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“Hey, rugrats,” I greeted as they wrapped themselves around my legs like snakes. My nephew Luke was six, his sister, Ava, only four, and I adored the hell out of those little monsters.
I plucked them both off the ground, chuckling at their squeals of delight as I spun them in a circle.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” my sister, Alexis, warned as she joined us in the garage. “They both loaded up on chicken nuggets and chocolate milkshakes a few minutes ago.”
I jerked to a stop, not wanting to risk being puked on for the third time since these two came along.
“Thanks for the heads-up.” I put them both back on the ground, where everyone would be safe, and the two of them immediately took off to pet Churro.
“Luke, Ava, remember the rules. Soft hands with the puppy.”
“Okay,” Luke agreed.
“Yes, Mommy,” Ava chirped.
They’d been beside themselves when they first met the bobble-headed dog, and in her excitement, Ava might have squeezed her so tight I worried her eyeballs would pop out.
I opened my arms for Alexis to walk into and wrapped her in a hug as she squeezed me around my waist.
“Good to see you, sis. What brings you by?” I asked once we separated.
“I was just out with the kiddos, running errands, and decided to swing by for a visit.”
I crossed my arms, watching her skeptically. I knew better. My little sister always had something up her sleeve. “Uh-huh. Since when do you just ‘swing by’ for a visit?”
She gave me wide doe eyes and batted her lashes innocently. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen you, that’s all.”
“Bull—” I swallowed the curse that came on the tail end of that when I remembered there were little ears nearby. “Why are you really here? Did you kill Caleb and are here to ask me to help cover it up?”
She gave my arm a smack. “My husband is alive and well, thank you very much. Or at least he was the last time I saw him. The kids and I booked it out of there when I discovered he planned on hanging curtain rods today.”
Alexis’s husband was a great guy and a terrific father, and he treated my sister like the princess she was, but the man was notoriously bad at anything DIY. He’d started more than one fire, caused a massive water leak, and damaged more than he’d ever fixed whenever he tried to do a home project.
“Don’t blame you one bit. But are you sure he’s not bleeding out on your living room floor right now?”
She held up her cellphone. “I made him promise to text updates every five minutes. See.” She held it up for me to see, the last message from Caleb being a string of curse words that trailed off into complete gibberish. “Yep, that seems about right.”
“But you were actually right. I do have an ulterior motive for being here. I’m here on behalf of our mother.”
“Dear lord. What now?”
“She wanted me to relay a message since you missed the last family dinner.”
I let out a groan and rolled my eyes. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard that. “I was working, Lex. I don’t exactly have a nine-to-five job, you know.”
She held up her hands in surrender. “Hey, I know that. But Mary Clarke wouldn’t be Mary Clarke without the expert guilt trips now, would she?”
She had me there. Our mom was a gold medalist when it came to laying on the guilt. She was so good at it, you wouldn’t even know she was guilting you until after you’d already done what she wanted you to do. No one was immune to Mary Clarke guilt. Hell, growing up, it wasn’t unusual for my friends to come to hang out and get sucked into doing yard work or cleaning the gutters. She wasthatgood.
“All right, fine. What’s the message?”
Alexis hopped up on the workbench and crossed her ankles, swinging her legs back and forth. “She wanted me to remind you about the chili cookoff. She expects the whole family to take part this year, so she wanted you to have enough time to request time off from work. Oh, for the love of—” She jabbed her finger at her kids. “Luke, what did I say about holding that dog upside down?” my sister asked in her mom voice. “Her head’s too big. Lord only knows what’ll happen. Put her down.”
“Ah, Christ. I completely forgot about that stupid cookoff.” I reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. The chili cookoff was the start of a week-long county fair, and for generations, the Clarke family—well, some key members of it—took it very seriously. A little too seriously, if you asked me, not that I would ever admit that out loud.
Rumor was, there was a great aunt somewhere down the line whose husband once mentioned he thought the chili cookoff was a waste of time and she’d shaved off his eyebrows and all his hair while he slept—or divorced him or something. The details had grown kind of fuzzy over the years.
“I figured you did, that’s why I wanted to remind you.” She lifted a brow. “Didn’t think you’d want to chance Mom’s wrath.”
