He shrugged. “It’s a risk you’re going to have to take if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in the snow.”
She laughed and pressed her lips to his cold cheek. “There. A kiss. Now get off me!”
“It’s a good thing it’s me who found you two this way and not your dad, Marti,” Amos said from behind them.
“You weren’t supposed to be home for a while yet,” Josh said with a scowl, rolling to his side. “Besides, I accidentally crashed into her and knocked her on her butt.”
“Accidentally, huh?” Amos reached down and helped Marti to her feet. It was hard to tell if she was blushing or if her face was just red from the cold.
“It was an accident,” Marti said, taking her hand from Amos’s and brushing the snow off the front of her. She stepped away from Amos and looked down at Josh, who was still sprawled in the snow.
“We’re going to make a couple more runs down your hill,” Josh said. “You can lose yourself somewhere.”
“You’re on my land. I feel the need to play the charming host.” Amos grinned. “I’ll go get my sled.”
Josh groaned loudly. “Great.”
Marti laughed, watching as Amos walked away. “It won’t hurt us to have a chaperone for a little while. Might be fun.”
“Might not,” Josh mumbled.
“Well, I’m going again!” Marti said, grabbing the disk. “And as much as I hate to admit it, I think you’re right. The disks are more fun.” She hurried up the hill, leaving Josh still lying in the snow, watching her.
An hour later, they were back in his kitchen, and he was sitting at the table while she meticulously followed Tracy’s instructions for making the Irish nachos. She didn’t have a deep fryer like Tracy did, so she used a pan and dipped the chips after cutting the potatoes into thin slices.
Once everything was finished, she put her masterpiece on the table in front of him. She had put it onto two different plates, knowing it needed to be plated well for full effect. “Let me just pop the scones in the oven, and I’ll join you,” she said.
Josh wasn’t about to wait. He’d heard too much about the nachos, and he took a bite of potato chip covered in cheesy sauce and bacon. “These are delicious. You may make them for me every day for the rest of my life.”
She laughed. “Once a month is more than enough with as much work is involved.”
“But . . . I like it!”
“You’ll live.” Marti sat down at the table beside him and took her first bite of the fattening concoction. “I forget how much I love this.”
“I’ll never forget it.” Josh took another bite. “And I didn’t know you were making scones. Are you trying to spoil me? I’m going to have to go back to eating my own cooking!”
“I’ve eaten your cooking. You’re a good cook, so don’t try to make me feel sorry for you.” She frowned. “I feel like we should take a plate of nachos to Amos for letting us sled on his hill.”
“There’s no need. And there will be no more nachos by the time I’m done with them.”
“You really aren’t good at sharing with your brother. I don’t know what’s wrong with you.” Not that she really wanted to share her half of the nachos, but she did feel badly. “Maybe we should take him a scone.”
“That depends. How many did you make?”
“Six, but I thought you could have some for breakfast in the morning.”
“No scones for Amos then. He doesn’t deserve them anyway.” Josh ate his last bite of nachos and eyed her plate. “I need more.”
“There’s stuff for another plate on the stove,” she said. “Just get up and make them yourself.”
He took his plate over to the counter and piled it just as high as she had the first time. “What do you think of sledding?”
“I think Texas children are deprived of one of the true joys of childhood, and someone needs to bring in snow for them.”
“That might be a really hard thing to do.”
“So?” she took another bite of nacho and jumped up when the oven timer dinged. “Wait until you try these scones. Tracy’s recipe of course.”
“You said Tracy is married?”
“Yes, why?”
“I’d marry her just for her cooking. But then . . . I’d miss you a lot.”
Marti shook her head. “You certainly are fickle! Can’t decide if you want to marry for love or food.”
“Or love of food.”
“I’m just going to serve the scones and pretend you’re not here.”
“You can’t ignore me! I will be a thorn in your side if you try!” Josh finished his last nacho and sighed, patting his belly. “Bring on the scones!”
“You eat more than a teenage boy!”
“Well, yeah. Do you have any idea the number of calories it takes to keep a ranch like this going? I could eat all day and never gain a pound.” He reached for the scone she put on the table. “Hot!”
“You just saw me take it out of the oven! How can you be surprised it’s hot?”
“I don’t know, but I wasn’t expecting it to be that hot.” He broke off a chunk with the side of a fork and blew on it. “Raspberry?”
She nodded. “Tracy makes blueberry more than any other flavor, but I like raspberry.”
“We need to try huckleberry!”
“Huckleberry? As in Finn?”
“You’ve never had huckleberry? It’s one of my favorite fruits, but they’re so hard to pick. They only grow naturally at high altitudes, and you can pick for hours and only get a quart of berries. They are so worth it, though!”
“Do people sell them? Why have I never seen or heard of these things?”
“Most people don’t sell them. I’ve never seen them in a grocery store. People pick them, and then they use them. No one is willing to go to that kind of trouble just to sell them. Too delicious.” He took another bite. “When summer comes around, you and I are going huckleberry picking, and you’re making me huckleberry scones. It’s a date.”
“A date where I get to cook for you? Yay. I can’t wait.”
“I hear your sarcasm, but I really don’t care. You will be my huckleberry scone slave. Do you hear me?”
She sighed, taking another bite of her own scone. The man was crazy.
Chapter Nine
By Friday night, Marti was really looking forward to spending another day with Josh. She knew she shouldn’t spend so much time thinking about him if they weren’t going to have a future, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
That night, Heather sat up with her to talk again after the babies were put back down. “What are you guys doing tomorrow?”
Marti shrugged. “I’m not sure. He said something about a fall carnival, but it feels like winter not fall.”
“Yeah, it does. I wasn’t here yet at this time last year, but it seems like it should be Christmas and not Halloween. Are you still playing the ‘just friends’ game?”
Marti sighed, shrugging. “I have no idea.” She folded a heavy flannel shirt of Michael’s. “I feel like I should be careful around him, but I’m not sure what to do. I want so much more than friendship, and I know he does, but how do I guarantee that there will be a future for us? Triplets aren’t normal!”
Heather shrugged. “Having quads didn’t kill me. Triplets won’t kill you. I think you’re obsessing for no reason. Give him a chance.”
“But is it too late to give him a chance? And how do I do that? Go up to him and say, ‘Hey, big boy. I decided that I wanna do the relationship thing. You up for it?’?”
Heather laughed. “If you do it that way, then I need to see his face. Seriously, I think he’d faint dead away at your feet.”
Marti grinned. “Yeah, that might freak him out just a little bit.” She shook her head. “Maybe I’ll tell him about the vision I had with us and triplets and see what he thinks we should do from there.”
“Or maybe you have a normal relationship and forget what your powers are telling you. If you’d
met him two years ago, before any of us had powers, you’d have jumped in feet first with your eyes closed. Why not now?”
Marti thought about her sister’s words long after Heather had gone to bed. Why not? She loved him. There was no doubt about that in her mind. He had feelings for her—whether or not it was love, she didn’t know, but he felt something strong. Maybe it was time for her to take the brakes off and see where things would go. She’d been in Idaho for almost three weeks, and they’d been dancing around their feelings for most of that time.
She made stacks of clothes to be put away when people woke up and settled in with a good romance novel. She had nothing else to do, so she may as well dream about the future she wanted with Josh. Or did she need it? It was a good question, and she may never have the answer.
* * *
When Josh came by to pick her up the following afternoon, Marti had made up her mind to talk to him. She wasn’t sure how she was going to broach the subject, but she needed him to know why she’d been so skittish with him.
He took her to a local elementary school, where there was a haunted house and many other fun activities. There was even a small room full of crafts that local people were selling. She wandered around the room, well aware that Josh was bored out of his mind, but he’d chosen to come here for her.
By the time they left, she had a bag of gifts for all of her sisters and her mother for Christmas. She’d even chosen a small gift for Amy, knowing she would be part of the Muir family Christmas that year instead of the McClains.
After the show, he drove her out of town to a small town about thirty minutes away. “I was hungry for steak, and this place does the best steak in this part of Idaho. You game?”
She nodded. “I’m hungry. I didn’t even realize how hungry until you pulled up in front of this place.”
This time the waitress didn’t know Josh, and Marti was pleased. It was strange that everywhere they went, he knew everyone.
Once she’d chosen her meal and he had laid his menu down, she took a deep breath. It was time to tell him about her vision, and they would talk it through and decide where to go from there. He may feel just as afraid of having triplets as she was.
“Heather and I had a long talk last night while everyone else slept. We’ve had a lot of those lately.” She bit her lip as she looked down at her hands, almost afraid to meet his eyes. “She convinced me that I needed to tell you what has me so frightened about a relationship with you.”
He frowned. “I knew something had happened, but I couldn’t figure out what. I thought you’d tell me in your own time.”
She frowned, finally looking up at him. “I had a vision about our future if we married.”
“Wait . . . what? And it made you afraid to have a relationship with me? Were we fighting?” Josh couldn’t believe she was just now telling him this. “When did you have the vision?”
“The second day we spent together, while I was filling out the birth certificates for the girls’ Cabbage Patch Kids.”
“What was the vision?” He wasn’t sure if he was nervous to hear it or annoyed with her for not telling him sooner. He hadn’t been able to figure out what was going on, and being confused was not a pleasant feeling.
“I saw myself filling out three Cabbage Patch Kids’ birth certificates . . . for our triplets. We’d just gotten done talking about how we didn’t want to have more than one baby at a time, and then triplets . . . I just didn’t think either of us wanted to deal with that.”
“So you broke up with me over a vision you had about having babies with me? Really? What made you decide to tell me?”
“I’ve had lots of visions with you and all three children. They were all happy visions. I’d see us with the kids. You pushing them on swings. The two of us with our grandchildren, and me telling you that there were no regrets.” She closed her eyes, embarrassed that she hadn’t discussed it all with him in the beginning. “I know it’s stupid, but I just wasn’t sure that’s what I wanted.”
He frowned at her. “It is kind of stupid. If you’d met me before these visions of yours, would you have dated me? Or would you have been too scared?”
“I’d have dated you. I have such strong feelings for you, but the idea of triplets . . . watching Heather with all those babies has me a bit gun shy.”
“You should have talked to me about it. We could have worked through it.”
“I knew you’d try to talk me into still dating you, and that’s why I didn’t talk to you, which doesn’t make sense at all. I didn’t think you should be able to convince me that you were the right choice for me. I thought I should get to decide if I wanted the babies or not. My body and all that.”
“And now that you’re telling me, what am I supposed to do with this information? Move on like it doesn’t matter?”
“I don’t know. Just like I didn’t know what to do with the information that I was having triplets.” She felt a tear drift down her cheek. “I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you before, but I didn’t know what to do. That’s my only excuse.”
Josh felt inexplicably betrayed by her. “I can’t believe you’d break things off with me over a vision.” He sighed. “I’m going to have to think about how I feel about it all. I’m not even sure that I want triplets.”
“Take your time. It took me two weeks to figure out if I was even going to tell you. You have the right to take as long as you need.”
He nodded, looking down at the steak in front of him. He refused to let getting upset with her take the pleasure out of eating a good steak. His favorite steak.
When Josh dropped Marti off an hour later, she still wasn’t sure how he felt. He’d said very little since she’d told him, and instead of walking her to the door, he waited while she got her bag and drove away.
Marti let herself into the house and went up to her room. She needed some time to think as well. She hoped she hadn’t just ruined her only chance to marry the one man in the world who was perfect for her.
* * *
Josh spent that evening talking to Daisy about the whole situation, wishing he had someone better to discuss things with. Usually he’d call Amos, but his brother was already getting on his last nerve about the whole situation, and he didn’t want to involve him more.
He paced the floor, talking and thinking, and Daisy stared at him like he’d lost his mind. Finally, he decided to go out and see his stallion. The horse had become one of his favorite sounding boards.
He spent hours in the stable, talking and talking. He realized where she was coming from, but he couldn’t decide why she thought he shouldn’t be involved in the whole decision-making process. Marti needed to understand that if they were going to be a couple, the two of them would have to discuss important things like whether or not they wanted to go forward with a relationship they knew would result in triplets. And in having grandchildren and talking about having no regrets.
That was the part that really got to him. She knew there’d be no regrets, and still she’d waited to talk to him. She should have come to him as soon as she’d known that, but instead, she’d kept it all to herself. She’d probably talked to Heather about it, but Heather couldn’t see into his head any better than Marti could. At least he didn’t think she could. He couldn’t remember what her power was.
Finally, after hours and hours of thinking and debating, he made his decision. He would do what felt right to him, and she’d live with his decision.
* * *
In the time they’d known one another, Josh and Marti had never parted company without making plans for the next time they’d see each other. But she tossed and turned after she finally was able to sleep on Sunday morning, wondering if he was going to make her feel guilty forever or if he’d come over later that day to spend time with her.
She got up at her usual hour and went to the kitchen, nuking some soup for her lunch. It was leftover from the night before, and she had no idea what was in it, but she’d eat it regardless. Hopeful
ly it tasted as good as it smelled.
She was halfway through her second bowl of soup when Amy came into the kitchen, getting herself a cup of coffee. “Are you and Josh spending the day together?”
Marti shrugged. “I don’t think so. We didn’t make any plans.” She tried to keep the sadness out of her voice when she said it, but she knew she wasn’t fooling anyone.
“Did you two have a fight yesterday?”
Marti considered pouring her heart out to the older woman, but the decision had been made by all the sisters together that only significant others would know. And she’d told Josh immediately. What did that say about her? “Sort of, but not really.”
“That’s not much of an answer, but I guess it’s your business and not mine. If you need someone to talk to about it all, just let me know.”
Marti nodded, staring into her soup bowl. She wished she had answers for herself, but she didn’t. She knew nothing about what was going to happen next. She wanted to get in her car and drive back to Texas to cry on her daddy’s shoulder, but that wasn’t going to work. She was just going to have to pull up her big girl panties and deal with life.
She spent her day off reading books and hanging out in the living room with the others as the babies were taken care of. It was the first time she’d had nothing to do and nowhere to go when she wasn’t working.
Heather kept giving her looks, telling her she knew something was up but not saying anything in front of the others. Marti was glad, because she had only herself to blame for the rift between her and Josh.
Finally, she got tired of the sympathetic stares from her sister and mother. “I’m going to go take a three-hour bath with a romance novel. I’ll see you when I see you.”
As she climbed the stairs, she decided to grab her Walkman as well. A night reading and a long bath were just what she needed. She might even paint her toenails and give herself a facial. Soon she’d feel so pampered it wouldn’t matter that Josh was completely ignoring her.
Marti: Seven Sisters Book Page 7
