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Adam’s face turned toward me as she said it and I had to turn away to hide the blush that rolled up my neck like a storm surge. I quickly dropped my phone.Busted.
Grams was already sidling up to him, ostensibly to coo over Teagan, and when I heard a startled noise from Adam I couldn’t help but snort. Grams was already making good on her threat and I wondered how many handfuls of his ass she’d help herself to over the course of the afternoon. The woman was a walking sexual harassment lawsuit, cleverly disguised as Betty White.
I stepped through the door just in time for a beer to come whizzing toward my head, and my hand shot out.
“Good reflexes.” Steve grunted from where he stood at the grill, totally busted, his hand dripping from the plunge into the cooler.
“IPA-related TBI at the family picnic…that should make for an interesting write-up,” I huffed, pitching the can right back at him and he ducked with surprising speed and agility for such a big guy. The can slammed into the wooden fence instead, exploding in a shower of foam.
“I don’t know how you two survived childhood,” Kennedy commented, smacking Steve on the back of the head before moving to take Teagan from Adam.
Adam’s eyes were wide. “Good arm,” was all he said, moving toward the cooler and retrieving two cans. He walked one over to me and made a show of presenting me with it while giving Steve a hairy eyeball, making Grams smirk from where she sat on the sofa under the awning.
Over the course of the next half hour, eighteen more people showed up. Most of the guys carried cases of beer and brought hamburgers, while their girlfriends or wives toted potato salad, pie, cookies or fruit salad. Some of them were local rescue personnel, but most of them were Steve’s coworkers from the hospital, where he was an administrator.
With as much as the crowd could put away, the tables were still groaning under the weight of all the food and by late afternoon I was back on duty, ferrying dishes to the refrigerator in the garage. Kennedy was already promising takeout containers to everyone, which was the only way to handle the situation in my opinion. There was no way we could eat all the leftovers on our own.
“You should take Mad with you,” I overheard Kennedy say as I let myself back into the yard through the side gate. “She’s dying a slow death in this house, just helping me with T while she waits for this interview.”
I stilled, wondering what other things she’d let slip if she didn’t know I was standing right there.
“Interview?” Grams called loudly from her corner of the deck, because she didn’t like to be left out. Her hearing was uncanny for someone her age and she had the curiosity of a toddler, especially when it came to business that was not her own.
“Yeah, Grams.” Steve turned and caught sight of me, frozen halfway across the yard, and his eyebrows raised just a little. “Passed her name along to a buddy of mine who has a security company. He was intrigued when I told him my baby sis was a PJ.”
Grams’s lips flattened with disapproval. She still hadn’t caught sight of me. “Man’s job,” she huffed, “traveling the world to jump out of helicopters and parachute into war zones. She’s got balls, I’ll give her that.”
“Big-ass, giant lady balls,” I heard Adam say under his breath, and Steve hid his snort by bringing a beer to his lips.
“Should’ve settled into nursing like you, young man.” She gestured toward Adam and his right eyebrow hitched. It was possible he’d interpreted it as an insult, or she’d meant it as one. She’d just told him he’d made the safer, wiser choice, plainly forgetting his own years of service.
“Should have stayed home and found a nice boy–could have given me more great-grandchildren,” she huffed, working herself into a lather. “Left all the duties to you and Kennedy.”
Adam lifted his head and caught my eye and when he spoke I knew the words weren’t for my grandmother.
“Mrs. VanBuren, I’m not trying to be disagreeable, but what Madelyn did is impressive. She’s theonlylady PJ I know of; I hear there are a couple others trying out, but right now she’s in the company of about four hundred and fifty guys. The drop-out rate for pararescue is crazy-high and a person has to maintain an almost impossibly high level of physical fitness.” His eyes drifted down my body and back up, slower that time.
“All those muscles.” Grams made a noise. “A man don’t want a wife who’s stronger than him.”
“Depends on the man,” Steve argued, having caught sight of my face as I stood listening.
Adam cleared his throat and turned away, twisting his hair up behind him and looping a hair tie around the thick bundle. It sounded to me like he muttered something under his breath, but I wasn’t close enough to hear it. Whatever it was, Kennedywasclose enough to hear it, because I saw her eyes widen.
Thankfully, Grams kept the rest of her opinions about my shortcomings to herself after that, but either she didn’t know I’d overheard or didn’t care, because she acted like she hadn’t just been criticizing me when she thought my back was turned.
It was just another late summer barbeque in the VanBuren household, none of which had ever been deemed a success until at least one person was in tears.
I was the one on the verge of tears that night, after Kennedy took Grams home and I’d had a few glasses of whatever poison Steve kept handing to me.
Once things wound down, Teagan in bed, the air warm as the crickets began to chirp and the fairy lights twinkled over the back yard, I sank into the deep sofa to listen to Steve and Adam’s conversation. I was still a little hung up on Grams’s not-so-subtle insinuation I’d wasted my life and when I looked up I realized Adam’s expression was intent. He and Steve had gone quiet and my brother got up slowly, slapping Adam on the shoulder before he walked into the house with a platter in his hand. Kennedy’s voice drifted back to me, sweet with an endearment for my brother.
“Don’t let her steal your accomplishments.” Adam’s voice was low and the ferocity caught me by surprise. “People can’t understand what it’s like to want something different. They’ll judge you by their own standards and find you lacking every time.”
I sighed heavily. I should have been used to the judgment by now. My mother had stopped asking me, years ago, when I was going to settle down and give her grandchildren. She took every chance she could to remind me of her disappointment, though it was cleverly disguised and delivered in passive-aggressive blows.
Mom had quite a number of zealous apostles at Steve and Kennedy’s church too, the church I’d grown up in, the one she and my father attended until they relocated to Florida. Her friends were sure to inform me that I’d neglected God’s plan for my life, yet there was time to correct my steps.
I didn’t bother to point out I had no plans to become a single mother at forty, sure they hadn’t quite thought through the “out of wedlock” part my immaculate conception would most likely require.
