Carlotta chuckles. “Good one, Cress. I haven’t heard anyone call Lot Lot a river rat in a good long while.”
“Carlotta,” I elbow her without hesitation, “no one has ever called me a river rat.”
“I don’t dis and tell, Lot. But if I were you, I’d spend less time with me and more time fighting off these women with a stick. Sure, your men are both currently unemployed and living off your earnings, but they come by their fall from grace honestly. I’m sure their mamas warned them about spending time with a girl like you, but they marched right into your bedroom and never looked back.”
“What are you talking about? A girl like me? A baker?”
“Pfft.” She rolls her eyes. “Face it, Lot Lot, you’re a ball of supernatural trouble. You’ve got a spook hanging off of you more often than not, you’re a magnet for murder, and you’ve landed yourself in the middle of both a curse and a hex.”
Sadly, I’m forced to nod into this lunacy.
“Technically, they were both curses,” I say.
It’s true. Last October I went messing with what I was told not to mess with—i.e., solving a murder that revolved around a notoriously cursed family, and once I did just that, both my house and Everett’s burned to the ground. After that, it was sort of hard to contest the fact the Hearst curse hadn’t landed square on my shoulders.
And the supposed hex, well, that came by way of Cormack and Cressida after they hired their old sorority sister, Serena Digby, to do the dirty work. Basically, it had something to do with the fact trouble would follow Noah, Everett, and me to the point where neither of them would ever be mine.
I give my belly a pat.
Ha. I showed them, didn’t I?
Speaking of the witchy woman, both Serena Digby and Noah’s look-alike brother, Alex, step into our midst just as I wrangle both Noah and Everett my way.
“Hey, buddy.” Noah nods to his baby brother by one year. Alex owns a brokerage company with my sister Meg’s plus one, Hook Redwood. “Glad you could make it. Serena, you too.” Noah offers them both a simple smile.
Alex looks dapper in a dark suit, a green tie to match his eyes, and those requisite Fox-issued dimples. And Serena is his equal in every way with her long, dark, wavy hair, her matching green eyes, and affable smile. She’s donned a silver little dress that sizzles, and her legs look as if they’ve been sculpted out of bronze.
“Great to see you both,” Everett says. “It’s nice that the reunion is open to everyone who went to FPA for a five-year span. It had such a small student body I was wondering how they’d fill the room.”
“Oh, honey”—Cressida slinks back his way and attempts to swipe her claw at the stubble on his cheek, but I boldly step in front of him—“there would have been enough people if it were just you and me.”
I scoff at the odd remark. “Cressida, you stalked me, you all but held Evie captive for the last fifteen years, and denied Everett the right to know his daughter, and you still think you’ve got a shot with him? Boy, it must be nice to live in such a delusional world.”
“Enough, Lolita,” Cormack barks. For some reason, neither Cormack nor Cressida can keep my name straight. “Or I’ll decrease your mother’s pay and make her the new scullery maid at our quaint little haunted B&B.”
I make a face. “It was quaint while my mother owned it.” A couple of months ago, Noah’s airheaded father talked my apparently airheaded mother into selling these two blonde bimbos my mother’s B&B. They’ve renamed and renovated it to the point where it’s wholly unrecognizable. True, it’s still haunted, but for how long only heaven knows. Greer Giles and the rest of the ghostly gang have already made it clear to me they’re not interested in sticking around under the socialites’ tyranny. “But now that you’ve got your tacky hands all over it, it’s nothing more than a cheap bordello.”
“Ha!” Cormack bucks with a laugh. “We don’t sell lunchmeat!” She nods to her partner in socialite arms. “Remind me to ask the chef to order some of that fancy Italian lunchmeat. I’ve got a hankering for an Italian hero.” She dares to wrap her arms around Noah. “Just like I do an Irish hero.”
“Would you”—I bat her away until she’s whimpering next to Cressida—“please leave. Don’t you have friends here you haven’t seen in ages? Why do you insist on terrorizing the fathers of my child?” More than a few heads turn this way, and I can feel the room still with tension.
Great. Leave it to me to cause a scene—as I try to avoid a scene.
Cormack shakes her head. “It’s not a wonder you don’t know who the father of your child is. Rumor has it, you don’t even know who your own father is.”
A choking sound comes from me. “My biological father is Mayor Nash.” I decide to leave the man who raised me out of this horror show for now. Joseph Lemon was my true father in every way.
Cormack and Cressida share a snide look.
“So you think.” Cormack lifts a brow. “Or is that just a line Carlina fed you to get you off her back? And land herself on her own back with Mayor Nash on top!”
I suck in a sharp breath as a crowd begins to gather.
“All right, enough,” Everett roars as he holds up a finger to the two menaces before us.
“Carlotta would never make something like that up,” I say as Everett pulls me close to him. I think he’s more than well aware I’m about to coldcock a couple of ditzes and make sure everyone here has a reunion to remember. I glance back at Carlotta. “Tell ’em you wouldn’t make that up.”
Carlotta’s mouth falls open. “I, bab, ub, hub… I’d best go looking for that ghost dog.”
“Carlotta!” I snap as I grab her by the wrist before she can make her escape. “Are you trying to tell me that Mayor Nash is not my father?”
“Of course, he’s your father, Lot. I think. These nitwits have me all twisted around.”
Cressida gurgles out a laugh. “I guess that means there’s more than one man in the running for your paternity, too. The trampy fruit didn’t fall far from the trampy tree.”
“Carlotta, is this really true?” My voice hikes at the woman who bore me.
Her mouth falls open again as she looks to the ceiling, and dear God, if she doesn’t look like a Thanksgiving turkey that I’m about to roast twelve ways till Sunday.
“We will talk,” I hiss her way just as Evie steps up.
“What’s all the ruckus?” Evie demands as she gives both Cormack and Cressida the evil eye. “What are you two dumbos doing to my mom?”
Cressida takes a satisfied breath. “Not a thing, sweetie. Her own paternity is in the air, much like that of the question mark swimming in her belly. I’ll tell you what, Linka. I’ll donate one hundred thousand dollars to the Honey Hollow General Hospital neonatal unit if you announce your paternity reveal on the Marissa Popovich Show.”
“No way,” I tell her. “That’s a national show designed to bring humiliation and disgrace to its guests. I would never do anything to hurt my child, Noah, or Everett. This is a private matter, and it’s staying that way.”