2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3) (2 page)

So much for getting a doggie bag for Magnus and going
halvsies on the Reuben. All that was left was a sprig of parsley, a scattering
of salt and pepper, and a hasty smear of ketchup that if fingerprinted would
prove she had attempted to finish by wiping it up and sucking it off her finger.
Better than licking the plate, she would like to add in her defense. And also
in her defense, Catherine Marie Hemmings-now-Trager had been taught to eat
everything served to her by no one less than her mother, the aforementioned
Elizabeth Hemmings (what with all the starving children in the world—as if her
eating or not eating her meals in suburban Pennsylvania would have affected
their plight).

“Ready for dessert?”

She looked up through the haze of her guilt and
Reuben-induced shock and shook her head uncertainly, pretty sure she saw Mel
lick her lips like she was purposely fattening her up for cannibalistic
purposes.

“Aw, no pie?” A double-dog dare if Catherine had ever
heard one.

“Um…” Her gaze slipped to the nearest dome of doom, where
some sort of whipped topping was hiding the beauty of what was underneath,
making her want it all the more. “Do you have anything like that,” she eked
out, motioning toward it, “only less—” She stopped cold as Mel’s face screwed
up in distaste that they were going
there
again. Back to that same place
where Miss New York was too good for the simple pleasures of wholesome foods
made with butter and sugar and eggs that were straight from the asses of
chickens—unadulterated and unseparated—and bacon was made of pig rather than
from something scientifically altered to sort of mimic pig…. And speaking of
bacon, she wondered if that was candied bacon sprinkled on top of that whipped dream—

“
That
is all I’ve got. Peanut butter pie.”

“Oh.” It was more exhalation than word. A tiny
recognition that she was not in charge here, and she couldn’t afford to piss off
her supplier. Her dealer. Her go-to gal for all her cravings.

“Hey there, stranger!”

Catherine almost spun herself off her stool at the
greeting. She hadn’t heard anyone approach over the sound of her own pity
party.

“What’s a girl got to do to see her sister these days?”
Drew asked, hugging her where she sat.

Fynn’s sister was the only family he had, and she had
never taken to the formality of the in-law label, freely treating Catherine as if
she were flesh and blood. She was also the one who helped her track Fynn down
in the first place, and the one who more recently introduced her to Reuben, so Catherine
had her to both thank and blame for her present state.  

“You just have to come here every day around two,” Mel
shared from across the way, where she’d wandered off to fill empty coffee mugs
of other patrons.

Drew giggled and put a hand on Catherine’s ever-burgeoning
belly. “Already loves the diner and hasn’t even taken a whiff of it yet?”

“Good taste in food; bad taste in company,” she
grunted.

“So, why have you been giving me the slip for weeks?”
Drew plopped down next to her, unwinding her scarf that was wrapped no less
than eleven times around her neck.

Catherine watched in disbelief.

“Oh, this?” Drew chuckled, eyes twinkling. “One of my
regular customers at the pharmacy took up knitting. Trying something new at
eighty. I only hope to be so inclined. She’s really getting the hang of the
knitting but hasn’t quite perfected the stopping part.”

“I guess it’s better than gloves.”

“Oh, I got gloves too.” She whipped out a remotely
hand-shaped pair in matching marled yarn. Five extra-long fingers lined up in a
perfect row on each one. No thumbs.

“Maybe she should have started with mittens.”

“It’s the thought, right?” A c’est-la-vie tone and a
shrug, shoving them back in her pockets. “And it beats the candy dish that Garrett
made for me for Mother’s Day last year. You’ve seen it. Shaped like a
heart—like a
real
heart. A diseased one at that.”

“That thing?” Picturing the hideous sculpture on the
bookshelf in Drew’s living room. “But why—”

“Because men are notoriously bad gift givers and he’s
getting a head start.” She rolled her eyes. “Boys. I’m up to my ears in them.”

“You must be so proud,” Catherine swooned, rubbing her
belly, thankful she had a little girl on the way who would certainly never give
her internal organs. And Cara had already proven herself above that. She could
imagine hand-beaded macaroni necklaces, giving way to gold-plated jewelry and
drugstore perfumes, and eventually real jewelry and department store cosmetics
and fragrances. Yes, girls knew how to do gift-giving properly. She actually
felt a bit sorry for Drew, who had years’ worth of terrible gifts ahead with
Garret, Lyle, and now Jake, who was just a couple months old yet. And her
husband was no treasure either. Too practical.
The-same-chocolates-cost-half-as-much-the-day-after-Valentine’s practical. No
hope for her on the horizon.

“So, are you guys coming to dinner this week?”

“What? Oh, that… listen—”

“Yes or no is fine…. And I’m guessing this is another
no.”

“A rain check is all,” she grimaced.

“Maybe next time.” Drew nodded kindly, allowing the
farce to continue. Her friends back east would have called
bullshit!
long
ago, but her sister-in-law was far more charitable.

It was ten minutes from their doorstep to hers, plus the
added boon of not having to cook, but Catherine had been dodging their weekly
dinner date for months. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Drew, she loved her and
appreciated her; she just needed time. At first she’d claimed that it was too
soon after Renée had passed away and she wanted to ease Cara into her new life
(though her old life had included having dinners with Drew and her family
whenever she was in town visiting Fynn). And once school started, she conveniently
claimed that school nights were simply too hectic. But then Drew gladly offered:
any night you want to do it.
Since then Catherine had gotten
progressively lamer in her excuses or lack thereof, because it wasn’t about
Cara at all.

Drew had her happy, normal family, while Catherine and
Fynn were still figuring this whole thing out, and she didn’t want to be on
display while they worked on the kinks. It was hard to be around other mothers
who knew how to mother and wore that title freely. Something she couldn’t do
because she lived in that place where Cara needed to be mothered but didn’t
need or want a new mother. Understandable. But it still hurt to hear Cara call
Fynn “Daddy” sometimes, like it just popped out naturally. Of course, he’d been
Renée’s closest and dearest old friend and Cara had known him since she was a
baby, while she’d never even met her real father. Fynn wasn’t competing with
every memory of her past. And there were Drew and Klein who had already earned aunt
and uncle status; their boys, her cousins. Heck, Cara had called Catherine’s own
parents Gramma Lizzy and Pop-Pop from their first meeting. She was a little girl
with no extended family of her own, and now all those people she’d never had in
her life were positions suddenly filled.

Except for Mom.

Renée was the coup de grace of Cara’s tender loving
care, which made Catherine just plain Cat. And Cara might never want her to be
anything more.

“Well, listen, if you change your mind, give me a
call. I was just going to order pizza anyway, so even if it’s last minute….”
Drew stood up, winding her scarf around and around all over again. She gave her
a quick hug and was gone. Hurt, definitely, but trying her best not to show it.

Mel sidled up to the counter with the check. “So,
should I get the hand truck to roll you out?”  

Catherine bit her lip and clenched her fists, her face
flushing with heat. “Raise the dome,” she blurted, needing something to take
the edge off.

“Huh?” Mel asked, like she was speaking a foreign
language.

“The dome.” Catherine gestured at the dessert pedestal.
“I’ll take one of those.”

“A pie?”

“A slice.” Curt.

“Mmm-hmm.” So much judgment in the sound. Mel put down
the perpetual carafe of coffee she seemed to carry and lifted the glass, and Catherine
swore she heard a choir sing
Hallelujah!
in answer as a glorious golden
light shown like a halo around the towering pie that was indeed sprinkled with
candied bacon, and drizzled with caramel too. Suddenly she was pretty certain
she
could
eat a whole pie. And she wanted to. A bottomless pit of
craving. Except she wasn’t bottomless. She had a bottom alright—a Sir Mix-A-Lot
special. Because nothing was off the table unless it was in her mouth and on
the way down her throat. Her body hadn’t even had the good sense to get morning
sickness. She had been “blessed” with an iron stomach, and therefore had been growing
for two since conception—two danishes, two burgers, two foot-long sub
sandwiches, two calzones, two helpings of….  

Fynn came around the house from the garage, brushing
sawdust out of his golden hair that had grown out a bit into even more unruly
waves. Jeans, ribbed Henley, work boots—all part of a vision she never got
tired of. But before she could swoon at her good fortune to have such a fine
piece of genuine man-meat on her hands, he opened his mouth and screwed it all
up.

“Heard you ran into Drew at the diner.”

Word obviously traveled faster than she could. Catherine
grunted in answer, turning her attention to the groceries in the trunk so she
didn’t say something nasty, safely occupying herself with the niggling thought
that she’d forgotten something. As her mother would say, she had a sieve of a
mind. Worse now than ever. If she’d only made a shopping list—oh wait, she
had
done that…. It was on the refrigerator at this very moment.

“So, no dinner again this week?” Fynn prompted,
reaching for several bags, the heavier things like milk and orange juice and
canned goods. Helpful as usual, even while he was passive-aggressively
challenging her about making unilateral decisions.

Catherine whirled on him, eyes fiery, her voice
several hundred degrees in the opposite direction. “Is your sister telling on
me now?”

He pulled back like he was avoiding a punch. “She just
said—”

“She didn’t have to say anything.”

“Whoa, what got your panties in a wad?”

She stared at him, waiting for him to recognize the
inflammatory question, or better yet, retract it, but he was too busy grabbing even
more of the bags in his big man hands, like she was weak and needed to be
rescued.

When Fynn finally met her gaze, he’d loaded himself up
with the entire trunkful. “What?” he barked, like he didn’t have clue one what was
wrong with him or this picture.

“Really?” she snapped, shocked that he would go there
with a woman who was already on the edge, and then play stupid about it. She
knew he would say it was a joke, a little jab that she was taking too hard, but
his words cut deep. She hadn’t had
panties
in her drawer in months.
Nothing cute or sexy. Just cotton under
pants
that were close cousins to
king-sized sheets and drop cloths and car covers. He could have said she was
being a genuine bitch and it wouldn’t have been as bad. 

He clammed up, unwilling to respond to her challenge,
but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have a look on his face that said quite
clearly she was being irrational. Which made her more crazy and irrational. And
downright pissed off.

“So, that’s it?” she demanded. “Or did Mel call, too? To
give you the lowdown on what I ate?” Suddenly it felt like everyone she came
across in this godforsaken town was a spy.

“I just wanted to help you bring in the groceries,” he
sighed.

“Then why did you say something about Drew and dinner?”

“Why did I say anything,” he grumbled under his
breath.

Her shoulders drooped, like the hackles on an animal
settling down after a passing threat. She sounded like one of those awful wives
that men had been avoiding for centuries—working late, staying out at the bar,
picking up other women who treated them adoringly for a change. Things she
did
not
want her husband to start doing. Two little words could make all the
difference right now. They could undo what she was making a habit of doing—jumping
down his throat. And this wasn’t even a
him
problem. Fynn wasn’t one to
seek out gossip. He wasn’t one to make phone calls and check in with people, or
to tell tales out of school. This was her sister-in-law’s doing, tattling on
her.

It could be so simple:
I’m sorry.
Yet she
couldn’t get those words from her mind to her mouth. “God, I just feel like I’m
losing my mind these days,” she blurted, hoping that would be enough, rather
than outright admitting she was wrong or curt or mean or bitchy or downright
shitty. All of which she was guilty. 

There was an unbearable pause, then the sound of
plastic bags rustling as Fynn set the groceries on the ground before enveloping
her even though she didn’t deserve him. “At least you still have that pretty
little head of yours.” His words oozed over her like melted butter, the voice
that had left her bothered, rankled, and unnerved from the beginning. Sexy and
Fynn-ish. Not holding a grudge. Or making her beg. Just being.

“A stupid empty head,” she groaned against his chest.

“Good thing I’m not with you for your mind.” All
shrugs and breezes.

“What did you marry me for then?”

“Wait a second, we’re married?”

“For now,” she warned, squeezing him tighter.
This
was
why it was Fynn. The one.
Her
one. Defusing her was a masterful skill he
had down pat. Only him.

Right here, this very spot was where they’d first met.
She had barreled into his life without warning, and now fat old Catherine Marie
was married to the guy. She’d gotten it all and then some: hunting him down and
hounding him until he screamed for mercy… then letting him take her until she
screamed for mercy. A blush rose through her at the thought of the whirlwind
that started all of this. Thank God for her irrational streak that at least once
in her life she’d found a bona fide good use for.

“Jelly!” she exclaimed, pulling away from him.

“I know I make you weak in the knees, but—”

“No,
jelly
. Like in a jar. Grape. That’s what I
forgot. I knew it was something.”

“Get it next time.” Problem solved, easy as that.

“There
is
no next time.”

“No jelly is the end of the world?” he joked.

“I’ve already forgotten it four times over. This was
my last chance. I ran out making Cara’s lunch this morning. She has it every
day. Twice a day. Jelly on her toast and on her sandwich.”

“If you need me to pick some up when I’m out tomorrow—”

“I’ll get it.”

He looked at her with a dubious grin—the likelihood of
that obviously slim, considering.

“Seriously. We need it. I’ll go back out now…. Where
did I put my keys?” She dug through her purse.

“It’s just jelly; Cara can have something else
tomorrow.”

Catherine’s head shot up in shock. “She shouldn’t have
to.” Complete conviction. This was no time for a man’s style of reason. Not
after everything Cara had been through. She deserved her jelly toast and her peanut
butter and jelly sandwiches. It was the least they could do for her.

He sighed. “I’ll go.”

Grateful. “I’ll make it worth your while tonight.” A
mischievous smile playing on her lips.

“You will?” Suddenly interested.

“Of course.”

“Just so I don’t get suckered all over again, lying
across the bed naked is seductive; spread eagle and snoring is—”

“We’ve been through this already, I was planning to seduce
you and the next thing I knew it was morning.”

“You don’t have the best track record when it comes to
promises of this nature.”

“You who knocked me up five minutes into this marriage
shouldn’t be talking. You made me what I am.”

“An honest woman?”

“An exhausted woman. Eating, thinking, and sleeping
for two. You get what you deserve.”

“I think
we
get what we deserve.”

It did take two. But she liked to blame him a
teensy
bit more since it was his sperm that had staged the microscopic coup,
overtaking one of her eggs in the Battle of the Poconos, on a short honeymoon trip
that her wonderful new husband had surprised her with based on her friend Tara’s
word that Catherine was
dying
to go there. Which was a complete fabrication.
She still hadn’t figured out if the advice was a practical joke or a heartfelt
gesture, but she guessed it didn’t matter much anymore. It was history—check
that, historical.

The resort was one of those over-the-top kitschy spots
with a private heart-shaped pool and champagne-glass hot tub and honest-to-god
mirrored ceiling over the bed. The whole gaudy farce of it was kind of fitting
considering the crazy road that was their relationship. And one thing was for certain,
when you were lounging seven feet in the air in a champagne glass full of
bubbles, it was hard not to get hot... and when you were already naked and
slippery and steamy, it only made sense to go the rest of the way… because it
was someplace you’d never been before—the Poconos or bareback—with anyone, let
alone your new husband. And once you went there, it seemed a shame to unpack
the condoms.

What was the harm in unprotected married sex, anyway?

Not so much harm, but life-changing ramifications, like
that unreal second line on the pregnancy test just a few weeks later—Fynn strutting
around like he’d conquered the world, while she’d been waffling along the
spectrum from disbelief to out-and-out fear ever since.

Suddenly Magnus was off like a shot—a blur of street-directed
fur.

“I guess the bus is here,” Fynn noted with a chuckle,
picking back up all the grocery bags.

“You know, he used to greet me like that,” Catherine
said wistfully, of the giant, floppy-lipped golden retriever who was hell-bent
on reaching Cara, his new best friend. 

“He used to knock you down. Regularly.”

“That’s called love. You know he’s the one I fell
for,” she swooned.

“I trained him well.” A satisfied grin as he headed
for the house.