Ghost of a Chance (Banshee Creek Book 2) (29 page)

Wow. She wouldn't have guessed that Gabe's mom knew the word skanky.

"Uh, Mrs. Franco," she started.

"Call me Isabel," Mrs. Franco replied quickly.
 

Elizabeth winced. She didn't want to call Mrs. Franco by her first name. That was a prospective daughter-in-law privilege she was determined to avoid. She cheered up when she saw Zach cutting fruit in the kitchen. Chopped fruit meant
sangría,
and she needed a drink, desperately.

"Um, Mrs. Franco. He really liked the house. He's going to buy it."

"No, he's not," Mrs. Franco said firmly as she opened a drawer, and Sato's head jerked up. He looked at her, eyes liquid, as if expecting a treat. She took some silverware out of the drawer, and the dog laid back on his pillow, disappointed.

 
"C'mon, Mom," Zach interrupted. "It's just a house."

"That is not a house. It's a monstrosity. I'm very disappointed, Elizabeth. Mary assured me that you'd find my son a
home
."
 

She winced. She was beginning to understand how Gabe's mom had forced him to buy a house in Virginia. Mrs. Franco was tenacious. Well, he could deal with his mom all by himself. She was going to extricate herself from this conversation and head out the door as soon as possible. Politeness required that she stay for a while, but how long was the minimum stay? Fifteen minutes? Could she get away with ten?

"Don't start a fight with Gabe, Mom," Zach interjected. "I'm already fighting with him about the pizzeria and it's really not fair to open a separate front."

But Mrs. Franco kept her focus on Elizabeth. "How could you show him that...thing?"
 

"It's the right size," she replied sheepishly. "And it's in the right neighborhood."
 

"And those aren't the only things it gets right, ah, Elizabeth?" Zach smirked at her, and she glared back.
 

Mrs. Franco shook her head. "That house has a history, Elizabeth."
 

"A fun history," Zach said, earning a swat from his mother's wooden spoon.

"My children had better not be familiar with the history of that house," Mrs. Franco warned.

Zach tried to look innocent. He was very convincing. Elizabeth's acting teachers would have been very impressed.
 

 
Mrs. Franco aimed a threatening glare at her son, then turned back to her. "Young lady." She enunciated the words carefully. "That house is not a family house. You haven't been around so you have no idea."

Elizabeth disagreed. Her mother had shared plenty last night after she'd told her about Gabe's plans. Her mom hadn't been happy about the Grotto house either.
 

"My son," Mrs. Franco continued, "will not live in that house." She turned toward the oven, waving the wooden spoon, and Elizabeth glanced beseechingly at Zach.
 

"Mom," he said patiently. "Gabe is going to buy a house. You wanted him to buy a house. You guys fought for months about him buying a stupid house. You finally got his accountant to find a tax break, and he's buying a house. You won. Take your victory and be done with it. And be nice to Elizabeth. She brought chocolate cake. Thank you, Elizabeth. You've saved me."

"You're welcome," she said, trying to change the subject. "But it looks like you have plenty of desserts to choose from." She could see a cheesecake dripping red syrup and a white-frosted cake. Were there tiny green flecks on the white frosting? They looked delicious. Of course, one couldn't judge a book by its cover, especially with Mrs. Franco's desserts.
 

He made a face. "I hate guava." He glared at his mother. "I particularly hate guava recipes from that stupid Nuevo Latino cookbook you found in the library."

"It's not guava. It's a pomegranate cardamom glaze," Mrs. Franco corrected.
 

He shuddered. "That's even worse."

"I think you should use it in the pizzeria," Mrs. Franco replied, unfazed. "You could call it—" she smiled broadly, "—the Screech Cheesecake."

They stared at her, completely befuddled.

"I think she means
Scream,
as in the movie," Zach said,
sotto voce
, to Elizabeth. "I don't need any desserts, Mom," he said in a louder voice. "Caine brings in his sister's icebox cakes." He leaned toward Elizabeth conspiratorially. "I tell everyone they're gelato."

Mrs. Franco ignored her son, opened the fridge, and took out a bowl. "I also made the ginger-lime
tres leches
you like, Elizabeth." She presented the bowl with a flourish. "We could call this one..." She paused for dramatic effect. "The Slider Cake."

"The what?" he asked, brows knotting in confusion.
 

"Slider," she said firmly, opening a drawer. "The green ghost in the Bill Murray movie. You know, the one I like."

"He's called Slimer, Mom," he replied. "And I'm not serving anything slime-related. We're going for kitschy fun, not grossness."

"You're such a party pooper," Elizabeth interjected. "The ginger-lime
tres leches
is my favorite."
 

"You have no pride, do you, Hunt?" Zach murmured.
 

"Thank you, Mrs. Franco," she concluded, ignoring him.
Tres leches
cake was consistently immune to Mrs. Franco's culinary clumsiness, and her ginger-lime concoction was actually fabulous. Of course, there was no denying the fact that Mrs. Franco had slaved over a particularly difficult dessert in order to please her son's girlfriend.
 

"Mary's chocolate cake, however, always turns out perfect," Zach told her. "At least I'll have something to eat." He lifted the cake from the carrier and placed it on a cake stand. He beamed at the cake. "For this, I'll sneak in another plain pork chop on the grill. Otherwise you'd be stuck eating Mom's special pork chops."

"Thanks, Zach," she whispered back.
 

"You're stuck with the mashed potatoes, though."

"I like mashed potatoes."

"The mashed potatoes—" He smirked. "—are green."

Mrs. Franco heard that and her face broke into a wide smile. "It's Monster Mash," she said brightly, and Zach groaned. Mrs. Franco rolled her eyes and, bowl and serving spoon firmly in hand, walked off to the patio.

"Don't worry about the house," Zach said once his mom was out of earshot. "It's okay if it doesn't work out."

She frowned in confusion. "I thought your mom wanted your brother to buy something."

He chuckled. "You're such a slowpoke, Hunt. That's what she told Gabe, but she just wanted him to come home and go on a house hunt with you. You guys have been set up."

"What?" she asked, although his words rang true. A wave of queasiness hit her. She should have trusted her instincts. This lunch was a trap.

He gave her a mischievous glance. "I don't suppose you guys plan to announce an engagement today? It would make lunch much more pleasant."

She glared. "Don't make me hurt you," she said, thinking fast. "Apologize to your mom for me. Tell her I got a client call, or a sudden stomach virus. Or both."

Zach didn't answer. He was looking out a side window. Elizabeth followed his gaze. She saw a cloudless blue sky framed by trees laden with golden leaves. She saw her trusty del Sol and Zach's truck. She saw the driveway.

And a red Ferrari rapidly approaching the house.
 

She slumped in dismay, but Zach smiled broadly.

"Too late, Hunt. Get ready to rumble."
 

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-F
OUR

G
ABE
PUSHED
open the front door and carried two large paper bags into the house. He kicked the door and winced when it closed with an unfamiliar muffled thud. He avoided the foyer's squeaky floor adroitly and turned left into the den. He paused to listen. Was his mom in the kitchen? If so, he'd have to wait until she left to bring the bags in.
 

He felt like an idiot. Why had he let Zach talk him into this?
 

He avoided the family Sunday lunches like the zombie plague. And he wasn't the only one. His dad took advantage of the stinky cheese debacle and guilt-tripped his wife into letting him attend the L.A. Chess Open. He'd packed his chess set and was now happily hanging out with his buddies discussing endgames and openings.

That meant he only had his mom to worry about. The prospect of a family fight usually put him in a bad mood, but today was different. Even a fight with his mother wouldn't dim his spirits today.
 

Today there was an orange Civic del Sol in the driveway.
 

Sunday lunch with his family was pretty bad, but Sunday lunch with his family and Elizabeth was something else altogether. He didn't bother analyzing why the sight of her battered vehicle improved his spirits so much. The important thing was that it did.
 

He couldn't erase her from his mind. The image of her sitting on a leather sofa, her lovely legs peeking through her robe, licking frosting off her fingers was etched in his mind.
 

But Elizabeth was now preparing to flee.

He had no illusions about that. His pusillanimous paramour was chickening out. She'd had a whole night to think and had come to the conclusion that this relationship threatened the well-tended moat that kept her independent from her family. She'd realized that she'd bitten more than she could chew and was now in full strategic retreat.
 

A retreat he meant to foil.

He looked around the room. Other than the framed Argentinean flag hanging over the piano—the one that used to grace the pizzeria window, if he wasn't mistaken—the place remained untouched. It was a library more than a den. Every room in the Franco house looked like a library. His mother made sure of that. The dining room was lined with bookshelves and every flat surface in the living room was covered with books. Well, every flat surface that wasn't covered by a chessboard.

The only things that marked this room as a den were the comfortable leather couch and the small television next to the fireplace. Cole had complained about the size of the television every single Thursday during high school. They would finish homework, sit down, tune in to watch
The
X-Files
reruns, and he would complain about the TV. David Duchovny would drive off to chase aliens, and he would complain about the TV. Gillian Anderson would roll her eyes at her partner, and he would complain about the TV. At the end of the day the FBI team would be foiled by the conspiracy, and Cole would finish his Fanta, lean back, and praise the smallness of the TV. At least he didn't have to watch his heroes' weekly humiliation magnified on a large screen.
 

Gabe missed Cole. He could finally admit it. He'd avoided the pain by burying himself in his work and minimizing his contacts with Banshee Creek, but this trip had nullified that strategy.

His friend was gone. There would be no more crazy trips to photograph Icelandic sea monsters, no more postmodern dissections of the Chris Carter
ouvre
, no more Bigfoot sightings cluttering his e-mail inbox.
 

He smiled. Instead, he had a bunch of e-mails from Elizabeth, every single one informing him of yet another attractive, albeit paranormally enhanced, potential abode.
 

Like her brother, she never gave up.
 

Although today's event would likely give her pause. His mom was ecstatic about having her over for lunch. Zach had called him this morning and told him that she'd been up cooking since before dawn. She was making sure this particular lunch was special. Special enough to make Elizabeth freak out. Oh well, he could handle that. In fact, he was looking forward to handling her torment. He couldn't help but smile at the thought.

His mom's special lunch, however, would also make his stomach freak out. Her cooking was eccentric enough on an everyday basis. Special occasions tended to be epic culinary disasters. Hence the last-minute detour that had made him late and the two brown paper bags he now had to sneak into the kitchen. He glanced out the living room window and saw his mother walking through the patio.

The coast was clear. He walked quickly toward the back of the house, carrying the two bags.

Elizabeth was in the kitchen with Zach, and Sato the dog lay on his tattered dog bed watching them. Zach was leaning a bit too close to her, smiling with amusement. Gabe frowned at his brother then realized this wasn't an intimate vignette of shared merriment. Elizabeth looked like she was trying to kill his brother.
 

Ah. He could add Desire to Dismember Zach Franco to the list of things he and Elizabeth had in common. The thought made him chuckle.

She turned toward the sound, frowning. She didn't seem happy.
 

She eyed him warily as he entered the kitchen and put the bags on the floor. He put his finger to his lips, gesturing her into silence. The day was chilly and he couldn't help but notice that she was wearing another flimsy dress, this time with a cardigan and bare legs, which looked spectacular. He ignored her confused frown and turned to Zach, who smiled.

"You brought it," he exclaimed, but Gabe shushed him.
 

"Yes," he hissed. "You owe me big time, infant."

"Do we have to heat it?" Zach replied, also in a whisper.

He nodded. "Can you get one of the pans?" he asked Elizabeth, who looked ready to bolt out of the room. "They're right behind you."

She rolled her eyes. He motioned toward the cupboard. She gave him an offended glare, then kneeled and opened a cupboard.
 

Gabe instantly regretted asking for the pan. She wasn't wearing the black hose that he liked, but the tight skirt riding up her butt was an attractive substitute. Apparently, his brother thought so too. He punched him in the arm, and Zach flinched.

But he didn't look away.
 

Gabe considered a variety of unpleasant and creative deaths for his annoying sibling, but this agreeable train of thought was hopelessly derailed by Elizabeth's wriggling body. She dug around the cupboard and extracted a rectangular glass container. She finally straightened and Gabe let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Zach noticed and rolled his eyes before taking the plastic tubs out of the bags.