CHAPTER TWO
Raina
I sat in the front passenger seat of Gabrielle’s SUV as we drove home from the McEvoy’s pub and Christmas party. My cousin, and the appointed matriarch of our family, glanced sideways at me. “You’re not still upset about the duet, are you?”
Her two kids—Laurel, who was eleven, and Damon, who was fourteen—were in the back with my son, Marco, who was nine. The kids were pretty quiet, but they were absolutely listening.
“I just don’t like being made to do something I don’t want to do,” I said, keeping the inflection in my tone to a minimum.
“Right, because we put a gun to your head and said, ‘Sing or die.’” Gabrielle shook her head, focusing once again on the road ahead of her.
The entire Pacific Northwest was getting absolutely hammered with winter storms this year.
Debris from all the trees littered the road and the wind gusts made the vehicle wobble like it was trying to roll us over.
Our cousins, Danica and Naomi, were behind us in another vehicle, with their children.
“I just didn’t want to look bad in front of all the islanders,” I argued, my arms crossed over my chest. “We’re trying to make ourselves look good, remember? There were Island Elders there.”
“Of course, I know that,” Gabrielle quipped.
“I spent nearly an hour listening to Jolene Dandy prattle on about the latest gossip. Ninety-five percent of it isn’t even true.
You know she actually tried to tell me a rumor she heard about me?
She said that she heard I was dating a younger man.
” Gabrielle snorted. “First of all, I wish. Second of all, I’m not dating anybody else, let alone a younger man. ”
“How young?” Damon piped up from the backseat, his tone not lacking in fear or disgust.
Gabrielle snorted. “I didn’t ask. Because it’s not true. I think I’d be the first to know if I was dating anybody. Anyway, I was quick to shut her down. Nobody in our family is dating anybody, least of all, a younger man.”
The turnoff for the winery that we all owned came into view and I quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
We had generators for if the power went out, and although we were located on a bluff and often got hit with some wicked winter wind, we were also not surrounded by trees like the brewery was.
So the likelihood of a tree smashing through any of our roofs was slim to non-existent.
“I know I’ve asked this before,” Gabrielle said, taking the turn, “but what is your beef with Jagger McEvoy anyway?”
Rather than answer, I inflated my cheeks and glanced out the window before blowing the breath out slowly. “You ready for the booze bonanza in Seattle?” I finally asked, changing the subject very blatantly.
Gabrielle snorted again, and I could see her glance at me and smirk in the reflection of my passenger window. “You mean the Winter Wine and Beer Fest? Yes. I just have to double-check that the swag bags I ordered will be delivered in time for next weekend.”
“You know the McEvoys are going.” Why did I do that? Why did I swing the topic back to what I was deliberately trying to avoid?
“I would be surprised if they didn’t, considering they run a very successful local brewery. Clint and I briefly discussed it today. Seems as though our tables are next to each other.”
A growl built hot and prickly in my chest just as the porch lights for our little wine-scented haven lit up the night in front of us. “Of course they are.”
“Clint actually suggested we put together a couple of gift baskets together and do a joint giveaway drawing. We’re going to go and pick up some island-made goods like Barrington’s honey, some cider from the cidery—since they’re not going—and a couple bottles of spirits from the distillery.”
“They’re not going either?” I asked.
“No, it’s just beer and wine.” She frowned and put the SUV into park. “Which is weird to me. Why wouldn’t you do all the booze?”
“Probably because there’s not enough space for all the breweries, distilleries, cideries, and wineries in Washington,” Damon said, opening up the back seat. “There are like a million, or something.”
Gabrielle rolled her eyes and turned off the ignition. “Teenagers are so hyperbolic.”
“What does hyperbolic mean?” Marco asked, climbing out after his older cousin—who he idolized.
“Exaggeration,” I said, grabbing my purse and climbing out as well. “To embellish the truth. Because there absolutely are not a million in the state. But there are a lot.”
Marco nodded, then we all ran from the Honda CRV to the carport, the wind whipping our hair around our faces and drenching our coats.
The sound of Danica, Naomi, and their kids doing the same echoing behind us.
We all burst into the basement of Gabrielle’s house, ditching our jackets and boots and hanging them over the woodstove.
“All right, my little ones,” Danica said, a shiver to her voice, “bath and bed.”
“Not me though, right?” Damon asked, glancing at his mom.
Gabrielle finished draping her coat over a hook on a big wooden pole suspended high over the woodstove. “No. Though, it is late. So I’d rather you didn’t stay up too much later.”
The moody teenager nodded, then took off upstairs. Marco stared longingly after his older cousin, but it was well past my son’s bedtime, and he turned into a big ol’ bear if he didn’t get enough sleep.
I ran my hand over his head. “I’m sorry, bud, but it is time for you to shower and head to bed.”
My kiddo frowned, but he didn’t balk. He knew the drill, and I could tell by the slump of his slender shoulders and the darkening circles under his eyes that he was tired.
Danica ushered her eight-year-old daughter, Samantha, off toward the carriage house they shared over Gabrielle’s garage.
Meanwhile, Naomi corralled Austin, eleven, and Honor, nine, as the three of them hustled back out the door, all clustered under a big umbrella, and ran toward their cottage a few yards to the left.
Laurel climbed the stairs after her brother, which left Gabrielle, me, and Marco. Marco and I lived in the basement suite below Gabrielle. So, fortunately, we didn’t have far to go. Just in through the door on the left to our two-bedroom oasis.
I patted Marco’s butt affectionately. “Hop into the shower, bud. Warm up. I’ll be in to tuck you into bed shortly.”
He nodded, his yellow-green eyes, the same shade as mine, droopy with fatigue. Then he was gone, leaving me with my cousin—who was more like a big sister, a mother, and my guardian angel.
“What?” I asked, standing next to the woodstove so the front of my black leggings would dry.
Gabrielle used to be a lawyer. She was incredibly smart, had a brilliant mind for business, and could see things and angles that nobody else could.
She was also surprisingly empathic, despite the frosty exterior a lot of people said she possessed.
“I need you to know that I had nothing to do with the duet.”
My eyes widened as her gaze softened. “I didn’t think that you did.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
I rolled my eyes and held my hands over the woodstove, absorbing the warmth. “Okay, I thought at least one of you three was in on the shanghai. I suspected you the least, though. My money was on Naomi. She’s the most conniving.”
Gabrielle’s lips twitched like she was trying to smile.
Her alert amber eyes remained soft, but the way she kept them focused on me had me growing increasingly squirmy.
What did she see that I couldn’t? Reaching behind her, she tugged her thick, dark-brown hair out of its ponytail, sending chunky, glossy curls to rearrange themselves around her shoulders. “You are attracted to him though.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Who?” I needed to play dumb.
She gave me that mama bear look of disappointment which had me getting warmer than I wanted to be and shrinking in shame. “Jagger McEvoy.”
“I can objectively state that the man is not hideous to look at. Would he produce nice-looking, tall offspring for some unfortunate woman? Yes. Would I swipe right on him before learning his personality? Probably. Maybe. Perhaps. If he didn’t have a photo of himself with a fish or a tiger.
And as long as his first picture wasn’t him flexing at the gym while taking a selfie. ”
“Obviously,” Gabrielle said blandly.
“But am I attracted to him?” Yes. Yes, I absolutely was. “No.”
“That was a lot of explaining for a simple one-word answer.”
I narrowed my gaze at my cousin. “Maybe focus on the rumor circulating about you dating a younger man, and who started it, hmm? Or, better yet, start dating a younger man, so it becomes true. I’m off to bed.
Goodnight.” Then, before she could open her mouth and lawyer-speak to me anymore, I turned the knob for my suite and entered, leaving her standing there with an amused expression on her pretty face.
I plastered my back against the wall and shut my eyes, the sound of Marco in the shower echoing faintly through our small two-bedroom, plus den, suite.
It was remarkably cooler in our little haven, which we preferred.
Gabrielle liked her house warm—too warm in my opinion—while Marco and I preferred to just put on a sweater and wear fuzzy socks.
Sure, we used our furnace, but we didn’t like it roasting the way Gabrielle and her kids did.
With my eyes still closed, and the cool door against my back, I mentally ran through the events of today.
Earlier this month, when Gabrielle mentioned that the McEvoys invited us to their open house Christmas party, my initial answer was "hell no". Why would I put myself through the torture of being around Jagger, particularly on his turf? But then she reminded me that Jagger wasn’t the only McEvoy, and I happened to like the rest. So couldn’t I just suck it up for a few hours?