“Edith’s coming to dinner,” Mavis said, snapping on a pair of rubber working gloves that went all the way to the elbow.
“Son of a…” The sentiment died off when Kyle’s eyes shifted to Gavin. “You’re still here?”
“Yep,” Gavin said, placing one hand on Prometheus’s head after the dog trotted back to his side. “Still here.”
Mavis fought not to reach for Gavin like she wanted to. Instead, she extracted her father from Kyle’s arms. “Dad. I told you. Sit down. Gavin’s going to play cards with you.”
“You hate gambling,” James reminded her.
“Yes, well,” she grumbled as she made sure they both took their seats, “I’ll pretend you’re knitting or something.”
“Mom doesn’t know I’m here yet,” Kyle said, snatching off his ball cap and peering through the door. “I could sneak off to Harmony’s…”
“Oh, no you don’t,” she said, resisting the urge to grab him by the beard and haul him away from the exit. “Edith likes you. You’re the buffer. You can be the one to greet her.” She took the flowers. “With these!”
“Yeah, those were for Harmony,” he stated in protest.
“Wah wah wah,” Mavis chided. “Go upstairs. Comb your hair. Shave. Then come back. Since you’re here, I’ve got a list of chores for you, too.”
Kyle groused all the way to the fridge. He opened the door.
“There’s no beer in there, son,” James called from the table.
“Yes, Daddy,” Mavis said. “We know.” At Kyle’s deep-riddled frown, she motioned with silent urgency. “Go!”
As her brother finally did as he was told, she ran her fingers through her hair to straighten it. Kyle’s arrival in addition to Edith’s slapped one conundrum on top of the other.
Mavis couldn’t fight the feeling that with Edith, the conundrums would arrive in droves and soon be stacked like pancakes.
* * *
“SO. JAMES.” EDITH took her time choosing a leaf of lettuce from her bowl. She stabbed it with her fork. “I hear you’re just getting out of prison again.”
A muted groan went up among half the occupants of the table. James, however, answered without much of a hitch. “Yes,” he admitted. “I am.”
“He was framed, Mother,” Adrian spoke up.
“Naturally,” Edith decided, folding her too-thin mouth. Her too-thin brows rose in a cleaving manner, sleek as daggers. She measured her son-in-law width-to-width. “Charles here was once a bail bondsman.” A hand rose in the direction of the man beside her who had escorted her from their retirement village in Florida. “He once dealt with criminals such as yourself.”
Adrian sighed. “James isn’t a criminal.”
“Charles,” Edith said, undeterred. “Tell the family how you caught that large man wanted for stealing a truckful of avocados.”
Charles cleared his throat, raising his napkin from his lap to his mouth where he patted his chin. “Well, it’s an interesting story—”
“Mavis.” Edith leaned forward to see around Zelda and Errol to Mavis, who’d been seated farthest away. “Are you still seeing that William Leighton fellow?”
Gavin raised his brows, hoping they sliced much in the way Edith’s did.
Mavis glanced quickly from Edith to him and back. “I… No. That’s…over. Very over.”
“A pity,” Edith said. Her fork hovered midway to her mouth. “That one would’ve done you well. He struck me as charming and levelheaded. Who are you seeing now?”
Mavis avoided looking at Gavin altogether, spooning spaghetti onto her fork with fierce concentration. “Nobody you’d find charming and levelheaded, I expect,” she muttered.
Gavin gave a grunt of laughter. He silenced himself quickly when Edith narrowed her gaze on him. She sniffed at him, then at Prometheus, who hadn’t won a seat at the table but had propped his snout on the edge between Gavin and Harmony, eyes swinging, wide and brown, to each attendee. Gavin heard him whine as Edith’s stare singed, and gave him a supportive pat.
“I think Charles should tell the story about the man and the avocado truck,” Zelda opined. “My goodness, does it sound entertaining.”
Charles opened his mouth, lighting up at the prospect, but Edith cut him off with a look. Gavin watched him deflate and wondered whether to pity the man or go on with his amusement.
“Zelda,” Edith said, eyeing her latest quarry. “You don’t look a day over seventy.”
Kyle coughed into his napkin.
Zelda cackled merrily. “And I was just thinking how well you look in that tone of rust,” she said, gesturing to Edith’s schoolmarm sweater. “Yard sale or clearance, dear?”
Edith frowned at her before looking to her next victim. “Adrian.”
Gavin placed his arm around Adrian, who was seated to his left and sinking fast into her chair. “Yes?” she asked.
“These potatoes are quite tasty, for once. What did you do to them?”
Adrian blinked several times at the woman. Gavin tapped her on the back. She shook her head then said, “The potatoes. Yes. Actually, these are Mavis’s—”
“Say thank you, Mom,” Mavis overrode her. Her eyes widened for emphasis.
“Yes,” James chimed. He was in Gavin’s blind spot, but his tone grew more intimate as he added, “Say thank you.”
Adrian exchanged a glance with him, then took a breath, reached for her water glass and said, “Thank you. Mother.”
The sound of utensils filled the quiet. Gavin cleared his throat and tilted his head toward Adrian’s. “Did that hurt?” he wondered in an undertone.
She drank deeply, then touched his sleeve, whispering, “Catch me if I pass out.”
He gave her a nod. An arm wound around her waist. Gavin caught the turn of James’s head as he pulled her in against his side and he ceded the lady to her husband.
“Kyle,” Edith said.
“Yes’m?” Kyle said.
“When is the wedding?” She gestured with her fork between him and Harmony.
Harmony froze with a mouthful of potatoes. Bea, next to her, perked up. “Wedding! There’s going to be a wedding?”
Harmony looked to Kyle. “Is there?”
Kyle was flabbergasted. “I hadn’t exactly gotten around to…”
“Well, why not?” Edith said, rapping her knuckles on the tablecloth. “Neither of you are getting any younger. You’re both in two of the most dangerous lines of work I can fathom. And by my estimate, it’s been three weeks since you visited me in Fort Lauderdale. Did you lose it already?”
“No,” Kyle said, chastened. “No. I didn’t lose it. I just got home this afternoon.”
Edith waited, expectant. When she didn’t cease, Kyle pushed his chair back from the table.
Adrian cried out when he dropped to a knee.
Gavin shook his head. “You’re doing this now?”
“You knew?” Harmony asked him. To Kyle, she said, “You told him before me?”
“I was hoping for surprise. I was also hoping to do this just the two of us…maybe in bed.”
“Get on with it already,” Mavis advised.
“All right,” Kyle said, shifting uncomfortably. “Christ.” He took the ring out of the box and said, “Harmony Savitt, you’d make me the happiest SOB on earth if you plant this big-ass diamond ring on your finger and let me be your husband.”
Bea’s loud whisper spilled into the void. “What’s does SOB spell?”
“Oh, brother,” Mavis said, burying her face in her hands as Edith threw her napkin onto her place mat and prepared to rise.
Harmony beamed. Her fingers spread as she shook her hands in front of her. “Yes! Oh, yes!” And she took his face in her hands and planted an unreserved kiss on his mouth.
“Ew,” Gavin said as everyone else, besides Edith, applaud
ed. Prometheus’s tail thumped the floor heartily in response to the excitement. Charles gave a robust “Bravo!” before earning another quelling look from his companion.
Bea jumped between the intendeds. “Can I wear it?” she asked of the ring.
Kyle smiled at her indulgently. “Of course you can, sweet pea.”
“For heaven’s sake, don’t let the child lose it,” Edith snapped. “It was your great-grandmother’s!”
“It looks perfect on you,” Harmony cooed to her daughter. She hugged her.
“What do you think, Uncle Gavin?” Bea asked after twirling around for the others to see.
Gavin tipped his head back to see the too-big band with its overt stone hanging precariously from the child’s thumb. “You might have some growing, but ’til then—man, will it ever make a good weapon for any boy who tries to mess with you.”
Harmony had settled on Kyle’s lap now that he was back in his chair. “I’d still like to know why Gavin knew before anybody else.”
Kyle looked to Gavin cautiously. “Because when I told him about you and me, he tried to tear my guts out.”
Harmony tutted. “Uncle Gavin’s right, Bea. Boys are stupid. Stay as far away from them as long as you can stand.”
“You never said.”
Gavin caught the words from Mavis, as quiet as they were. He offered an apologetic smile. The news that Kyle planned to ask Harmony to marry him had initiated a hesitant truce between him and Gavin, especially after Kyle announced his trip to Florida to see Edith about a family ring before he returned to training. Gavin had tried to put it out of his head. It’d take some getting used to, the idea of Harmony and Kyle shacking up for life. Kyle would be his brother-in-law and, despite any issues that lay between them, they’d forever be mixed up in each other’s lives.
Gavin had a feeling some of those issues would be difficult to kill off completely. Especially if he followed instinct and pressed his relationship with Mavis out into the open where they didn’t have to hide.
“Go on, Edith,” Kyle invited, grinning from ear to ear. The SOB. “Ask us again when the wedding is.”
Edith only pursed her lips as she watched Bea wander from person to person to show off her newest accessory.
“When is the wedding?” Adrian obliged him. Her arms were around James. They grinned as one.
“Next month,” Kyle announced briskly.
Harmony all but buzzed at the haste. “That soon?”
“Apparently, we’re not getting any younger.” Kyle’s eyes softened on her. “I figure we could do it here, at the farm.”
“Oh,” Harmony sighed. “That sounds perfect.”
Gavin looked away quickly as Harmony kissed Kyle hard enough to rock their chair back.
Adrian started buzzing, too. “Yes! Perfect! We could have it out in the woods somewhere. Or in the field of wildflowers. Or…we could fix up the barn!”
“Really, Adrian.” Edith shook her head. “A barn?”
“I love that idea!” Harmony shrieked.
Edith’s jaw hit the floor. “I suppose you’ll ride in on a cow.”
“An ass,” Gavin supplied. “Big and braying.”
Harmony swatted him in response. “I want burlap. And tartan.”
Edith’s horror wove into the corners of her mouth. “How quaint.”
Kyle rubbed his lips together. “I was thinking we could celebrate now, plan later…”
“We only have a month,” Adrian said.
Harmony chimed in. “We should call Mom. And Liv. And Roxie. Roxie could plan the whole thing in a jiff—”
“So plan now,” Kyle recalculated. “Celebrate later. Before you get too far into the planning process, there’s one more thing we need to raise our glasses to.” He shifted sideways toward Gavin. “You wanna do the honors?”
Gavin’s stomach tightened, knowing instantly what he was referring to. “No. I don’t think so.”
“What is he talking about?” Mavis asked.
“It’s nothing,” Gavin said quickly.
Kyle frowned at him. “A Silver Star ain’t nothing.”
Another collective gasp rose from the table. Gavin felt the needles of attention drive straight into his hide and he squirmed.
“Gavin,” Adrian said. She gripped his arm. “Oh, Gavin. That’s wonderful.”
He began to shake his head before Zelda cut in. “A Silver Star. That sounds spectacular.”
Kyle accommodated her with an explanation. “It’s one of the highest personal decorations for valor in the US military. I was talking to my CO and he just happened to mention Gavin had picked one up about a month before he returned here.”
“I believe Errol has a Silver Star,” Zelda remembered. “Don’t you, mon saucisson?”
“What conflict were you in, sir?” Charles asked of Errol.
“Charles, you’ve left potatoes on your plate,” Edith sneered. “For God’s sake, eat them.”
“Do you drink, Charles?” James asked. Adrian cuffed him on the thigh. “Ow!” he cried out.
“A month?”
Again, Gavin raised his eyes to Mavis. He worked his jaw and gave another shrug. Scooting his chair back, he raised himself to his feet. “It’s just a formality.” As he edged away from the table, he shot Kyle straight through with a glare.
Unfazed, his friend added, “I took the liberty of telling your dad for you, too.”
Gavin stopped. The glare was honed.
Kyle swallowed a mouthful of water from his glass. “Honesty sure is refreshing, ain’t it?”
Gavin’s jaw cracked. He told himself to take a breath. Steady. But all eyes were on him, and blood was rising up his throat. He felt an eyelid twitch. His mouth opened and words tumbled out. “I kissed your sister.” Grinning what he knew to be a good, grim grin, he raised two fingers to his brow in mock salute. “You’re right; that is refreshing.”
CHAPTER TEN
MAVIS BIT HER TONGUE. She bit it hard as she drove back to Zelda’s.
In the passenger seat, Gavin sat in trained silence. He hadn’t spoken since dinner.
Unless, of course, Mavis counted the sheer amount of swearing he’d done when he’d come to. She wondered how long it had been since a fellow teammate had choked him.
She wondered how long it took other SEALs to come to ordinarily after being choked out by a teammate. The minutes she’d spent waiting for him to resurface had felt like half an eternity. She’d used it well, berating Kyle. Berating Gavin. To deaf ears, on both accounts.
Gritting her teeth, she punched the accelerator and drove faster. After he came to and Adrian took him into the other room to be sure he was all right, she’d heard an earful. Oh, yes. They’d taken turns—the family. Suffice it to say the only person at the table to decide congratulations were in order was Zelda. The rest, besides Errol, had formed their own opinion.
Kyle had seethed. “Please tell me this is just to get back at Harmony and me. Or is he taking advantage of you? You tell me if he’s taking advantage of you. I’ll—”
James had interrupted, but only to ask, “Is a relationship the best thing for him? For either of you? When I was in AA, we had a no-relations policy—”
“He seems a rather troubled sort of young man,” Charles had expressed for, it seemed, even he felt it right to intervene.
“He’s a troublemaker,” Edith told him. “Has been since he was a juvenile. I never knew why Adrian let Kyle bring him around. I’m shocked he never wound up in some home for boys. Mavis, I’d say you were well suited to each other, but you’ve never known what’s good for you. Just like your mother…”
Above all the dismay, Harmony had settled with, “What if it ends badly? He might…never come back.”
When Mavis had finally gotten Gavin to the car, her mother stopped her. “You’re not sl
eeping with him? I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’ll only…complicate matters.”
So, to sum up, Mavis had snapped at her mother, growled at her father, nearly screamed with frustration at her grandmother and her man-sheep, ignored her best friend entirely and thought very, very seriously about mangling her elder brother.
Mavis bore down on the steering wheel. She couldn’t forget the expression of horror on Adrian’s face as chairs upended and the table tipped. A beveled glass dish dumped the remains of the potatoes in Edith’s lap. All the china and drinkware Mavis had arranged meticulously so Adrian wouldn’t have to worry…
Mavis fought not to cut her eyes to Gavin when she heard him whistling under his breath. After several minutes, though, her brow furrowed. “What is that?”
“What?” he asked.
“That song,” she said. “What is it?”
“It’s ‘Brandy.’”
Mavis frowned at him as he began to whistle again, this time loud enough to get Prometheus’s attention from the back seat. The dog made a throaty noise that normally preceded an episode of howling. She groaned. “Dear God.”
“William.”
“William who?” she asked warily.
“William Leighton,” Gavin said thoughtfully. “I thought it would’ve been the other one. The Greenpeace dude with floppy hair and sandals. What’s his name? Fergus? Finnigan?”
“Finnian,” Mavis all but growled.
“That’s him.”
“You won’t hurt him,” Mavis stated plainly. “William. He didn’t do anything.”
“Did he put his hands on you, Frexy?”
“Yes, but so have you. And I know you don’t think it’s wrong because it wasn’t until you wouldn’t apologize for it or say that it was wrong that my brother tackled you into the table.”
Gavin fell quiet. A studious silence.
Mavis rapped the heel of her hand against the wheel. “It was a million years ago. It was brief. Harmony figured it out. She blabbed about it in front of Edith. They were the only ones who knew anything about it before tonight.”
Harlequin Superromance May 2018 Box Set Page 17
