Barking Up the Wrong Tree

by Jenn McKinlay

  “So you think abandonment is okay if the abandoner gives the abandonee meatballs?” Carly asked. She went to snatch Zach’s bowl away but he anticipated her move and looped his arm about it and hissed at her.

  “Yes,” he said. He glanced at her through the shaggy blonde bangs that hung over his forehead. “I could forgive a lot for a bowl of home cooking.”

  “He has a point,” Sam Kennedy said. He was seated beside his friend and business partner enjoying his second helping while surreptitiously sneaking meatballs to Saul.

  “So, it’s true what they say about men and their stomachs,” Carly said to Jillian, who was fussing over Ike in his cage in the corner of the kitchen.

  “Does Ike look all right to you?” Jillian asked. “I think he lost some feathers on his panicked flight through the park.”

  “It wasn’t the park. We were stuck in traffic on I-95 in Connecticut for two hours,” Carly said. “I think I lost some feathers on that ride.”

  “Not your tail feathers,” Zach said and he goosed her.

  Carly smacked his hand away and gave him a reproachful look, although she really didn’t mind. Zachary Caine had been her partner in Emma and Brad Jameson’s wedding. Because they shared the same phobia of coupledom, they had become fast friends but nothing more, which did not discourage either of them from flirting with the other despite the lack of attraction.

  “Come eat, Jillian,” Sam said. “Before Zach cleans out the pot all by himself.”

  Jillian tossed her dark curls out of her face and left Ike with one last worried glance. Like Zach to Carly, Sam had been Jillian’s partner in Emma and Brad’s wedding and they, too, had become friends. Although, as Carly watched them, she suspected one of them would prefer not to be in the friend zone but sadly the other one was oblivious.

  Sam got up from his stool at the counter and offered it to Jillian. She took the bowl that Carly handed her and began to eat. She closed her eyes as she bit down on a meatball, savoring the seasoning that only Mrs. DeCusati could conjure with her Italian mother magic.

  “I’m pretty sure your mother is a culinary wizard,” she said. Then she gave a little moan while she polished off the rest of it.

  Carly was used to Jillian’s vocal appreciation of her food and didn’t give it much thought, but then she caught the look on Sam’s face. He was riveted. When Jillian licked a bit of sauce off her lower lip, Carly could swear Sam’s pupils dilated.

  Tall and lanky with a thick head of dark brown hair and a boyish face that he tried to make more manly with a beard, Sam was all that was good and kind and reliable. Clearly, he was also desperately in love with Jillian, who Carly knew was completely unaware of his feelings. Oh, brother.

  “What. Is. That?”

  Carly felt her shoulders snap up to her ears as her little sister’s grating voice barked at her from the doorway.

  “Hi, Gina. That’s Ike, my parrot, and Saul, my dog,” she said. She knew the polite thing to do would be to cross the kitchen and hug her sister hello, but she was afraid her hug might venture into a strangle if her baby sister pissed her off, which she usually did in three, two . . .

  “Well, they’re not staying here,” Gina said.

  One! Carly curled her fingers into her palms to keep from ripping her sister’s curly red hair out at the roots.

  “If I live here, they live here,” Carly said. She tossed her thick braid over her shoulder and put one foot forward in her fighter stance.

  “There is no way Mom and Dad are okay with this,” Gina said.

  “Actually, Dad met both of them and didn’t care one way or another. So there.”

  Gina crossed her arms over her chest and glared. “Fine. You want them? Move them to your room because I am not dealing with squawking and barking and feathers and dog hair all over my kitchen.”

  “Your kitchen?” Carly asked. “Since when? And the dog is Saul and the bird is Ike.”

  “It’s mine since Mom and Dad bailed to Florida,” Gina said. “I’m the one who lives here permanently so what I say goes.”

  “Ugh, no,” Carly said. “I have five years’ seniority over you, so I call the shots and I say the parrot and dog stay wherever they want.”

  Gina charged forward. She was a taller yet still curvy version of Carly, so in a fight—not that there had been many physical confrontations—they were equally matched. But Gina was a redhead, which Carly believed meant that she was borderline crazy, because every redhead Carly had ever slept with had proven to be a little on the freak side.

  Still, crazy quotient aside, Carly figured she could take Gina because she had a few months of life kicking her in the teeth repeatedly to fuel her rage and tussling with her sister might just be the outlet she needed.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s what I’m talking about,” Zach said. He nudged Sam. “Looks like we’re getting dinner and a show.”

  Carly and Gina ignored him and began circling each other, looking for the weak spot. Carly knew she could pull her sister’s hair and make her cry, but Gina had her thick auburn hair tied back just like Carly’s, making it harder to grab.

  “I really don’t think your parents would approve of this behavior,” Jillian said. Her voice rose with each word. Being an only child, she had no idea how cathartic whooping your sibling’s butt could be. She glanced at Zach and Sam. “Do something!”

  Zach and Sam exchanged a look as if considering whether they wanted to get involved or go to the fridge and crack a beer and settle in for a good old catfight.

  “Now!” Jillian demanded. She stomped her boot on the tile floor, indicating that’s what she’d do to their heads if they didn’t step up.

  “Fine, spoilsport,” Zach muttered. He jerked his head in Gina’s direction and Sam nodded.

  Just as Carly had zeroed in on her target—she was planning to take Gina out in a diving tackle—an arm looped about her waist and pulled her back, thwarting her.

  “Hey!” she cried. Zach put her in lockdown with his arms around hers.

  “What the hell?” Gina cried. Sam caught her in his arms and lifted her off the ground. She began to thrash and flail. “Put me down, Triple-Shot.”

  Zach gave Sam a look, and he said, “Barista girl here calls me that because I always order a triple espresso shot in my morning java.”

  “And if you want it in the future without spit in it, you’ll let me go,” Gina demanded.

  “Nice try but no,” Sam said. He pulled her in tighter and pinned her arms to her sides.

  “Is this how it’s going to be?” Gina cried. “You and your goon friends are just going to bully me whenever you want?”

  “Bully you?” Carly snapped. She didn’t fight Zach’s hold but went limp, hoping he’d release her. He did not. “You want me to get rid of my bird and my dog!”

  At this, Ike set to pacing in his cage, bobbing his head and looking like he wanted in on the fight while Saul slunk under the kitchen table trying to make himself as unobtrusive and possible.

  “See? You’ve upset them!” Carly yelled.

  “I’ve upset them? Seriously?” Gina asked. “What are they? The husband and kid you’ve never had?”

  The entire room went still. No one discussed Carly’s love life or lack thereof, ever.

  A piercing whistle sounded and they all glanced at Ike. He raised one foot with talons splayed and squawked, “She’s a cow!”

  “Ah!” Gina gasped and wrenched herself out of Sam’s grasp. “Did it call me a cow?”

  “If the hoof fits,” Carly snapped.

  “He goes!” Gina roared.

  “No, he doesn’t!” Carly argued. She shrugged Zach off.

  “Fine,” Gina said. She pulled out her cell phone, scrolled and tapped, and then held it to her ear.

  Carly got the sinking feeling she knew exactly who Gina was calling. The self-satisfie
d smirk Gina gave her clinched it.

  “Don’t do it,” Carly said. “Do not call her.”

  “Too late,” Gina said. Then she made an overwrought face and whined into the phone, “Terry, thank goodness you’re there. Carly is just being awful to me. She’s got a . . . bird . . . and . . . dog . . . and . . .”

  Carly dropped her shoulders and stared at the ceiling at Gina’s dramatics. Honestly, couldn’t Terry, the oldest of the five DeCusati girls, tell when she was being played?

  “And it . . . called me . . . a . . . a . . . a . . . cow!” Gina managed to wail the last word, causing both Sam and Zach to clap their hands over their ears as if the frequency was so high it might incur hearing loss.

  “Hold me back,” Carly said to Zach. “If I get my hands on her, I might just choke her out.”

  He took her hand in one of his while he scooped another meatball into his mouth with the other.

  “Oh, okay, here she is,” Gina said. She thrust the phone into Carly’s face. “Terry wants to talk to you.”

  “I’ll bet she does,” Carly said. She snatched the phone out of her sister’s hand. She gave Zach’s hand a squeeze and then let go. She strode out of the room, thinking it best to put some distance between herself and Gina. Besides, if she lost her temper, she did not want to be responsible for teaching Ike more bad words.

  “Hello, sis.”

  “Carly, Mom and Dad have been gone for what, an hour?”

  “Two, actually.”

  “And you and Gina are already fighting?” Terry cried. “In two hours?”

  “More like ten minutes, since she just got home.”

  “I told Mom this wouldn’t work,” Terry said. “Why do you have to pick on Gina? Why can’t you be nice to her?”

  “Me be nice?” Carly yelled. “She demanded that I get rid of my pets.”

  “Since when do you have animals?” Terry asked. “You can’t have pets. You can’t handle the commitment.”

  “I inherited them, if you must know, and I’m stuck with them until I can find them a decent home.”

  “Well, until then, they stay in your room,” Terry said. When Carly would have argued, Terry talked right over her. “Do I have to come over there, because I will.”

  The only thing worse than Gina being a petulant brat was Terry being a bossy butt. Terry loved to lecture, thrived on it, in fact. Her longest known lecture while babysitting her younger sisters clocked in at a little under four hours, the exact amount of time their parents had been out. If she came over now, she might not stop lecturing until April or May.

  “No!” Carly said. “I’ll move the bird and figure something out with the dog.”

  “Excellent,” Terry said. “And be nice to Gina, she’s the baby of the family. She’s very fragile.”

  “She’s twenty-seven!” Carly cried. “Maybe if everyone would stop babying her, she’d quit squatting at our parents’ house and get on with her life.”

  “Carly,” Terry’s voice was full of warning.

  “Okay, fine, I’ll try to be nice.”

  “Do more than try,” Terry said. With that, she hung up without so much as a welcome home or a how are you or anything.

  Sadly, Carly wasn’t even surprised. Terry had always favored Gina. Because Terry had been thirteen when Gina came along as opposed to eight when Carly was born, she had assumed the role of second mother to Gina. She had spoiled her baby sister rotten and their parents had been too grateful for the help to realize the damage that was being done.

  Now, as an adult, Gina had zero coping skills. Because of Terry and their parents, she had never wanted for anything, had never known disappointment, frustration, or failure because someone always swooped in and saved the day.

  If it had been Gina who lost her job and her apartment, Terry or their parents would have stepped in and paid for her apartment just to keep her from being sad. It was pathetic.

  Of course, Gina knew she had it good; so good, in fact, she had never left home to go to college, choosing to commute to a local school instead. Now she worked as a barista in town and appeared to have no motivation to do anything else. And Carly was stuck with her. Ugh!

  She turned on her heel and marched back into the kitchen. Gina was helping herself to the last of the meatballs while Jillian, Zach, and Sam were looking anywhere but at her. Carly smiled. At least she had her Maine crew, which was more than she could say for Gina.

  “Boys, if you’ll give me a hand, I think I’d rather have Ike up in my room where he can’t be contaminated by any negative influences,” she said.

  “Ha!” Gina scoffed. “Terry made you move him, didn’t she? What did she do, threaten to come over here and lecture you?”

  “No,” Carly lied. “I’m just being the bigger person.”

  “Yeah, by about ten pounds in the ass, I’d say,” Gina retorted.

  That was it! Carly balled up her fist, but Zach grabbed it and pulled her in for an impromptu dance around the kitchen. Given that neither Carly nor Zach could dance, it was a disaster waiting to happen and Jillian and Sam scrambled after them, catching the houseplants, trivets, and kitsch that went flying in their wake.

  “Come on, Carly,” Zach said. “Let’s tuck Ike and Saul in for the night and head over to Marty’s Pub for a proper welcome home for you. We’ll get you nice and drunk and everything will be okay.”

  Carly was certain she’d never heard a better suggestion in her life.

  • • •

  Upon her second sighting of James Sinclair, Carly wasn’t sure what caught her eye first. It could have been his lopsided smile, or his big callused man hands, or maybe it was the thick thatch of black hair that seemed to stand at attention all over different parts of his head as if his idea of combing it was jamming his fingers in it and rubbing, sort of like petting a dog. Charming.

  Then again, that wasn’t what captured her gaze and held it for several heart-stopping moments at a time. No, his eyes were to blame for that. They were a shade of blue gray hazel, the sort that could switch from bright like a sunny day to foggy like the coldest morning. The fact that they were surrounded by the longest, darkest pair of eyelashes she’d ever seen on a man made them that much harder to ignore, especially when they had been blatantly checking her out all night long.

  “So, when are you going to make your move?” Jillian asked. “Or are you two just going to covertly eye fuck each other all night?”

  Emma laughed and Mac joined in, as both were shocked and amused by Jillian’s blunt turn of phrase. The four women were sitting at a small round table in the front of Marty’s while the men had wandered off to play darts in the back of the pub.

  “Oh, I’ll make my move,” Carly said. “I just have to do a little recon first.”

  “Recon?”

  “Yeah, you know, get close enough to determine that there is no ring on his finger or a tan line indicating that there was a ring that’s been removed for the evening. Then I have to hear his voice again. I’m pretty sure it was low, but I have to make sure. If it’s high-pitched and nasal, that’s a total turnoff. Lastly, I need to have him vetted by the boys to make sure he’s a good guy.”

  “Whoa,” Mac said. She glanced at the object of Carly’s desire. “I had no idea that your criteria for a one-night stand was so strict.”

  “Of course it is,” Carly said. “That’s what makes it work; besides, I don’t have that many.”

  “You have more than me,” Jillian said. Her voice was glum.

  “That’s because you’re the pastor’s daughter and you still live in your hometown,” Carly said. “If you really want to go girl-gone-wild you have to leave town.”

  “Someday, I will,” Jillian said. “I’ll be fille sauvage.”

  “Because you’ll be in Paris,” Emma said.

  She gave her friend a half hug. Everyone kn
ew Jillian’s big dream was to travel the world, with Paris being at the top of her list. Unfortunately, her comfort zone was her zip code and no one had managed to talk her into leaving it just yet.

  “Back to me, people,” Carly said. “I’m pretty sure I want to bag that James guy. Now the aunts seemed to like him, right, Mac?”

  “Are you kidding? They adore him, but he is new in town,” Mac said. “No one knows his backstory just yet.”

  “That’s okay. I trust the aunts,” Carly said. “Oh, excellent, his friend has left him. I’m going to make my move.”

  “What’s your play?” Emma asked. “The standard don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “Nah, too obvious,” Carly said. “Especially since we met this afternoon.”

  “How about the classic what’s your sign?” Jillian offered. “It’s so old it’s making a comeback.”

  “Please,” Carly said. “That’s for amateurs.”

  “How about you look him right in the eye and say, ‘Your baby here,’ and then point to your belly?” Mac asked.

  “Oh, hell no, the man will either stroke out or run as fast as he can and I couldn’t blame him.” Carly shook her head. “Honestly, do I look like someone who gives off the stank of the desperate?”

  “Well, you are—” Emma began but Carly interrupted her.

  “Hush your mouth,” Carly said. “I’ve just been having a dry spell, which is why I’m going with my sure thing.”

  “The one where you ask . . .” Jillian’s voice trailed off in embarrassment as she pointed at her crotch.

  “That’s the one,” Carly said.

  “Good luck,” Mac said.

  “Don’t need it.”

  “We’ll be here if you crash and burn,” Emma said.

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Find out if his friend is single,” Jillian said.

  “Roger that.”

  Carly hopped off her stool and picked up her drink. She polished off her dirty martini in two gulps. Then she shook herself from head to toe to get her game face on.