CHAPTER FIVE
Frankie~
The limousine pulled up in front of the Carsons’ house. The driver lowered the window and turned to speak to the two women. “You want me to pull into the driveway?”
If he did, he would have to park almost on the sidewalk. The Carsons’ driveway was level full with their guests’ cars.
“Don’t bother. Stay here. We’ll go get the bride. Coming, Eleanor?”
There was another round of hugging and kissing and laughing before Genevieve was allowed to get into the limousine. But Frankie didn’t mind. Not in the least. She and Eleanor had spent considerable portions of their childhood and teenage years in the Carsons’ house. It was as familiar as home.
It had been a while since she had seen either Mr. or Mrs. Carson, and she was glad for a moment to say ‘hey’ and catch up. The caterers had arrived with the tea cups and glasses before the garden party died of thirst, and Mrs. Carson was flown on punch and petit fours.
“Don’t you girls keep Genevieve out too late,” she cautioned them.
“No, ma’am,” fibbed Frankie. She was pretty sure this was an all-night event.
“So where are we going?” Genevieve drawled as the limousine slid away from the curb.
“San Angelo.” Frankie unhelpfully named the largest nearby city. A surprise was a surprise. She and Eleanor had been discussing this event for years and years – long before Genevieve had picked any sort of groom.
Their friend was a big woman. Nearly as big as Frankie and Eleanor. Like them she was career Air Force. Like them she was a Texas girl, born and bred. But there the resemblance ended. She was as fair as the D’Angelos were dark. Her green eyes slanted at the edges and she had to darken her pale eyelashes and brows.
Tonight, she had let her inner girlie-girl off her leash. Her sleek, black cocktail dress and her six-inch heels were in marked contrast to their crisp dark slacks and tailored silk blouses. And she was made up like a show pony.
“I think you’re overdressed,” commented Frankie. “Unless I’m mistaken about our destination.” Eleanor had selected the restaurant by herself, but a barbecue shack so did not require fuck-me heels.
Genevieve chuckled richly. She patted her neat cloud of red-blonde curls and batted those darkened eyelashes. Smirked with her brightly painted lips. “I’ve dressed for my public.”
“By which she means, Grant’s public,” Eleanor put in, as if she was afraid Frankie thought Genevieve was delusional.
“Martin Van Buren,” Frankie exclaimed. “Do you dress like that all the time?” She waved a hand at Genevieve’s outfit.
“Pretty much.” Gen chuckled again and slapped one silky black knee with her open palm. Her nails were long and painted green to match the magnificent emerald dangling from her neck. Grant’s Christmas gift. “If you could see your face, Frankie D’Angelo.” She was laughing too hard to continue.
Eleanor joined in. “Frankie is having a hard time grasping that you don’t mind wearing dresses and makeup. Your new image doesn’t fit with her ideas of you.” Her voice was wry.
Eleanor was right. Frankie said so. “Just don’t change too much, Gen,” she begged.
“Here, have a glass of champagne.” Eleanor passed their friend a glass and poured another for Frankie. “What my sister is trying to say is that we’re both delighted you are finally going to really be our sister.” She lifted her own glass. “May you and Grant be happy always and forever.”
Frankie had no trouble drinking to that. She loved Genevieve. It had just never occurred to her that Grant had anything going with their friend. “You know,” she said, “I never really understood how you and Grant got together. I would’ve sworn you hadn’t seen each other in years and years.”
“When we met up in Frankfurt,” Genevieve said quietly, “We hadn’t seen each other in two years, four months, and twelve days.”
“Oh. Well, I just hope my boneheaded brother was counting the days too,” Frankie said fiercely.
“He was,” Genevieve said complacently. She sipped her champagne. “That reminds me, I have a bone to pick with you two.”
“Huh?” Both sisters’ mouths dropped open. “What did we do?”
“Let’s just say that I find it hard to credit that either one of y’all could have instantly turned Bubba Gibson into a pile of ashes with one measly little feather. Yet, all through middle school and high school, y’all let that pipsqueak get away with calling me Chunky Monkey.”
Frankie joined Eleanor’s hoots. “Didn’t Grant explain that we’re not allowed to use our powers for evil?”
“What would have been evil about incinerating Bubba?”
“Come to think of it, the world would be a much better place without that loser.”
* * *
Cameron~
Despite her promise, Warrior Woman had not yet come by to finish their quarrel. For the first time in months, he was looking forward to something. But his cruel woman hadn’t shown up.
Grant had come in briefly, scrambled him some eggs, disguised himself in worn jeans and a greasy ball cap, and disappeared. He had said something about going into Grape Creek to see some old friends, but by then Cam had not been paying much attention.
He was frankly exhausted by what felt like an arduous day. But he lay down on the living room couch, avoiding his bedroom. He always tried to dodge going to bed too soon. He knew his pattern of napping through the day was playing merry hell with his nighttime sleep.
But the meds made him drowsy. His head injury made him drowsy. His patchy hearing made him dizzy. His fucking knee ached like the devil and all Lucifer’s minions were using it for spear practice. And he was beyond bored. His instructions were to keep quiet and out of the light. No reading. No television. No loud music. No screens of any kind. Which left what?
Sleeping. Or rehearsing the total fuck-up he had made of his last mission. Screw that. He’d rather take the damn drugs. They were sedatives. They didn’t really make him sleepy. Unconscious was not the same as asleep. It was much, much better. Unconscious you couldn’t dream worth a damn.
Around twenty-one hundred hours, his sister popped by. Tasha waddled into the twilight living room and sank gratefully and heavily into an armchair. Her pregnancy was making her awkward. “You awake, Cam?”
“Sure.” He lied, opening one eye. He might be a sullen, grumpy son-of-a-bear these days, but he never whetted the rough edge of his tongue on his little sister. Never. “What’s up, kid?”
“Just checking on you. Do you need anything?”
He forced himself to sit up. “It’s time I had a drink.” And more painkillers.
“Do you need any help?”
He grabbed his walker and used it to support himself to standing. He’d been on the cane too much today as it was. He shuffled off to the bathroom and then to the kitchen. He glanced at the clock and gulped the meds he’d skipped at twenty hundred hours because getting up was too much like work. When he got back, Tasha was straightening the living room.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “You’re tired enough after running after those two girls all day – and growing your baby.” He sat down on the couch and tried to look like her big brother.
“I’m just neatening things.” But she sat down again and rubbed her swollen belly. “I can’t believe I still got two and a half months to go.”
She looked beyond tired. Her curls were limp and her face was strained. “Should I be worried about you?”
She gave a crack of laughter. “If you have to ask, I guess so. I’m fine really.”
He sighed. “It’s just that I can tell how I ought to feel, but I don’t feel like that. If you understand what I mean?”
“Are you saying you’re just apathetic? That you don’t care about anything?”
“No. More that there’s a barrier between me and what I should be feeling. I see you and I think, it’s Tasha. My sister. I love Tasha. But I don’t feel it. Not really.” Now what had possessed him to burden little Tasha with that shit?
Her voice was very gentle. “Do you think it’s permanent?”
The silence grew while he tried to think of an appropriate response. What he managed was, “Heaven knows. Probably not.”
“Well, give it time,” she said weakly. She didn’t seem terribly reassured.
They sat together in the dark living room until he stretched out again, too weary to keep sitting up. “Don’t go to sleep out here,” she pleaded. “Let me help you to bed. Have you showered today?”
“I can put myself to bed.” He swallowed his embarrassment. “Thank you. I think I showered this morning. I know I smell like a billy goat. But I’m too tired to stand in the shower right now.”
“I’m not going until you’re tucked in.”
* * *
Frankie~
The bachelorette party was a huge success. On their way to the restaurant, they had picked up half a dozen other friends. And seven or eight more had met them there. As the evening went on a few more trickled in.
Genevieve’s Air Force buddies had not been invited as asking them to use their leave to attend a bachelorette party had seemed selfish. There would be other opportunities to celebrate. She and Eleanor would make sure of that.
They ordered round after round of margaritas. When the bill came, no one was in any condition to fight them for it. After all, Frankie and Eleanor had their D’Angelo trust funds. Genevieve was going to be their sister. This was their treat. One hundred percent.
Dinner eaten, they all piled back into three stretch limos and headed to the bar they had selected. They were going square dancing. Someone had suggested male strippers, but that ribald suggestion had been booed down and firmly vetoed.
Frankie was just as glad. She was as interested in sex as the next woman, but there was something unwholesome and skin-crawling about paying another human being to show you what should be private.
The band was good, the caller an expert. Their party danced together as they had at so many high school dances. The margaritas were cold and even better than the ones at the restaurant.
Genevieve caught up with her old friends and looked at photos of fiancés, husbands and babies and shared a few of her own. To dropped jaws and chuckles, she told them about her tiny Frankfurt apartment and European ideas of what constituted a working kitchen. All in all, a fun time was had by all.
The moon was sinking when they dropped the last of their friends off. Now it was just the three of them in the back of the limo, heading back to Elora. They were somewhat the worse for wear. Exhausted from dancing and more than a little tipsy. But filled with the pleasure of renewing their girlhood friendships.
“You never did tell us how you found out we D’Angelos are phoenixes,” Eleanor said. She hiccupped behind her hand. “Or when.”
Genevieve giggled. Her green eyes sparkled as brightly as her emerald pendant. “Grant didn’t tell me until last week. He wanted to be sure I wouldn’t back out of the wedding!”
“You’re kidding!” Frankie leaned forward, frowning, her drowsiness completely shaken off. “My brother. Did. Not. Do. That. Please, please, tell me, he didn’t do that.”
“I hate to be the one to burst your bubble,” Eleanor said dryly. “But that’s just what our charming brother would to. I don’t know if I should laugh or short-sheet his bed. What a jackass!”
“Is that why you haven’t told him you will accept the Gift of the Phoenix?” Frankie asked curiously.
“Is that the bit where I turn into a phoenix myself?”
“Uh huh.”
“Yup. I figured Grant deserved a li’l bit of payback for playing me for a sucker.”
“You bet.” Eleanor said. “For sure he should’ve told you before he even asked you to marry him.”