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“Darn straight.”
“How bad did he get hurt?” Maya asked.
Vidalia shrugged. “No worse than he deserved. And not nearly as bad as Peter or Mike did. Couple of busted ribs and a few stitches where his head hit the pavement. But it’s Kara I’m worried about.” Dumping the cookies into the wastebasket she brushed off her hands, set the cookie sheet down and turned off the oven. Then, turning, she leaned back against the counter, folded her arms over her chest. “But she’ll be all right. She’s a Brand, and my daughter. Now, how about you, Maya? Any twinges today? Any signs?”
She might be notorious and outrageous and tactless, but Vidalia Brand loved her daughters, Maya thought smiling inwardly. “Not a one,” she said. “These babies seem determined to stay right where they are.”
“Well, hon, you’re gonna have to stop letting them hear the weather reports out here! I don’t blame them for wanting to stay put!” As she spoke, Vidalia came away from the counter. She pulled a chair into position, then lifted Maya’s feet onto it. “And speakin’ of babies, where’s mine?”
“Selene is upstairs in her bedroom doing… whatever it is she does up there. I smelled some god-awful incense burning, and she was playing that drum of hers, so I didn’t bother her. But tell her when she comes down that those cookies are completely vegan-friendly.” Her mother looked at the wastebasket and cocked her brows.
“Not those cookies, Mom. The ones in the cookie jar. I’ve been baking all afternoon.”
“Oh.” Then her mother looked at her. “Why?”
Maya shrugged. “Resting all the time makes me tired.”
Vidalia grinned. “You sure do look tired now.”
“I am. I’m bushed.”
“Well, you go on now and have a nap. I’ll get dinner, and Mel will be along any time now to help me. Go on. You know I won’t take no for an answer.”
“I wasn’t going to give you no for an answer.” Maya put her feet down and got out of the chair, belly leading the way. One hand immediately went to the small of her back, but she took it away to give her notorious mother a hug. “Thanks, Mom. And as for dinner, it’s already made. In the slow cooker.”
Her mother released her and hurried to the pot to remove the lid and sniff the steam. “Girl, you ought to be cooking inParee.”
“Yeah. I hear they love stew and biscuits in Paris, Mom.” She sent her mother a wink and a smile, then headed through the large living room and on up the stairs. In the hallway she passed her youngest sister’s room and smelled the familiar herbal scents coming from beyond the door. The door itself had Selene’s idea of a Do Not Disturb sign hanging from it. It read Out Of Body, Back In Five Minutes.
She walked slowly down the hall, past the next door, which bore a sign that used to be funny but today seemed to sting: “Enter at your own risk.” Maya heard Kara’s voice coming from inside her room. She was speaking to someone, probably on the telephone, so she didn’t bother her, either. She secretly hoped the injured Billy had changed his mind about breaking things off.
Shaking her head slowly, Maya finished the trek to her own bedroom and went inside. It was actually a two-room suite, the largest in the house. It was the master bedroom and had been her mother’s, but Vidalia had insisted Maya take it so there would be room for the babies.
Already, there were two cribs flanking her own bed. They were in the process of finishing up the adjoining room, which would serve as a nursery. Wallpaper with baby ducks and chicks already lined the walls, but the linoleum floor wasn’t quite finished. Carpeting, in a baby’s room, Vidalia had decreed, would have been about as practical as whitewash in a chicken coop. Tiles could be washed daily if needed—and it would be, she promised. So Maya had reluctantly agreed.
Maya ran a hand over the smooth rail of one of the old cribs. Both of them had been in storage in the attic. Vidalia’s five girls had been born little more than a year apart, one from the other, so she’d needed more than one crib at a time. And she’d kept everything. Growing up, Maya’s mother had been very poor. The daughter of migrant workers from Mexico, she’d been named for the crop they were harvesting on the day she was born. And it was a name that suited her, because she had the thick, tough skin and sharp bite of an onion when she needed it, softened by the sweetness that only the vidalia strain possessed. Damn good thing, too. It hadn’t been easy, raising five daughters alone.
It was not a path Maya had ever thought she would follow. But as it turned out….
Hell. She’d never meant for it to turn out like this. Sighing, she lay down on her bed, pulled a cozy fleece blanket around her and rested her head on the pillows.
Maya opened her eyes when something tickled her face some time later. A stuffed bunny with yarn eyes stared at her. She looked past it and saw dark, impish Mel, curled up on the other side of the bed, also staring at her. “You okay?” she asked.
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Maya sat up in the bed, picked up the pink terry cloth bunny and squeezed it. It was so soft you couldn’t help but squeeze it.
Mel sat up, too, her short, black hair not even messed from the pillows. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you’re eight and a half months pregnant with twins.” She reached behind her, and pulled out another terry bunny, this one blue. “I picked these up in town today. Couldn’t resist.”
Maya smiled. She couldn’t help but smile. She’d told Dr. Sheila she didn’t want to know the genders of her babies, but her youngest sister had made her own decree. “I should assume you’re backing Selene’s prediction that the newest Brands are a girl and a boy?”
Mel shrugged. “Have you ever known Selene to be wrong about anything?”
Thinking of that long ago night, when her spooky kid sister had told her that Caleb was her soul mate, Maya said, “Yes, actually. I have.”
“Well, not often enough so you’d notice it,” Mel said. She frowned down at her sister. “This isn’t working out the way you had it planned, is it, Maya?”
She only shrugged.
“Hell, if I ever see that no-account phony cowboy again, I’ll break his arms off and use ‘em to cave his head in.”
