by Marie Jermy
The cell then quacked in his hand. The LCD showed it was home calling again.
“Matt, am I hearing things?” Darcy asked. “Or is that a duck quacking?”
“Yep. It’s my ringtone.” Matt pressed the answer button. “Yeah?”
“Is Darcy still with you?” asked his father without preamble.
“Yeah, Dad. Why?”
“Have you heard or seen the news?”
“No. What’s up?”
“There’s been an earthquake. In Simi Valley.”
“Simi Valley?” The location’s significance immediately dawned on Matt. “Shit! We’ll be with you in forty!” Tossing the phone on the bed, he reached for his clothes with one hand and flung Darcy hers with the other. The dark cloud looming over him deepened. The fear of losing his beautiful and sweet sister, Samantha, gripped his guts as he hurriedly dressed.
A frown crinkled Darcy’s brow as she slipped from the bed and also began dressing. “Simi Valley? That’s where Danny lives. What’s happened?”
“Earthquake.”
* * * *
Ross and Jess paced the living room floor, expressions of fear and worry etched on their faces. The earthquake in LA had been a big one, 8.5 on the Richter scale according to the news bulletins. Hardest hit was the area of Simi Valley, the exact area where Daniel lived and where he had taken Samantha. They had received telephone calls from Frank Walsh and Joe Richards, letting them know they and their families were all okay. But as to the call from the two people they wanted to hear from most, there had been none.
Sitting on the sofa, Ramona by his side and clutching his hand, Rex Latimer watched his future in-laws pace. Understandably, with no news of their daughter or her boyfriend’s safety, both looked sick with worry, which was why he kept quiet. There was nothing he could say or do that would ease the tension that was so palpable he could almost physically feel it.
He glanced over to the other sofa. Perched on the arm, Matt looked equally as worried. He also looked smitten. Rex couldn’t suppress a smile. Matt was smitten with the woman seated next to him. Though worried for her friend and work colleague, Daniel Ferris, Darcy Forbes also appeared to have a serious case of the hots. The hots for Matt.
Rex turned his attention back to Ramona. Since she’d told him she couldn’t feel her twin sister, her expression was more anxious than anybody else’s. He lightly fingered the engagement ring he had placed on her finger only hours before. A heart-shaped ruby surrounded by rose quartz and mounted on a diamond and platinum band, the ring was unique and had cost him a small fortune. However, the expression of joy from Ramona—the non-doer of romance—had been worth every dollar.
A tear then rolled down her cheek, and he went to put a comforting arm around her, but she twisted away. Rex was just about to lodge a complaint when the front door burst open and Ross Junior, along with an older man and woman and a younger woman, strode in.
Ross Junior immediately swept his mother, who burst into tears, into his arms. “Mom, Dad, any news?”
“No,” Ross Senior said. He clapped Ray Ferris on the back and gave Scarlett and Jessica an almighty bear hug. “You don’t appear worried,” he remarked to Ray.
“I’m not. They’re safe.”
“Then why can’t I feel Sammy!” Ramona wailed, the tears now streaking down her face. “Something terrible has happened, I know it.”
“Hey, sugarplum,” Ray said, calling his goddaughter by the pet name he had for her, “we’ll have none of that.” He sat down beside her. “The only reason why they’ve not called is ’cause they can’t find a phone that works. They probably couldn’t find a flight out of LA, either. But I’ll bet they’re driving here right now.”
“I want Sammy!” Ramona again wailed and literally dived into Ray’s arms, seeking comfort.
To say Rex was a little pissed off was an understatement. Surely it was he who Ramona should have turned to for comfort? But what really pissed him off was the silent, third-degree examination he was getting from Ray as he looked him over. He had to say something now. “What’s the verdict? Do I measure up in taking care of sugarplum?”
Ray’s trademark killer smile lit up his face. He eased Ramona out of his arms and nudged her toward Rex. “Ramona, go to your fiancé. He loves you and needs you.”
“Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry,” she sniffed, wrapping her arms around Rex’s neck and giving his mouth a full-on kiss.
“This waiting is doing my head in!” Matt suddenly snapped, leaping to his feet and joining his parents with their continued pacing.
“Patience was never one of his good points,” Ross Junior remarked to Darcy. “Since nobody is gonna do it for me, I’ll introduce myself.” He held out a hand. “I’m Ross, Matt’s older and wiser brother. And this is Jess—”
“Darcy,” she interrupted and gave his hand a firm shake. “I already know Jessica and her parents. Danny’s a friend and colleague of mine. He’s also a pain in the ass. FEMA gave him one of their cell phones, but he never bothers to carry it. He says he’ll never need it. I bet he’s kicking himself now, though.”
“You don’t think he’s dead?” Ross Junior asked her.
“No. Not really. I am worried but I agree with Mr. Ferris. Both Danny and Samantha are safe. It’s just a case of waiting for them to call from an ordinary phone.”
“Great, by which time we’ll need a new carpet,” Ross Junior muttered as his parents and Matt continued to pace back and forth.
However, an hour later, Ross Junior and everybody else including Scarlett, who had the patience of a saint, were pacing. Then, with a delighted squeal, Ramona ran to the door, flung it open, and almost knocked Samantha and Daniel to the ground.
“Hi, everyone,” Daniel said once he’d regained his balance.
“Carry the FEMA phone in future!” everybody shouted before piling into Daniel and Samantha again. After much hugging, backslapping, and kissing, they dragged them into the house, firing questions at them with all the speed of a machine gun.
Finally, Daniel had had enough. “For Christ’s sake, shut up already!” he bellowed, stunning everybody into silence. “Thank you. I’m fine. Sammy’s fine. We’re all fine.”
“What’s up?” Ray asked, catching a certain degree of moodiness to his son’s otherwise happy state.
“What, apart from nearly getting squashed flat by my supposedly earthquake-proof house? I’m telling ya, Dad. My interest in earthquakes is as flat as that friggin’ house!” Daniel blew out a deep breath and calmed down. “Sorry. The last forty-eight hours or so have been hell.”
“You drive here?” his father asked.
“Yeah.” Daniel winked at Samantha, who nodded, so he turned to Ross Senior. “Well, not everything’s been hell. Mr. Anderson, I love Samantha very much. She’s already agreed to become my wife, but I feel it’s only proper that I should also ask you for her hand in marriage.”
Ross Senior shared an amused smile with his wife. “How come our children seem to want to get married all at once? First Ross, then Ramona, Matt, and now—”
“Whoa, Matt! You’re getting married?” Ross cut in. “When did that happen?”
“It hasn’t,” Matt said, giving his father a stern look.
“But I’d say yes if you asked me.”
Matt stared at Darcy, who was smiling rather hopefully at him. His heart banged right out of his chest. “You would?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Will you marry me, Darcy?”
“Yes.”
“As I was saying,” Ross Senior said while Matt swept Darcy into his arms. “First Ross, then Ramona, Matt, and now Samantha. Hey, if they all get married in the same church and have the reception together, it’ll cut down on costs.”
“Very true,” Jess agreed.
“So I take it I have your permission then?” Daniel asked, still taken aback by Matt almost stealing his thunder. And stealing it with the “ultra-cool-I’m-never-gonna-fall-for-a-cop-again” Darcy.
“Of course you do.”
“Daniel, no cartwheels,” Samantha said, grinning and giving her future husband a kiss on the mouth.
“How can I do cartwheels?” he complained. “My earthquake-proof house collapsed on me…On us, remember? That shouldn’t have happened. My house was not designed to—”
“Oh, not again,” Samantha interrupted, shaking her head. “I can’t take much more of you banging on about building regulations.”
“I do not bang on.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Whoa, not even married yet and they’re already arguing,” Jessica told Ross Junior. “Remind you of anyone?”
“We do not argue. We debate.”
“Same difference.”
“So where are we gonna live?” Darcy asked Matt.
“Here. Well, not here here, but somewhere within the Silver Creek area. My job’s here.”
“Yeah, well, my job’s in LA. We’ll move there. You can be a downtown cop or something.”
“If you think we’re gonna move to LA after what’s happened then you’ve got another think coming,” Matt told Darcy. “We’re staying put.”
“You’re ringing,” Ramona said to Rex when she felt his cell phone vibrating against her thigh.
“Damn it to hell! It’s Bud friggin’ Watson! Your turn, darlin’.”
“It was my turn last time. You can go and see what the pain in the ass wants.”
“I don’t think so, darlin’.”
“Well, I do think so!”
“Are you arguing with me?” Rex asked Ramona.
“What do you think, darlin’?”
“I do so like Ross’s idea to have our children’s weddings in the same church,” Scarlett said to Jess Anderson. “But I’m afraid it’s just not going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because Jessica will be marrying Ross in New York. It’s traditional for the bride to get married in the church she was baptized in. And for Jessica that church is—”
“Traditional, my ass!” Jess interrupted Scarlett. “My son and your daughter are getting married at the Silver Creek Church. End of argument.”
“Is that so?”
Quite bemused, Ray and Ross Senior looked at the arguing couples around them and then turned to each other. “Have we missed something?” Ross asked.
“If we have then I’ll be fucked if I know what it is.” A frown formed when Ray saw that Daniel and Samantha were trading anxious glances while they peered out of the front window. “Daniel? There’s something else, isn’t there?”
Daniel turned from the window. “Yeah, Dad, there is.” Gesturing to Ross Junior, he said to his sister, “Does he know?”
“About?”
“About Sam Carrick being our half brother.”
“What?” Ramona and Matt asked, stunned. Both turned to the mantel. “Hang on, where’s his photo?” they again asked in unison.
Daniel didn’t fail to notice the dark expression that crossed Ross Junior’s face. “Well, judging by that expression, I take it you do know.”
“Daniel, I warned you,” his godmother began, but he cut her off.
“Yeah, well, something’s happened that’s made putting his photo away pointless.”
“It is a good thing. I think,” Samantha added. “But…Oh, heavens, Daniel, how are we going to put it without giving everybody a coronary?”
“Good question. But I think we should give it to them straight. Or rather, he can give it to them.” Daniel went to the front door, opened it, and then closed it again. “Dad, Mrs. Anderson, we brought somebody back from LA. He’s outside and wants to say hello.”
“Who?” Ray and Jess asked in unison.
Daniel opened the door and a man walked in.
“Hello, Dad. Hello, Foxy.”
* * * *
If there was ever a time that Sam Carrick wished he’d taken the advice of his friend, Scott Rafferty, it was then. Apart from the attractive black woman standing beside a stunned Matt—Darcy Forbes he believed her name to be, and a colleague of Daniel’s—and the smug-looking man sitting next to an equally stunned Ramona, neither of whom probably had a clue as to who he was, nobody seemed pleased to see him. Not his father, Ray. Certainly not his former partner and lover, Jess “Foxy” Anderson née Fox. And now Daniel and Samantha sported expressions of uncertainty.
He turned to the woman who seemed the least hostile and whom he knew to be his father’s wife and his stepmother. “Scarlett, it’s nice to meet you. You don’t mind if I call you Scarlett, do you? I think I’m a bit old to call you ‘Mom.’”
She dumbly nodded. “Yes, of course.”
He turned to his half sister. “Jessica. Still believe in ghosts?” She gave him half a smile, and he felt better. He ignored the glare Ross Junior shot him and glanced at his father. Seeing he was still doing a gaping carp impression, Carrick spoke to Foxy, although his excitement may have gotten the better of him, making him rush into a delicate situation when he should have slowed down. “My God, you haven’t changed a bit. Well, okay, like me you’re older, but I can still see my spitfire. My Foxy. My—”
“She’s not your anything,” Ross Senior cut in. He drew Foxy to his side and they joined hands.
The show of solidarity wasn’t lost on Carrick, making him yearn for something he could never have. He only had himself to blame for that, yet selfishly it pissed him off. “Evidently.”
Obviously hearing the sneer to his tone, his father slapped himself back to reality. “Back off!” he sternly told Carrick. “And tell your old man why you’re no longer a resident at the Forest Lawn Cemetery.”
“I never was a resident.”
“That I can see. So, where have you been for the last thirty years?”
“Around.”
“Around where?” Foxy asked. Her voice was sharp, and her green eyes flashed fire, a fire that actually made Carrick back up right into Ross Junior. Fuck, how could he have forgotten about those fiery gems of hers?
It was at that time that Scarlett intervened. Clearly she’d sensed the atmosphere was about to turn nasty. “Why don’t we all calm down and take a seat. Sam’s obviously got a story to tell. I think we should listen.”
Carrick smiled gratefully at Scarlett and took a seat on the arm of the sofa where Ramona and the smug-looking man were. The man didn’t offer his hand but did introduce himself as Rex Latimer. Carrick nodded in response and then once again turned his attention to Foxy. “I love you, Foxy. I’ve always loved you. It broke my heart when you married another guy and had his kids—”
“Oh, my heart bleeds,” Ross Junior cut in. “Just spare us the sentimental crap and get to the point.”
“Babe, let him finish.” Jessica laid a hand on Ross Junior’s arm.
“Babe?” Carrick echoed incredulously. He then spotted the sapphire and diamond ring that adorned his half sister’s left ring finger. “Jessica, don’t tell me you’re marrying him?”
“And what if she is?” Ross Junior sneered at Carrick. “Since you haven’t been around for the past thirty years, I don’t see why it’s got fuck all to do with you. In fact, it has got fuck all to do with you. You’re not her father.”
“No, but I could have been yours.” The words slipped out before Carrick could bite them back. And now he sensed the anger from Matt and Ramona. He held up an apologetic hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Damned straight you shouldn’t!” Ross Junior, Matt, and Ramona shouted together.
Carrick switched his gaze between them, wondering who would be the first to explode and deck him one. He gambled on Ross Junior and lost. It was actually Foxy who flew over to him, yanked him to his feet, and shoved him back against the staircase. She then punched him so hard his head smacked the wooden balustrade. He shook his head to clear the circling white, twinkling stars. Fuck. Foxy had always been a hard hitter. Something else he’d apparently forgotten.
&nb
sp; “You died in my arms!” she yelled, her green eyes spitting fury. “Sanchez shot you in the back. You bled to death in my fucking arms! Are you now saying that was all a lie? Some big con job? Why, for fuck’s sake!” She again punched him hard, this time in the nose, and then returned to her husband’s side. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Carrick wiped the blood trickling from his left nostril and sighed heavily. “Because I refused to listen to a friend.”
“Rafferty?” Ross Junior guessed.
“Yes. Scott.”
“Next time I see him, he’s gonna be feeding through a tube.”
“He saved your life,” Carrick pointed out, again wiping his nose.
“What’s he talking about, Ross? ‘Saved your life.’ And who’s Scott Rafferty?”
“Lord of the Ghostbusters,” was Ross Junior’s reply to Matt’s questions.
The gold flecks within Carrick’s blue eyes ignited. Yes, he hadn’t listened to Rafferty, but he would not stand by and let someone, even if it was Foxy’s son, ridicule his friend. “You really are a moron, Junior. If it weren’t for Scott, you’d be a pile of ash. And to think, I wanted to be the one to save you. Sheesh, what was I thinking?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Perhaps you were tripping out on pixie dust!”
Carrick contained the laughter but couldn’t suppress a smile at Ross Junior’s sarcasm. He’d dealt with some freaky shit for the Federation over the years, but everybody knew there was no such thing as pixies. He immediately recanted that. Just because he hadn’t come across them, it didn’t mean they didn’t exist. “Why do you hate me so much?” he asked, suddenly wanting to know.
“I don’t know you enough to hate you, Carrick,” Ross Junior replied.
Well, that was good.
“But hear this,” Ross Junior continued. “You hurt my family in any way and you’re gonna wish you were dead.”
Carrick glowered but refrained from reminding Ross Junior about ghosts with unfinished business. Not that he wanted to hurt Ross Junior. He didn’t want to hurt any of them. Yet, he had. Rafferty had been right. He was loco, but dammit, he missed his family.
