2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3) (25 page)

“Maybe not. But no one can stop you from helping,
right?”

“I guess not.”

“So you help,” Tara urged.

“You forget one thing, Tara, we aren’t any good at
this stuff. We can’t bake and we don’t plan and we have no idea what we’re
doing.”

“But we know people.”

“Who?”

“Elizabeth Hemmings.”

“My mother?”

“The one and only.”

Catherine waved it off. “She isn’t going to sully
herself by taking over an elementary school class party.”

“How’d the shopping go?” Fynn asked.

“Exhausting,” Catherine groaned, taking his offered
hand so he could haul her out of the passenger seat of Tara’s car.

“We had a great time. I got to meet the devil
herself,” Tara said.

Catherine mouthed,
Sophie Watts.

“Ohhh, sounds like it was a blast,” he commiserated.

“That’s about right,” she grumbled, shutting the door
behind her before Tara could go any further, waving goodbye before she had any
bright ideas to stick around. Surprisingly, though, Tara seemed happy enough to
drive off.

“Well, I for one am glad you’re home again,” Fynn
said, leaning in for a kiss.

“So I see. Anything going on that I need to worry
about?” she prodded.

“Nope. Just love to see my bride.”

“Ooookay.”

“Anything new with you?” He took her by the arm, leading
her the long way around the house.

“Not that I know of,” she said carefully, “unless you
count the imaginary cat that Cara has.”

“An imaginary cat? That’s fascinating,” he said with
way too much excitement.

“I don’t know if that’s really the word. When the
school calls and tells you that your kid might need counseling, it fails to
rise to the level of fascinating.”

“Counseling?” He stopped them in their tracks.

“I don’t know exactly what they mean or what Cara is actually
saying around school or anything,” she clarified, wishing she hadn’t even
started this conversation before putting some feelers out with Cara. It could
be absolutely nothing to worry about.

“Should we—”

“I think we have time to talk to her and see what’s
going on. She’s doing great, right? I mean, if an imaginary cat is part of the
reason then so be it. Maybe it’s just what she needs,” she reasoned.

Fynn gave a small sideways nod, accepting the argument.

“Where are you taking me anyway, Mr. Trager? It’s cold
out here,” she shivered, gladly moving to another topic.

“We’re just taking a bit of a detour before we go
inside.”

“A detour through ankle deep snow?”

“We have to do what we have to do.” He pulled her
along again.

“And why do we have to do it? Why can’t we just go in
through our front door like normal people?”

“Because this isn’t a normal situation.”

“Oh God, please tell me that you aren’t trying to stop
me from seeing that my mother redecorated the family room while I was out. So
help me—”

“Your mom has done nothing to the house. Though she
is
inside making something for dinner, so you’ll have to stomach that.”

But Catherine was past all the fighting for control of
the kitchen stuff that had had her rankled when they first got here. She had
since cooked with her mother, or let her mother cook, without any problem at
all—and they had all eaten better because of it.

“So what are we doing out here then?”

“Well…” He guided her around the back corner of the
house.

“What is it?” In awe of the massive box sitting on the
deck, like it was from another planet.

“Just wait until you see it. It is
unbelievable
!”
Fynn squealed. An outright squeal like a teenage girl would make.

He left her where she was and hopped up the steps to
lift the box.

“A grill?” Confused. She’d thought it was a gift from
him. To her. Something so big and amazing and wonderful that he couldn’t bear
waiting another minute to give it to her.

“That’s not just a grill. It’s a
grill
. A real man’s
man, heat-searing grill. Top of the line!”

“And you bought this for yourself for Christmas?”

“It’s for
us
. Both of us. To us.”

Catherine’s face fell even further that the man she
loved could be so dense.

“Don’t look so happy about it,” Fynn smarted.

“I just—I wasn’t expecting a Christmas gift… so
early,” she said haltingly, slowly mounting the deck stairs.
Certainly not a
crappy one.

“I wasn’t expecting one at all. It just arrived. This
afternoon. Just like last time.”

“Last time?”

“Your whole kitchen thing.” He swirled his hand in the
air to encompass what he meant and when she continued to look dumbfounded,
added, “The appliances. All that stuff from Walter. The guy from the wedding.
Our late wedding gift that arrived last week?” An up-swinging question of her
short-term memory loss.

Light finally dawned just as her father opened the
back door, whistling his appreciation for the stainless steel fire-breathing
behemoth out there in the snow.

“That is some fine craftsmanship. Made in America, no
less.” Obviously he’d already checked that part out. William Hemmings approved.

“It seems good old Uncle Walter sent us an early
Christmas gift. Can you believe it?” Fynn asked.

“Uncle Walter?”

“That’s what I think we should call him from now on. I
think he deserves it.”

The door from the kitchen opened. “Are you all going
to stand out there all night admiring that thing?” Elizabeth Hemmings charged,
perpetual dishtowel in hand.

“This Uncle Walter of yours is quality people,”
William Hemmings asserted. “We took crotchety old Uncle Dick into our home to
eat our food for a lot less than this. Heck, we never got so much as a thank
you from him,” he added, of the widowed old neighbor his wife had taken upon
herself to look after in his dear wife’s memory.

“He gives you a bottle of scotch for Christmas every
year, William,” Elizabeth pointed out, setting the record straight.

“I don’t even like scotch. Hate the stuff actually,”
he grumbled.

“It’s the thought that counts,” she reminded him.

“And then he ends up drinking the whole bottle
himself. Asks for a glass before every meal he eats at our table.”

Catherine followed the volleying back and forth from
her dad to her mom, then looked to Fynn, wondering if they would end up
grumbling about Uncle Walter this way. Wondering further if Uncle Walter was
going to show up on Christmas morning expecting a gift in return. How much
could one couple take from an eccentric stranger before he demanded something
from them?

“Are we having a picnic on the deck tonight?” Cara
asked, wandering out the door and onto the snow in her stocking feet.

“Tonight? It’s freezing cold out!” Catherine
exclaimed.

“So,” she shrugged. “Eskimos do it all the time.”

Catherine was caught off-guard. Fair point. Still no,
of course, but impressive just the same.

“I think we all need to get inside and shut out the
cold before we turn into popsicles,” Elizabeth asserted.

“Wouldn’t he be a Pop-popsicle?” Cara giggled,
thumbing at Pop-Pop.

“Why I oughta,” William said, picking up Cara and
carrying her inside.

Catherine turned to Fynn, wondering at the look on his
face that made her question whether he might leave her for a grill. He was in
love for sure.

She held out her hand. “Coming?”

“Oh… yeah.” He gave the grill a longing glance.

As soon as they stepped inside, the scent of her
mother’s beef stew hit every nostalgic button. “It smells delicious in here,
Mom,” she said, meaning it.

“Well, it’s a good winter meal. I wrote the recipe
down for you too and left it on the fridge.”

“Thank you.”

It was coming easier, this getting along with her mom
thing. She would have figured that by now she’d be threatening to throw either
her mother or herself off the roof. Instead they had found a good amount of
give and take, respecting each other’s space.

Catherine stepped in a wet spot on the wood floor and
noticed a trail of several more, usually Magnus’s doing but the prints were too
large for paws. “Cara, you need to go and get out of those wet socks. Put on
another pair, please.”

“Can’t I just go barefoot?” she begged.

“Fine, but only until you get your shower. Then you’re
covering them up.”

“Yay!”

“Dinner’s ready!” Elizabeth Hemmings sang out, causing
mass confusion in the kitchen as everyone washed up and dished up and got
situated around the table.

“This stew is like Papa Bear’s porridge,” Cara
announced, putting down her first spoonful.

“Which one is that?” William Hemmings asked,
scratching his head like he couldn’t remember.

“That’s the one that’s too hot, Pop-Pop!” she giggled.

“And are you Goldilocks?” he asked.

“I can’t be. I don’t have blonde hair. And Goldilocks
is a thief. I don’t want to be a thief and go to jail.”

“I’ll drink to that.” He held up his glass of milk,
making a toast.

“Me too!” she laughed, drinking a big gulp and leaving
a milk mustache behind.

Catherine went to work eating her own stew that was
“just right”, to put it in fairytale terms. She was so preoccupied with the
warm and yummy feeling of the stew hitting all the perfect spots that she
didn’t realize the conversation at the table had moved on.

“You know what?” Cara asked the table at large, eyes
wide and serious. “Aunt Tara’s house is haunted.”

Catherine choked on a mouthful. “What?”

“Everybody knows,” she shrugged. “I wanted to go there
on Halloween but you wouldn’t let me.”

“You mean it’s
a
haunted house?” Catherine asked,
as in a business with props and actors and made-up scary things. Though she
didn’t remember being asked about going any such place, not that her brain was worth
a hill of beans on memory these days.

“That’s what I said. The older kids on the bus dare
each other to ring the doorbell on Halloween and see if a ghost answers.”

Catherine turned to Fynn for help and got a
who me?
in return. What kind of person lives in a town for years and knows nothing
of its myths or legends or whatever this was? Catherine looked to her parents
who both seemed completely humored by the whole thing.

“Oh, and I almost forgot,” Cara said, jumping straight
into something knew, like talk of a haunted house was only mildly interesting,
“Kalle from my class asked me if I could go to her Christmas party. I told her
I would ask my cat but I don’t know if I want to go because Gramma Lizzy and Pop-Pop
will still be here and I don’t want to miss being with them.”

Catherine’s ears perked up. Shit. At this point she’d
rather Cara had stayed on the talk of ghosts and the rumored paranormal
activity down the road than go to that place where her teacher wasn’t wrong or
overreacting or lying about the cat thing.

“Christmas parties only come around once a year, and
we plan to come around again in the summer, so don’t worry about us,” Gramma
Lizzy assured her.

“Really?” Cara asked excitedly. “Because there are all
kinds of different things we can do in the summer.”

Then Cara turned toward Catherine, “So, can I go?”

“Excuse me?” She looked around. “Is your cat here
right now?” Wondering if she was going to be one of those people who had to
entertain her child’s imaginary world, putting out an extra plate of food. Cat
food. That Magnus would eat. And if she would need to fill a litter box and
keep it in the laundry room for imaginary bowel movements.

“You’re funny,” Cara giggled.

“You think
that’s
funny, how about this,” Pop-Pop
offered, hanging his spoon on his nose. Cara tried copying, giggling as her
spoon kept falling off.

“You are ‘my Cat’, dear,” Elizabeth Hemmings whispered,
leaning toward Catherine.

“Huh?”

“That’s what Cara calls you. Just like ‘I have to ask
my mom’ to do something. You’re my Cat. Not just plain Cat, but
my
Cat.”

And suddenly all of the stress of the day melted away.
The alarm bells Mrs. Karnes had touched off. The Sophie Watts run-in. The
haunting. The Gingermelon shocker that would require a feat of superhuman
strength to pull off. In fact, she felt stronger. Better. Borderline
invincible. She was Cara’s Cat. That was the best news she’d heard in a long
time.

Wednesday, December 13
^th

Catherine eyed the structure, the word of a
six-year-old calling into question its every stud, nail, window, and piece of
siding. She stepped to the welcome mat and rang the bell. An actual “Welcome”
mat. Not a “Bitch, You’re Here” mat or a “Beat It” mat, but a genuine polite
salutation.

Tara opened the front door. “You realize this isn’t
going to work if you continue to have a problem with boundaries. Just because
I’m right down the road doesn’t mean I want you dropping in all the time—”

“What are we in the friggin’
Twilight Zone
? You’re
lecturing
me
on boundaries? I’m the daughter of Elizabeth Hemmings. She knows
an inappropriate drop-in when she sees it; you can ask her yourself.” Catherine
stepped aside so Tara could see her mother coming up the front walk.

Her friend’s eyes widened. “I’m kind of busy right
now, Cat,” she said through gritted teeth.

Catherine merely shrugged, a gesture that said she had
no control over the situation.

“But I’m not wearing any panties,” Tara hissed,
shifting uncomfortably.

Startled, Catherine looked down at her friend’s lower
half, hoping that she had
something
on. Yes, a skirt that looked like it
had spent the night balled up on the floor. Askew. Her shirt was on backwards
too, the V running down her back that she noted as Tara turned to motion to
someone inside. And as she swung to face front again, so did the twins, making
it painfully obvious that she was also braless.

Catherine narrowed her eyes at all the blaring sex
signs before her, then spun to block her mother’s way. “This isn’t the best
time for a—”

“Nonsense, Catherine, nobody turns away the welcome
wagon,” Elizabeth Hemmings assured her, stepping up onto the porch anyway.

She groaned, turning back to face Tara who was
smoothing at her hair self-consciously, looking nervous enough to bolt.
Shameful even. Which was something Tara never was. Elizabeth Hemmings was a
force to be reckoned with.

Catherine mouthed
sorry
from over her mother’s
shoulder.

Tara glanced once more behind her and stepped outside,
closing the door. “Mrs. Hemmings, what a surprise!” she announced.

“It’s Elizabeth, Tara, so lovely to see you. Though
you’ll catch your death in so little clothing.”

Catherine winced. Direct hit. Hasty appearance noted.

“So this is the house I’ve been hearing about,”
Elizabeth Hemmings continued, holding onto her pie carrier like she was
protecting it with her life—the same one she’d had for years and had somehow
packed in her suitcase and brought onboard the flight here, without an actual pie
in it, presumably just in case she decided to bake and take a pie somewhere
while she was visiting. And of course she’d found a way to make that dream a
reality.

Catherine was embarrassed. For herself. For Tara. This
was awkward as hell, knowing that something that would give her mother a heart
attack had been going on inside that door. Plus, she was let down. She wanted
to think that Tara was better than just picking up some random guy off the
street after all her talk about feeling vulnerable and confused and caring too
much for Jason. All those feelings out the window in the interest of a quick
screw?

“If the inside is half as nice as the outside, then
you have quite a place here,” Elizabeth added to move things along.

“Oh… would you… like to come in?” A stilted question
as Tara shivered in place, legs crossed to protect her delicate parts.

“Sure, yes, that would be nice,” Elizabeth said, cradling
her pie with one hand as she opened the door herself and stepped up over the
threshold into the foyer.

“I didn’t realize you’d have company,” Catherine
whispered to Tara. “I didn’t see an extra car out front or I would never have
stopped.”

“I brought him home with me last night,” she whispered
back.

“You didn’t waste any time.”

“No. I didn’t. If I’m one thing, I’m quick to get on
the horse,” Tara admitted, trailing them inside.

The warmth hit with force, a wall of homey goodness
that was accentuated by the scents of pine and potpourri, which was served up
in a bowl on an antique dresser stationed in the foyer.

Elizabeth Hemmings relinquished the pie carrier to
Tara now that they were safely inside, and immediately started unbuttoning her
coat to stay awhile. Presumptuous in such a nonintrusive way that there seemed
no response other than for Tara to hand the pie off again to Catherine while
she took the coat and hung it on a rack stationed next to the door. Then she took
the pie back, allowing Catherine to remove and hang her own damn coat.

“This is so nice. Homemade?” Tara asked sweetly.

“Of course.”

“Well, why don’t I serve us some right now then. Would
you like some tea or coffee perhaps?” she offered, settling into hostess mode
with an ease that was unnerving to Catherine. A part of her wanted to scream
imposter!
if only for the fact that she herself had never looked so at ease doing the
same, and because Tara was pulling it off even while knowing full well some guy
she’d just been screwing was somewhere else in the house at this very moment
with his pants halfway down and his penis at full mast.
You are judged by
the company you keep,
Elizabeth Hemmings had said ruthlessly through the
years, and Tara was keeping some company alright.

“Cat!” Tara barked.

“What?” she yelped back, darting from Tara to her
mother, who was giving her a look reminding her to be polite as she’d been
raised.

“Do you want some decaf?”

“No, that’s okay.” Catherine was too busy looking
around for sex evidence her mother might see. Worried. As she passed by the
living room, her mouth fell agape at the sight inside. It was a Norman Rockwell
scene. She’d been here just days ago and since then Christmas had hit with
force. A tree aglow in front of the large picture window, decorated in folksy
style with delicate paper crafts and felted ornaments wrapped in a spiraling
red and cream gingham ribbon of garland. A fire was crackling at the hearth.
Stockings were hung by the chimney with care—two in fact. Pine boughs snaked
along surfaces while three wise men in glittering antique gold journeyed on camels
along the mantle toward Bethlehem. And on either side of the fireplace, a watchful
battalion of nutcrackers in their festive finest lined the tops of the
bookcases.

“Aren’t they great?” Tara gushed, when she noticed Catherine
lagging. “That’s not even the whole lot. I have a few in every room. I like the
quasi-clown vibe of them.”

“Where did they all come from?” she asked in awe, like
maybe Tara had conjured up an evil nutcracker spirit that had sent its minions
here.

“I’ve been collecting them since I was a kid. Every
year Santa brought me one. Still does,” she winked, like it was dirty.

She probably does have a dirty nutcracker
somewhere. Or a vibrator she calls the nutcracker,
Catherine thought
snarkily. She could have definitely believed that Tara had a naughty nutcracker
collection—she loved wood jokes—but to have a tried-and-true traditional one? It
was so far off the mark she felt dizzy.

“How lovely,” Elizabeth Hemmings said, admiring the
view into the living room that was so captivating her daughter. “You’ve done a fabulous
job inside and out.”

“I just wish they judged the inside. I have a
Christmas tree in every room, you know. Each one with a different theme. I have
the Patriot tree,” Tara said.

“You mean patriotic?” Catherine corrected.

“No, it’s
The Patriot
. For the movie. You know…
Mel Gibson and hot, hot Heath Ledger, may he rest in peace.”

Catherine smirked.

“It’s got muskets and battle-torn flags and red coats
and minutemen. And there’s a cheese tree in the dining room—you want to see it?
Covered with real cheese. Those little wax-coated wheels are perfectly sized
for ornaments.”

“No thank you.” Catherine shook her head. “I don’t
think I can take that much moldy cheese.”

“It’s all packaged cheese. Shelf stable. Hickory Farms
and all that. The tree that keeps giving. Visitors can take an ornament to go.
That tree alone would solidify a win with the town council. Seven feet of
cheese. Who wouldn’t love that? Come to think of it, I
could
put it
outside. Expand the cheese offerings that way since it stays at least
refrigerator-cold out there. And cheese can be frozen too.”

“And you’ll have every wild animal around stealing a
meal,” Catherine pointed out.

“I didn’t say there wouldn’t be challenges,” Tara
admitted. “But that’s why we make a good team. I’m a dreamer and you’re a
killer of those dreams.”

“I wasn’t—”

“I’m kidding, Cat. Chill. I’m just saying that you
keep me in check.”

Obviously not well enough
.

In the kitchen, Tara went about getting dishes and
silverware, pulling out a silver pie server that looked like an heirloom for
special occasions. Catherine certainly didn’t have anything like it. And prior
to this moment she would have bet her life that Tara Delrio would never own such
a thing in her life.

“You’re catching flies, Catherine Marie,” her mother
cautioned.

Tara served three generous pieces of pie and headed to
the stove to get the teakettle that was propped on the back burner—another
thing Catherine did not have. A teakettle. For the tea that proper people
offered to guests, properly. She felt the itch of something… perhaps a
tiny
rivalry
that her friend who’d always been haphazard was suddenly more put together than
she was. And in front of her own mother!

“You’ve really made this place home already,”
Elizabeth said. Full of praise for an act of spontaneous insanity, Catherine
noted.

“It’s a start. It needs some help. Some love. But
isn’t that what we all need?”

Some of us need a valium and a straightjacket.

“It is just so nice that it came with a lot of the old
furnishings so I was able to get moved in and function around here without
having to rush out and buy a bunch of things on the spur of the moment. I can
take my time.”

Because rushing into things is crazy, right, Tara?

“It isn’t perfect by any means, but it will do for
now. I definitely have plans.” Tara rubbed her hands together with something
like glee. No, it
was
glee. “Remodeling projects. Decorating. A blog.
Maybe even a book someday. #DelrioDIY.”

Catherine almost rolled her eyes right out of her
head. “So is this place really haunted?” she blurted, to change the subject.
Not that she believed such things, but she had been known to have a healthy
fear and a strong case of the creeps.

“Nah,” Tara waved it off. “At most I would call it
benevolently anointed.”

“What?”

“It has an essence, for sure.”

“An essence?” Catherine looked to her mother, sure to
see she was nonplused by Tara’s assertion, but instead she was nodding her head
lightly. This
was
the goddamned
Twilight Zone.
If any of this had
been voiced by her own daughter—Any. Of. It.—Elizabeth Hemmings would demand Catherine
Marie snap out of it. But here she was taking it in without a smidgen of
distaste or a grimace of disbelief.

Tara continued, “I don’t know about
haunted
places...
I mean, I like to
think
they exist because scary shit like that’s just
cool as hell.”
There’s the Tara I know,
Catherine thought, waiting for
the kick under the table from her mother, telling her they were both getting
out of the nuthouse while the getting was good. But there was nothing. Elizabeth
Hemmings sat there taking her tea and eating her pie like this was any midday
visit to Normalville.

“But this place… it’s just a lovely, settled, peaceful
home. I can feel it,” Tara assured them.

“That is so important,” Elizabeth Hemmings said.

What the—

“Isn’t it, though?” Tara agreed.

“It certainly is. You have to be at rest in a house. I
know that when William and I were looking for our home when we first married,
we saw so many places. I would walk into each house and stand in the middle of each
room and just
feel
it. Some of those places were perfectly nice, but
something just didn’t set right with me when I was in them. I don’t even know
what it was. But when we found the right one, our home, I never questioned it.”

Tara was nodding, lapping up the comradery, while
Catherine was wondering what kind of peace anyone could feel in this place. It
felt like hostile territory to her. The odd man out.

“I just know that the people who died here were—”

“People died here?” Catherine screeched. “
People?
As in not just one but more than one? No wonder no one ever wanted to buy this
place. No wonder it sat on the market. No wonder all the furnishings were left
behind. It’s all tainted. What kind of investment is that?”

“An investment in the future,” Tara said simply. “It’s
a shame that this place was being unfairly judged and left to rot.” So earnest
and calm and—

Infuriating!
If there was one thing Catherine
had always been able to count on, it was that Tara was more off-the-wall and
overboard than she was. But even though Tara was being as reckless and
impulsive as ever, she was doing it in a maddeningly composed way—a Lindsay
Lohan in Martha Stewart’s clothing.

“I just think that death shouldn’t taint life. So,
people died here. So what?”

“Was it a murder-suicide?” Catherine dug snippily.

“No. Just a husband and wife. Years apart from each
other. He had a heart attack in the bathtub and she died in her sleep… upstairs
in bed.”

“How can you bathe here or sleep here knowing—”