Family Matters (DiCarlo Brides book 4) (The DiCarlo Brides)

by Tullis, Heather

  That made Rosemary’s stomach twist with fear and anger. Mike had killed all of those people to get to his own brother. She nodded and a glance around the room confirmed that most of the others were aware of her suspicions. “So now what?”

  “I put them onto other options. They’re going to try for a warrant for the home. We’ll see what they come up with. The sheriff’s deputies have been chasing their lead here, but the place he had been staying said he checked out yesterday and no one seems to know where he is now.”

  “Do they think he went home?” Rosemary doubted it, but staying here was the height of stupidity, so it depended on how big his ego was.

  “The detective thinks not. There’s no plane ticket in that name, in any case. Carlson’s spreading the search into towns a little farther away but still in driving distance of here. Hopefully they’ll get something soon.”

  “In the meantime, what are you going to do about staying safe?” Lana asked.

  This had been on Rosemary’s mind, even while she talked about everything and nothing with Cleo as they cooked dinner. Sending Cleo to school without protection seemed foolish at best. She didn’t want to make her stay inside while the other kids went out for recess, but she couldn’t let her be exposed—and if Mike was willing to kill a café full of people, what would stop him from hurting a classroom of kids? Sticking her in the kitchen office to work on school stuff while Rosemary cooked seemed extreme too, though. “I’ve been mulling over options, but nothing feels right.”

  “I was thinking about it,” Joel said. “The presidential suite is open for the next four or five days. It would be easier to control who comes and goes there, and to keep your location a secret. There are too many ways to get into this house. We could send you away, but if he thinks you’re still in town, he’s more likely to hang around and it’ll be easier to catch him.”

  “You could hire a couple of the off-duty cops again to monitor the hall so they could be armed and make an arrest if he shows up, too,” Lana said.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Joel agreed. “And there aren’t many rooms down that hall. It would be easy to block them out—find an excuse to work on them so they can’t be rented. Then we won’t have any guests with a legitimate excuse to be in the area, minimizing risks and possible issues.”

  “Because corporate is totally going to believe that we need to do work on them five months after the hotel opened?” Jonquil lifted her brows in punctuation.

  “So she rents them all for a few days, it’s not going to break her,” Cami said.

  “I say do it,” Delphi added. “Then I won’t have to listen to Rosemary snoring through the air vents.”

  “I do not snore,” Rosemary protested, though she had no idea if she did or not.

  “Yes you do,” Cleo said. “Not loud though. I can’t hear it from my room.”

  “Great, not loud. That’s so much better.” Rosemary crossed her arms over her chest and feigned irritation.

  Harrison grinned at her from across the room. She met his gaze and felt warmed by the affection in his eyes.

  “So, everyone’s agreed?” Cami asked.

  “Yes. And I pre-emptively blacked out the rooms to keep them empty, so you can go there tonight,” Joel said. “I also contracted for the guard—apparently Lana and I are on the same wavelength. He’ll be relieved to know he’ll be in the hotel and not doing surveillance from his car out here.”

  “What about Cleo’s school?” Rosemary wondered.

  “Call them and explain that you’re going to home school for a few days. I’m sure the principal or school counselor can be trusted with the truth and to smooth the way for you,” Sage suggested. “Have the teacher get the homework together. One of us can pick it up, along with her extra school books. And you can do kitchen paperwork from your room, or pop down to berate and harass your employees once or twice a day if you need to.”

  “Hey,” Rosemary threw a pillow at her. “I do not berate or harass. Often.” But she felt unbelievably relieved to have the decision made. She really hoped Mike made a mistake soon so they could end this unending worry.

  “I don’t get it.” Cleo threw the pencil across the room. She liked the presidential suite, but she hated not being able to go to school—and still having to do homework. What was the point of being in a hotel if she still had to do the stupid math?

  “Go get your pencil.” Rosemary’s voice was perfectly even and her face didn’t look even a little annoyed, no matter how hard Cleo had tried to rile her that day.

  Cleo crossed her arms over her chest and slouched in her chair. “I’d rather be at home.”

  “I’d rather be in Aruba, but I’m not. Finish your math and English and we can cut out for a couple of hours to watch a movie.” Rosemary pulled a newly released DVD from the bag of goodies Jonquil had brought up earlier.

  Cleo squealed and jumped up, running over to grab the DVD case.

  Rosemary held it out of reach. “When your math and English are done.”

  “I hate math. When am I ever going to use it?” Cleo crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Every day.” Rosemary’s eyes never left her spreadsheet. “Ask any of us; we use it all of the time.”

  “That’s what calculators are for.” Giving up, Cleo snatched up the pencil she had thrown.

  “Sometimes I can’t find a calculator, and sometimes it’s just better to be able to figure something out for yourself.”

  “Well I can’t figure this out. It doesn’t make sense. I can’t make it come out right and I don’t know why.” Cleo slumped back into her chair and started tapping the pencil eraser on the table.

  Rosemary sighed and clicked a few keys, then came around to her side. “Let me see what’s going on.”

  Cleo pointed to the problem and held back a smile. It was nice having Rosemary here helping her. It reminded her of her mom—her real mom. She wasn’t sure what to think yet about Rosemary being her birth mom. Why had they kept it a secret? It wasn’t like she couldn’t handle it—she was almost a teenager, wasn’t she? Well, okay, she was almost ten, but that was practically a teenager.

  She wondered if Hannah’s grandma was mad that she sneaked into the barn without permission—would she decide Cleo couldn’t come over anymore to play there? She missed Hannah.

  “You forgot to carry the three.”

  “What?” Cleo came back to reality with a mental thud. She hadn’t been paying attention to Rosemary at all.

  “Here.” Rosemary tapped the spot with her fingertip. “You forgot to carry the three. That’s why it didn’t work out right.”

  “This is so dumb.”

  “Good thing, otherwise it might talk back to you,” Rosemary stood and returned to her side of the table. “You’ll be fine, just keep working hard and it’ll come. I promise. Math wasn’t my best subject either.”

  Cleo erased the part she messed up. “What was your best subject?”

  “PE. And when I got to junior high, they let us take home ec. I suck at sewing, but the kitchen arts part was pretty cool.”

  “You sewed something?” Cleo found that hilarious. She could see Rosemary trying to pick out a seam she sewed wrong and swearing under her breath like she did when she worked on reports.

  Rosemary picked up a Lifesaver mint from a nearby bowl and threw it at her. “Yes, and it was terrible. I ripped it into rags after it was graded. No I don’t have any pictures, get back to your math.”

  “This is terrible,” Cleo said of the assignment. “Can I rip it into rags too?”

  “After it’s been graded.” Rosemary clicked the mouse a couple of times and scribbled a note on the paper beside her.

  Cleo leaned back to see the corner of the DVD sticking out of the bag. She really wanted to watch that, so she ought to get her homework done. She guessed. “Are you and Harrison going to get married?” The thought had been on her mind a lot lately—Rosemary and Harrison were always kissing, and didn’t people get married
when they kissed a lot? She didn’t think she was ready to call anyone dad, but she liked having him around. He was really nice, and he made her feel safe.

  Rosemary had been reaching for her water bottle and her head whipped over to look at Cleo. “Where did you get that idea?”

  “‘Cause you kiss him all the time and I heard him say that he loves you before he left last night. You didn’t say it back. Why not?” She watched Rosemary’s jaw twitch and congratulated herself for making Rosemary act funny. Usually she was so focused she could hardly be pulled away from her paperwork. It was so boring!

  “I, um. Well. Hmmmm.” Rosemary turned red and looked as if she didn’t know what to say. “We haven’t been dating that long. I think we need to date for a long, long time so we don’t make a mistake if we decide to get married.” She took another swig of her water. “I’m not thinking about marriage yet. I’m too young.”

  “You’re almost thirty. That’s not too young to get married. Hannah’s mom got married when she was only nineteen. You were pregnant with me when you were only nineteen, too.”

  “See how handy math came for figuring that out?” Rosemary said brightly. “I was only nineteen. But I wasn’t ready to get married that young. Some people are—apparently—like Hannah’s mom. Some of us need more time first. Like me. And I’m not almost thirty—I’m going to stay twenty-five forever. No matter how wrinkled I get.”

  Cleo giggled, though she knew Rosemary was trying to avoid the questions. “Do you love Harrison?”

  Rosemary stopped at the window and looked out, not saying anything for a long moment. Just when Cleo was going to nag her again, she finally spoke. “I don’t know. I feel something for him. He’s pretty great, isn’t he? But do I love him?” She turned to Cleo. “I love you. I loved your parents, but that’s really different. Loving Harrison comes with complications.” She put a hand to her heart. “It’s a little scary to think of loving Harrison like that.”

  The movies never made love look scary. “Why? In the movies it’s just all kiss, kiss, I love you, let’s get married.”

  That coaxed a chuckle from Rosemary. “Relationships aren’t easy. Just ask Lana and Blake. That was one big mess of not-easy almost from the start. Screwing things up is easy, and I don’t like to screw things up.”

  “But Blake and Lana are still married. They’re happy.” Cleo didn’t get why adults made it so hard.

  “They are. Insanely, disgustingly happy. And the baby just makes it all that much better. They can’t wait to hold their little boy.” She smiled at Cleo. “Just like your parents and I couldn’t wait to hold you.” She walked over and crouched beside Cleo. “You’re my best thing, you know that? It might have been hard, but I’ve never, ever regretted having you, and your parents loved you more than anything—as much as I did.”

  Cleo slipped her arms around Rosemary’s shoulder. “I love you too.” She missed her mom and dad so much. Everything was so much easier when they were around. Tears squeezed out of her eyes, but she didn’t want to turn into a baby, so she wiped them away before Rosemary could see and changed the subject back to Harrison. “So are you going to marry Harrison? I think it would be cool to live at his house.”

  Rosemary stood again. “I don’t know. You’ll have to wait and see like me. Now get back to work.”

  Somehow the math didn’t seem so bad after that, but Cleo decided she was going to make sure Rosemary married Harrison—it would make everything somehow a little bit better.

  Cleo woke from her nightmare with a surprised scream, sitting upright in bed as if the pillow were hot. It took her a moment to realize it was just a dream. She wasn’t on the sidewalk being shot at. Rosemary hadn’t really been hurt like she had in the dream. She still heard Rosemary’s last words echoing in her ears, blaming Cleo for her death.

  “Hey, honey, are you okay?”

  She blinked in surprise when she realized the form in the doorway was Harrison. She rubbed away the tears from her cheeks. “Where’s Rosemary?”

  “She went downstairs to finish decorating Cami’s birthday cake. How are you? Did you have a bad dream?” He entered the room and sat in the chair next to the bed.

  “Yeah. It scared me, but it wasn’t real.” She tried to be strong like Rosemary, to pretend she wasn’t scared, even though her hands felt shaky.

  “No, it wasn’t real. You want to talk about it?” He took her hand, rubbing the back of it, soothing her.

  “No. I’m fine.” She didn’t want to admit that she was still scared, that the thought of having Rosemary blame her for everything that was going wrong made her tummy feel funny.

  Harrison waited for a few more seconds. “I had something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “What?” She eyed him curiously.

  “I know you’ve been through a lot the past couple of months. It’s been pretty crazy.”

  “Yeah.” Sometimes she felt like she couldn’t catch her breath, it changed so fast.

  “You know I love Rosemary. How would you feel if I married her someday? I don’t know if it’ll happen anytime soon, but... someday.” He looked kind of nervous.

  She smiled. Rosemary said she wasn’t going to marry Harrison for a long time, but Cleo knew better. “I’d like that. I like you, and I think Rosemary does too. She doesn’t talk about it, but I can tell.”

  “I hope so. What do you think about my place—do you think you’d be okay living there? I know Rosemary said she’d consider moving back to Washington DC when she finished her contract here, but we both have jobs here. Would you be okay with staying?”

  Cleo didn’t say anything at first—he was asking her what she wanted? Most adults didn’t care, they just did what they wanted and dragged the kids with them. “Would you move to DC if I wanted to?” Would he tell her the truth?

  He pursed his lips for a moment. “I don’t know. I know we’d definitely consider it if you really feel like you need to move back there, but I don’t know if Rosemary can live in your old house. It’s close to her mom’s place, isn’t it?”

  Cleo nodded. “Yeah. She’s not nice. I don’t like her.”

  “It probably wouldn’t be easy for Rosemary if she lived that close to her mom.”

  Cleo hadn’t thought about that, about anyone except for herself. She missed her friends back home and the comfort of her own furniture, her stuff, and the quilt her mother made for her. She meant to ask Rosemary to pack the quilt, but forgot. But she was friends with Hannah now and some of the other girls were nice too. Did she want Rosemary to want to keep her this time? “Would I be able to bring some of my stuff here, like my furniture?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, I think we could manage that. In fact, I bet Rosemary would be happy to have your stuff shipped here anyway. Have you talked to her about it?”

  She frowned. “No. She’s so worried all of the time. I’m in the way. I try not to cause too many problems.” She still worried Rosemary would send her away again, like she had when she was a baby.

  He brushed the hair away from her eyes. “Not so much like Rosemary, are you?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He shook his head and the skin by his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “We’ll talk to her when things calm down, see if you two can take a few days off to go back and pack the things you want most.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to?” Cleo asked.

  “She will. She wants you to be happy and comfortable. So do I.”

  Cleo considered that. The funny feeling in her tummy had changed so she felt happy again. “I think I love you, Harrison.”

  He smiled. “I definitely love you, bug.”

  She had a sudden thought. “I don’t know if I’d ever be able to call you Dad. I still miss my dad.”

  “That’s okay, I know you loved Don. Rosemary said he was a really good dad, and I don’t think I could ever replace him, even if I wanted to. You can just call me Harrison if you want and if you change your mind later, that’s good too. D
o you think you can go back to sleep now?” His voice was a little husky, like he might cry, but she wasn’t sure.

  She felt better, not scared anymore. “Yeah.”

  “Goodnight. I’ll see you in the morning.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then got up and walked out, leaving the door partly open so she could see the hall light.

  A moment later she heard the main door open and she got out of bed to see if he was leaving her in the hotel, alone. She didn’t want to be alone. She saw Harrison pull Rosemary close and kiss her, so she must have just arrived.

  “How’s Cleo? Did she sleep through?” Rosemary whispered so quietly Cleo could barely hear it from her crack in the door.

  “She woke for a few minutes, but she’s going back to sleep now. She had a nightmare, but she didn’t want to talk about it.”

  Rosemary shifted out of his arms and Cleo could see her face—there was worry in her eyes. “I wish she would, but she never does.”

  “I think she’s missing some of her things from home.”

  “Then we’ll have to make a trip back to get them.” She brushed her mouth against his. “Thanks.”

  They moved to the sofas and Cleo returned to her bed. Just like that and Rosemary would make a trip to get her things? Starting to feel secure in her new place, her new life in this big family for the first time, she snuggled under the covers. Maybe everything would be okay after all.

  Rosemary stood in her bra and panties staring at herself in the mirror. Cleo’s words kept echoing in her head, accompanied by all of the remarks she’d heard from Harrison, Sage and the others. Was she too thin? She considered how loosely her clothes fit her now and how she had liked her body shape before moving to Colorado. She’d been content, so when had that changed?

  Now that she studied her reflection, she realized part of her mind had automatically reverted to that wounded nineteen-year-old when she met Harrison again. He’d never so much as hinted that she was overweight in the past six months, but somehow she’d convinced herself that she wasn’t good enough, thin enough, nice enough. She couldn’t change her character much, but she could change her weight. So she had.