Family Matters (DiCarlo Brides book 4) (The DiCarlo Brides) (12 page)

Cleo liked to watch the birds flitting through the trees. She liked to hear their song even more. It was so cold here, but birds and squirrels were everywhere outside the house, and she loved that there was a tree next to her window.

She looked down at her homework and scowled. She hated math; why did they even have to study it? They had calculators didn’t they? A bird started to sing outside, making Cleo smile. She couldn’t hear it very well, so she walked over and opened the window just a few inches to make it easier to hear.

A cold breeze blew into the room and she yanked the blanket from her bed to wrap up in while she finished long division.

There was a loud noise from downstairs and Cleo jumped up, anxious for any excuse to get away from her desk. She found Delphi standing up at the top of the stairs—she’d fallen over as she came up from the basement.

“Are you okay?” Jonquil asked, her lips twitching like she was holding back a laugh.

“Fine.”

“Could you be any less coordinated and still be able to walk around?” Rosemary asked from the kitchen. “Then again.”

“Shut it.” Delphi snagged a soda from the fridge. Glancing up, she smiled. “There you are, kiddo. How was school?”

“It was okay.” It had snowed over the weekend, so she and Hannah had stomped out the outlines of a house in the snow during recess. They were going to play in it during the next break, but some of the younger boys messed it up when they got out for their recess period. Stupid boys.

“Good.”

“Is your homework done?” Rosemary asked, barely glancing up from her laptop.

“Um, almost.” It was a stretch, there was still most of the page left, but she deserved a break, right?

“Then you can
almost
come out of your room. Go back and finish. Let me know if you have trouble and need help.” She returned her attention to her laptop. She was always on the computer in the afternoon—her mom had spent time with her after school, not been wrapped up in a job. At least they were home instead of at the hotel—her office there was so
boring
. There wasn’t even a window. Of course, Harrison was at the resort and she really liked him—he was nice and treated her as if she was smart instead of like a dumb kid.

“Do you need a snack?” Jonquil asked.

“No,” Rosemary answered before Cleo could accept. “She already had two cookies and some carrot sticks. She can wait until dinner.”

“You’re such a slave driver,” Delphi grabbed a cookie from the jar and flipped through some papers she’d brought up with her.

“You betcha. It’s what you all love about me.” Rosemary didn’t even look up from her laptop.

Cleo huffed a little, but went into her room, grabbed her blanket and wrapped in it again, before sitting at her desk. The math wasn’t that hard, it was just so boring and she hated doing it.

She was finishing up the last row of problems when Rosemary came in.

“How’s it going, short stuff?” She rubbed her arms. “You opened the window? Why?”

“I wanted to hear the birds.” Cleo protested when Rosemary started to close the window.

“It’s freezing out there. You’re going to have to save your bird loving for when you’re outside until it gets warmer out there.” She twisted the window lock.

“You never let me have any fun,” Cleo grumbled.

Rosemary sat on the edge of the bed. “How’s the homework?”

“Almost done.”

“Great. You want to make a snowman after you finish up?”

Cleo’s head whipped around to look at Rosemary. She wasn’t sure if she believed it because it had been so long since they did anything just for fun. Rosemary used to do crazy fun things with her all the time. Before her parents died. “Really?”

“Yeah. Really. Hurry up.”

Cleo returned to her work with renewed determination, zipping through the problems in record time. She was going to build snowmen with her—well, sort of her mom.

She thought about that word, mom, in relation to Rosemary. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, now that she knew, but she would think about it. Now she would get to go out and play.

Harrison stood in the driveway and watched Rosemary and Cleo rolling giant snowballs in the yard. They must be making a snowman. He thought about joining them, but wasn’t sure if he should intrude in their mother-daughter time. It was nice seeing them play together, Rosemary teasing and carefree.

Jonquil came onto the front porch and looked at him. “Sage called. She said to tell you today is the day. Seize your chance at love and ask out the girl of your dreams.”

Harrison turned to her, not believing a word of it. “Really?”

She pursed her lips. “No, but she should. It’s good advice, so go do it.”

He chuckled. “I didn’t bring my boots.”

“Wimp. I’ve just lost all respect for you. You’re wearing running shoes instead of your shiny executive loafers. Weren’t you raised on an organic farm? I thought farmers were tough.”

“Yeah, we were tough in Southern California, where it never snowed.” Still, he was tempted to insert himself in their fun.

Her gaze bored into him. “I’m not going to invite you for family gatherings with food—which is all of them—if you can’t ask her out by the end of the week. It’s not that hard, just ask her for dinner.”

“You think she’d go with me?” He turned his gaze back to Rosemary. The blond hair that hung down nearly to her derriere stuck out of the knitted cap and kept getting in her face. He thought it was funny that she kept brushing it out of the way instead of doing a braid like she wore at work.

“If you asked her right. She doesn’t scowl at you nearly as much as she used to.”

He smiled. “That’s hardly comforting. But I’ll think about it.”

“Good. Don’t think too long.” She went back inside.

Harrison decided a little time in the snow wouldn’t hurt anything, so he waded out in the two-foot drifts, and sucked in a breath at the flash of cold snow against his leg. “Hey, could you use another hand? It looks like you’re making a monster snowman.”

“Snow-woman,” Cleo clarified. “But you can help.”

When Rosemary just looked at her daughter and got an adoring look on her face, he took that for a yes and started another snowball.

 The girls finished the body for the snow-woman while he rolled a big ball for the head.

“Let me help you with that,” Rosemary said when he carried it over.

“You think I can’t handle it on my own?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t know how many snow-women you’ve made, living in So-Cal and all. I figured a little supervision might be in order.” The edges of her lips twisted with fun.

He lifted the ball onto the body and she grabbed it from the other side, helping to slide it into place. His fingers—totally frozen through his thin gloves—brushed hers as she shifted it slightly and he looked up at her.

She met his gaze and he felt a zing of electricity flash between them. The moment seemed to freeze and he brushed his fingertips across her knuckles. He thought she swallowed reflexively before she pulled her hand away, turning toward her daughter.

His heart pounded and he sucked in a deep breath of cold mountain air.

Maybe she wouldn’t shoot him down after all.

“Good job on the homework,” Rosemary said as she put it back in Cleo’s folder. The girl had time to work on it in Rosemary’s office—again—but hadn’t seemed to be paying too much attention to it.

“So I can go to Hannah’s tomorrow night for the sleepover?” Cleo asked, clasping her hands and putting a pleading expression on her face.

Rosemary rolled her eyes, though she thought it was adorable. She looked at Harrison who had stopped in with ice cream at dinnertime and begged some food off them. He grinned.

“Sure, you can go tomorrow night,” she said. “That was the deal.” She’d already had a long chat with Hannah’s mom about which adults would be there and the other girls who were invited.

“All right!” Cleo jumped up and danced in a circle. “We’re going to stay up all night watching movies.”

“Terrific. That will make Saturday
so much fun
,” Rosemary said under her breath as she put away the pan from dinner. “It’s time for you to head to bed, bug. Come give me a kiss.” She poked out her cheek and pulled a face, making Cleo giggle. Still, her daughter gamely came over and kissed her cheek.

“Good night, Rosemary. Good night, Harrison.”

“Good night, bug. And don’t come down for a drink of water three times, okay?” Rosemary said.

“Fine.” Cleo sighed heavily as if she were being asked to do a really difficult task, but she went upstairs to her room.

Rosemary was exhausted. The day had been endless and she wanted nothing so much as to go to bed and sleep for ten hours, but she had paperwork to finish tonight and had to be up early tomorrow to check the food order when it was delivered. A couple of times they had sent the wrong things and she’d had to send it back—that was much easier to do if she caught it when the delivery man was still there.

She put her hands at the small of her back and stretched. A hot soak wouldn’t go amiss, either.

“You look all done in,” Harrison said, studying her. “Are you getting enough sleep?”

“I’ll live.” Rosemary rubbed her eyes. “You didn’t have anything better to do than to come hang out here tonight?” She kept her voice light, not wanting him to think she minded his presence. It had been fun—a fact that still surprised her when she thought about it.

“Some of my favorite people live here.” He shifted closer, his gaze steady on hers.

She wasn’t sure how to take his comment. He hadn’t visited this often when Sage lived with them.

A scream pierced the air, and Rosemary ran for the stairs on instinct, headed for the sound—Cleo. Harrison was hard on her heels. The second scream was not quite as ear-splitting, but contained a word that made Rosemary’s heart nearly stop.

“Snake!”

Rosemary came to a skidding halt in the doorway when she saw Cleo on the bed and the snake swirling around on the floor between her and the door. Cleo looked at Rosemary, her face white with panic.

“Hold on, sweetie. Just stay there.” Rosemary looked at Harrison. “Do something.” She was frozen with fear and didn’t think she could make her feet move again.

He was down the stairs in a flash, taking the last three in one leap and bounding into the garage.

“What’s going on?” Jonquil asked from the bottom of the stairs.

“There’s a rattle snake in Cleo’s room.” Rosemary looked at her daughter and realized her reaction was freaking Cleo out even worse. Right. Calm. She took two deep breaths and looked at the snake again. It wasn’t being threatening at the moment—if you discounted its existence in the room as a threat, which she didn’t exactly. “Okay, I’m calmer. It doesn’t look poised to strike or anything, but I can’t get to Cleo because it’s between the two of us.”

“A rattler, at this time of year?” Jonquil froze. “Did you block it in the room? Because it might feel threatened if it has nowhere to go.” She set one foot on the bottom stair, then hesitated as if she was worried about becoming snake bait.

“Um, yeah, I guess, but it isn’t—” She stopped talking when the snake turned to her and started shifting in her direction. “Oh, crap. Now it’s headed for me.”

“Back away slowly and keep an eye on it,” Jonquil directed. “Just, I don’t know, don’t let it get too close.”

“How do you know about snakes?” Rosemary asked.

“I rock climb. I decided knowing my predators was a good idea.”

“Right.” She shifted back into the hall, keeping her eyes on the rattler, while listening to her daughter sob hysterically. “It’s okay, kiddo, it’s not interested in you. See?”

“It’s going to bite you and then you’ll die, just like mom and dad,” Cleo wailed.

“Not if I can help it.” The words were barely more than a mutter as terror gripped her. The rattler grew closer and she stumbled back into the railing that overlooked the living area.

“How can you stop it?” Cleo asked, sobbing.

Harrison exploded back into the house from the garage and took the stairs two at a time, a shovel in his hand. “Good thing Vince left this behind.”

Relief trickled through Rosemary, though she didn’t know if Harrison had any idea how to use the weapon, now he had one. “He left one for Jonquil when she wanted to plant bulbs a few months ago. Never took it back with him.”