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“Did I hear someone just call my fiancé a dirty hoe?” Reed asks, sauntering into the kitchen. He leans against the island and enters a battle with Brontë over a piece of carrot. Austen points at me. “Damn, El, don’t give away all of our secrets.” Austen swats him with the towel she’s holding.
“Out!” She points at the door he wandered in from.
“Wait, Reed, take that to the table.” Mom points at a large casserole dish containing cheesy potatoes.
“Alright, but I can’t promise there’ll be any left for the rest of you.” With a grin that seems to be permanently etched on his face since convincing Austen they belong together, Reed grabs two hot pads and leaves with the dish.
“Okay, girls, everybody grab something. Let’s go eat.” Mom leads us into the dining room carrying a large platter of roast beef. The men join us, and soon, everyone is busy passing plates around the table.
Secretly, I love our family dinners. They used to be every week on Sunday after church, but with Mom and Dad slowing down, they’re more often than not on a weekday. They usually spend the weekend traveling now.
I make a mental note to discuss with my sisters rotating the dinners to give Mom a break. We all have our own houses now. Austen moved in with Reed at the end of the block, Brontë and Rand live in a large home he had remodeled across town, and I purchased my small home three years ago.
“So did anybody else hear about Eliot in a liplock with the new deputy at the water tower?” I still love my sisters, but Brontë has to die now. I open my mouth to correct the announcement when I’m cut off.
“Wow, that was fast. Didn’t he just move into town a couple of weeks ago?” Rand asks.
“I think he rented the garage apartment from the Arnetts around the first of the month. Rumor is he was some hotshot cop from Chicago, moved here for personal reasons,” Reed chips in.
“You know, he did have an Illinois driver’s license when he applied for his library card. He brought in his rental agreement to prove he lived here,” Austen adds. They already know more than I do, and I’m the one in the supposed liplock.
“I wonder what the personal reason was,” Dad murmurs. He likes nothing better than a good mystery. And a good scandal. Just as long as we’re not involved. Poor man’s had a lot to deal with this last year.
“Do you think he’s planning on staying?”
“I’ve also heard there is a path of single women lining up at his door.”
“Yeah, but Eliot’s already slipped inside.”
“Or it’s the other way around.”
“Do you think he’s left his wife and is in hiding?” Dad guesses. Yes, because working for the sheriff’s office would be the best way to lay low. I roll my eyes. He has got to stop watching Hallmark Mysteries. “Eliot, are you sneaking around with a married man? Maybe we shouldn’t go this weekend, Elise.”
I’ve heard enough. Slapping both palms on the table, I push to my feet.
“First, Officer Steele was nice enough to help me down from the water tower is all. Second, if I want to ‘lock lips,’ dry hump, or suck off the new guy, that’s my business. I’m twenty-nine, for Christ’s sake. Why would you cancel your vacation over this? And finally, wouldn’t he be working as the local baker if he was in hiding?”
That could be one of my best outbursts. It was glorious. Except everyone is staring at me. Why does no one ever get my humor?
“I’ll get her,” Rand says quietly when the baby starts to cry upstairs. Oh.
“Now, if you’re done discussing my non-existent sex life, I’m going to pass on dessert and head home where I will polish off a bottle of wine and pass out in my bed. Alone.” I turn to storm from the room but remember my manners. “Thanks for dinner, Mom. Have fun on your trip.” I kiss her on the cheek and set my plate in the kitchen before leaving.
I make it halfway down the sidewalk when I hear Austen chasing after me. “Wait, Eliot.” Austen catches up to me at the car. “Are you okay? You know we’re just teasing you, right?”
“I’m fine, and of course, I know you’re just jacking with me. I have been your sister for a long time now, right?” Austen pulls me into a hug. I’m not huge on them, but I make an exception this time.
“We just want it to be your turn to be happy. Man or no man.”
“Men,” I say, rolling her eyes. “Can’t live with them?—”
“—can’t get the good dick without them,” Austen finishes with a grin.
“I taught you well, grasshopper.” With one last hug, Austen bounces back toward the door. “I’m trying to be happy,” I whisper. “I really am trying.”
* * *
I sit hunched over my desk in my tiny office working on the funeral home’s profit and loss statement. Did I mention I have my own accounting firm? It’s just me, but I like it that way. It makes the gossip around the water cooler much tamer. Sometimes, though, it can get a little boring. Like doing the P & L for a funeral home.
