imagine turning them loose in Manhattan. I wouldn’t be able to hand them a subway map and tell them to have fun. I wondered if I could get away with booking them on one of those all-day bus tours that went all over the city—would that look like I was ditching them, or like I was being a dutiful daughter and giving them star treatment? Throw a magical threat into the mix, and things got a little too complicated for me to imagine coping with any degree of sanity.
“She’s speechless,” my mom said aside to my dad, who usually stood nearby while she talked to me. I didn’t know why they didn’t get a speakerphone. To me, she said, “Now, don’t worry about having to put us up for the week. I know you said your apartment was small. We’ll get a hotel.”
I knew manners meant I should protest and insist that they stay with us, but with Marcia’s sofa bed in the living room pulled out, nearly every square inch of our apartment was full. We might be able to put someone in the bathtub, but that could get awkward unless that person was an early riser. “I’ll make reservations for you at a place near here that’s not too expensive, but still clean and safe,” I said. “When will you be here?”
“She’ll find us a hotel,” she said to my father before saying to me, “We were planning to be there for Thanksgiving. We can fly up that Monday, then back the next Monday. You don’t think it’ll be too hard to get a hotel then, do you? I mean, with all the people there for the parade?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll give it a try.” My mind was still buzzing from the idea of my parents coming anywhere near my crazy world. Normal New York would be wild to them. Magical New York would be mind blowing. Not that they’d necessarily see it, but I didn’t want to take that chance.
“You probably have to line up really early to see that parade, don’t you?”
“I think so. You’ll see it better on TV.”
“Then it’ll be just like home. We can make Thanksgiving dinner at your place for you and Marcia and Gemma. Won’t that be fun?”
It did sound fun, in a way. It also sounded like something that could drive me stark raving crazy. I had exactly one week to prepare. Maybe if I got moving on that investigation, I could nail our spy, save MSI once again, and earn myself a day off while my parents were in town. I imagined myself having a burst of insight the next morning, calling a staff meeting, then outlining the evidence that led to the dramatic revelation of the culprit, just like Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately, I seemed to be more Inspector Clouseau than Sherlock Holmes. At best, I was Jessica Fletcher with a slightly better wardrobe and a lower body count among my friends and neighbors.
“I’ll make reservations for you tomorrow,” I said. “Then let me know your flight details so I can meet you at the airport.”
