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“It’s a Blue Hawaiian. Good, isn’t it?” Mom looked so pleased with herself, I had to agree.
“These are really yummy, Mrs. Remington,” Zara said, sipping hers delicately. “Thank you so much for going to all the trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” Mom beamed, and then she added. “Darling, will you please call me Violet? Mrs. Remington makes me feel so old.”
Zara was about to answer when an unholy screech rent the air around us.
“What the hell?” I asked, rising and looking around.
The sound came again, drifting from the front of the house, and this time it formed actual words, “no no no NOOOO.”
I headed inside, depositing my glass on the counter as I moved toward the front door to investigate. Whatever it was sounded like it was on our doorstep.
I pulled open the front door just as the sound came again, and I immediately identified the source. The most adorable little girl—all pink dress and perky blond ponytails—stood on the front step, and the ungodly sound was coming from her mouth.
I took a step back from the noise as I looked up at the face of the person whose leg she was currently wrapped around, and my heart did some kind of irritating double beat thing.
Clara Connor.
“Hi,” she said, her husky voice sounding exactly like it did in my memory. Or what I could hear of it over the screaming, at least.
Mom had joined me at the door by then, and she was grinning from ear to ear.
“Clara, I’m so glad you could come.”
The adorable hellion at her feet screamed louder when she spotted Mom.
“I don’t want you to goooooooo!” The tiny person wrapped herself tighter around Clara’s leg, which was draped in a floral skirt, connected to a sundress that was currently being tugged very low in the front and forcing me to struggle to avert my gaze. Clara gave Mom a smile and then reached down for the person attached to her and pried the little girl off from her leg, squatting and holding her at arm’s distance.
“I told you, I’m not going anywhere. We’re both staying for dinner.”
“Hello there, Katie,” Mom cooed. “I have purple Play-doh and I made you a very special grown-up drink just like the one I have for your mommy.” Mom did not look the least bit ruffled by the little girl’s bright red face or clear disdain at being brought to her house for the evening.
As Mom spoke to Katie, my eyes found Clara’s face.
She looked good. Her blond hair fell in waves around her face, and her skin was tanned and glowing. The sharp blue eyes I remembered snagged on my own, and a jolt of attraction hit me hard.
“Hey Sly,” she said, and I thought I saw a faint blush crawl up her cheeks under the tan.
“Clara. Long time no see.” Idiot. Who said that?
She smiled, but the expression dropped almost immediately. “Yeah, um, Violet, I don’t know if we can stay.”
“We can’t stay!” the little girl—Katie, I guessed—shrieked at us.
“Oh, don’t be silly. Katie and I are friends,” Mom said, moving aside and waving Clara and Katie in.
The little girl was now clamped around Clara’s neck and shoulders, and her eyes found my face as Clara moved inside, carrying her. They went wide as we made eye contact, and then narrowed, and I could see the next scream before it emerged from her tiny body.
“Nooooo!” That one felt personal, because it was delivered almost directly at me.
“I’m so sorry,” Clara was saying to Mom as the tiny person eyeballed me like we were about to face off over a puck. “I think I’ve just been working a lot and whenever we come this way she thinks I’m leaving her.”
“Then this will be good for both of you,” Mom said as we moved into the kitchen. Mom seemed weirdly unperturbed, and I wondered if we wouldn’t be better off just to let them go home.
“I just don’t know if she’s going to be reasonable,” Clara said, sounding exhausted. “This phase has been...tough. Moving again, and my parents...”
“Oh, honey. I know.” Mom gave Clara’s arm a little pat and then turned back to the counter, where she was fixing Clara a drink.
