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“We’re just glad you’re here, baby,” Daddy said. He and Granddaddy had made me feel like a princess my entire life, never treating me like one of the boys even if they did expect me to work hard. I was delicate to them. Precious. No one else made me feel that way.
“Now that we’re all here, let’s sit down for supper,” Ruby directed, everyone immediately moving toward the dining room to the buffet of dishes on the counter.
I opened the oven for the main dish, covering both hands with mitts before I removed a foil-covered platter. “This smells delicious.” My stomach growled, the Dairy Queen I’d stopped for hours ago now long gone.
I lifted the foil and steam wafted off the platter piled high with rib-eye steaks nestled in their juices.
“Can you be trusted with that?” Mama teased. “You look about ready to inhale all of them.”
“I’m starved.”
“Please. Let me get that,” Carlos said, attempting to take the platter from my hands.
“Will you take this one instead, honey?” Mama pointed at a serving dish filled with twice-baked potatoes.
He gave her a polite smile. “I’d be glad to.”
“Nice to see you again,” I said to Carlos as Mama darted to the dining room.
“If we’re not careful, celebrating special occasions might become a habit,” Carlos said evenly. It was hard to get a read on him, whether he saw that as a good thing or not. But something I didn’t question was his love for his sister. With Stone and Muriella’s wedding a few weeks ago and now spending Christmas together, it seemed he was right.
“I’m afraid you don’t have any choice. Ruby’s decided you’re officially family now.”
His cheeks stained as his gaze darted to my grandmama.
“Then I’d better be on my best behavior so it stays that way.” He thought that now, but what he didn’t know was that once the Jacobs claimed someone as family, anything could be forgiven. That’s what family did.
Chapter Ten
Easton
Easton
The call went straightto voicemail.
“I’m not trying to give you a hard time about Christmas,” I said to the machine. “I need your help.”
I’d tried to log in to Mulaney’s bank access for the company without success. It didn’t make sense our access would be declined so quickly.Howhad it been revoked so fast? When I asked Dad about this again, he refused to discuss it, which was more abnormal behavior on his part.
I then attempted to access the EXODUS financial systems, and noted data hadn’t been updated in eighteen hours.Weird. I needed to review the up-to-date figures to see where the cash flow and liabilities were at. Only Drew really understood the complexity of the program, but he wasn’t answering my calls. Had a script been written to transfer customer accounts or was that part of the twelve-month changeover? I hated not knowing any of the answers. The somebody who did get how this stuff worked was Drew. Only he wasn’t answering my calls.
I sat on one of the twin beds in our room at Grandma Carter’s house. We had matching bedspreads she’d made us as kids. Drew’s was blue and mine red. There were still posters of baseball heroes on the walls and even the lamp on the nightstand had a base in the shape of a glove. The old trunk in the corner held toys from our childhood we’d played with for hours on end. Maybe we’d outgrown the decor, but I never wanted to change it. This was a piece of our innocence before life taught us it wasn’t always summer days spent at our grandparents’ house.
I wanted this for my kids someday. A safe place, full of good memories, where they could just have fun. Grandma Carter had another bedroom next to this one she’d converted to a sewing room a million years ago. If I ever had kids would she let me change it back so they could make it theirs, just like Drew and I had done in here?
A glance at the clock revealed I was running out of time before we had to leave to go to Smokey’s. The Christmas Eve tradition had started sometime back during the depression. All the folks in Burdett gathered at the bar, bringing whatever they could manage and ending up with enough for a meal for everybody. The get together had continued over the years, and this was the one night the whole town came together. Pastor Adams from the Baptist church usually made an appearance too.
I ran my fingers through my hair. The Jacobs would be there, and even though I’d hung up on Mulaney like a juvenile when we’d spoken, I was ready to see her. We had things that needed straightening out and watching Mama at what could very possibly be her last Christmas Eve meal had intensified my sense of urgency.
I hated thinking like that; not that my mother’s illness was anything new, but something about being isolated here without as many distractions brought home a lot of things I’d taken for granted.
A shrill ring pierced the air of the small bedroom.
“I’ll be damned,” I said before I answered the call.
“Is she—okay?”
For the second time in the span of only a few hours, I’d worried someone needlessly about Mama’s condition.
