“Remember that when we’re competing for bathroom time with three men,” Cybil warned her. “And let me say right now, I refuse to be responsible for all meals just because I know how to turn on the stove.”
“So noted,” Cal muttered.
“It is gorgeous,” Quinn agreed, shifting her head from side to side to see around Layla. “Oh, I forgot. I heard from my grandmother. She tracked down the Bible. She’s having her sister-in-law’s granddaughter copy and scan the appropriate pages, and e-mail them to me.” Quinn wiggled to try for more room. “At least that’s the plan, as the granddaughter’s the only one of them who understands how to scan and attach files. E-mail and online poker’s as far as Grandma goes on the Internet. I hope to have the information by tomorrow. Isn’t this great?”
Wedged between Quinn’s butt and the door, Cybil dug in to protect her corner of the seat. “It’d be better if you’d move your ass over.”
“I’ve got Layla’s space, too, so I get more room. I want popcorn,” Quinn decided. “Doesn’t all this snow make everyone want popcorn? Did we pack any? Do you have any?” she asked Cal. “Maybe we could stop and buy some Orville’s.”
He kept his mouth shut, and concentrated on surviving what he thought might be the longest drive of his life.
He plowed his way down the side roads, and though he trusted the truck and his own driving, was relieved when he turned onto his lane. As he’d been outvoted about the heat setting, the cab of the truck was like a sauna.
Even under the circumstances, Cal had to admit his place, his woods, did look like a picture. The snow-banked terraces, the white-decked trees and huddles of shrubs framed the house where smoke was pumping from the chimney, and the lights were already gleaming against the windows.
He followed the tracks of Fox’s tires across the little bridge over his snow-and ice-crusted curve of the creek.
Lump padded toward the house from the direction of the winter-postcard woods, leaving deep prints behind him. His tail swished once as he let out a single, hollow bark.
“Wow, look at Lump.” Quinn managed to poke Cal with her elbow as the truck shoved its way along the lane. “He’s positively frisky.”
“Snow gets him going.” Cal pulled behind Fox’s truck, smirked at the Ferrari, slowly being buried, then laid on the horn. He’d be damned if he was going to haul the bulk of what three women deemed impossible to live without for a night or two.
He dragged bags out of the bed.
“It’s a beautiful spot, Cal.” Layla took the first out of his hands. “Currier and Ives for the twenty-first century. Is it all right if I go right in?”
“Sure.”
“Pretty as a picture.” Cybil scanned the bags and boxes, chose one for herself. “Especially if you don’t mind being isolated.”
“I don’t.”
She glanced over as Gage and Fox came out of the house. “I hope you don’t mind crowds either.”
They got everything inside, trailing snow everywhere. Cal decided it must have been some sort of female telepathy that divided them all into chores without discussion. Layla asked him for rags or old towels and proceeded to mop up the wet, Cybil took over the kitchen with her stew pot and bag of kitchen ingredients. And Quinn dug into his linen closet, such as it was, and began assigning beds, and ordering various bags carried to various rooms.
There wasn’t anything for him to do, really, but have a beer.
Gage strode in as Cal poked at the fire. “There are bottles of girl stuff all over both bathrooms up there.” Gage jerked a thumb at the ceiling. “What have you done?”
“What had to be done. I couldn’t leave them. They could’ve been cut off for a couple of days.”
“And what, turned into the next Donner Party? Your woman has Fox making my bed, which is now the pullout in your office. And which I’m apparently supposed to share with him. You know that son of a bitch is a bed hog.”
“Can’t be helped.”
“Easy for you to say, seeing as you’ll be sharing yours with the blonde.”
This time Cal grinned, smugly. “Can’t be helped.”
“Esmerelda’s brewing up something in the kitchen.”
“Goulash-and it’s Cybil.”
“Whatever, it smells good, I’ll give her that. She smells better. But the point is I got the heave-ho when I tried to get a damn bag of chips to go with the beer.”
“You want to cook for six people?”
Gage only grunted, sat, propped his feet on the coffee table. “How much are they calling for?”
“About three feet.” Cal dropped down beside him, mirrored his pose. “Used to be we liked nothing better. No school, haul out the sleds. Snowball wars.”
“Those were the days, my friend.”
“Now we’re priming the generator, loading in firewood, buying extra batteries and toilet paper.”
“Sucks to be grown up.”
Still, it was warm, and while the snow fell in sheets outside, there was light, and there was food. It was hard to complain, Cal decided, when he was digging into a bowl of hot, spicy stew he had nothing to do with preparing. Plus, there were dumplings, and he was weak when it came to dumplings.
“I was in Budapest not that long ago.” Gage spooned up goulash as he studied Cybil. “This is as good as any I got there.”
“Actually, this isn’t Hungarian goulash. It’s a Serbo-Croatian base.”
“Damn good stew,” Fox commented, “wherever it’s based.”
“Cybil’s an Eastern European stew herself.” Quinn savored the half dumpling she’d allowed herself. “Croatian, Ukrainian, Polish-with a dash of French for fashion sense and snottiness.”
“When did your family come over?” Cal wondered.
“As early as the seventeen hundreds, as late as just before World War Two, depending on the line.” But she understood the reason for the question. “I don’t know if there is a connection to Quinn or Layla, or any of this, where it might root from. I’m looking into it.”
“We had a connection,” Quinn said, “straight off.”
“We did.”
Cal understood that kind of friendship, the kind he saw when the two women looked at each other. It had little to do with blood, and everything to do with the heart.
“We hooked up the first day-evening really-of college.” Quinn spooned off another minuscule piece of dumpling with the stew. “Met in the hall of the dorm. We were across from each other. Within two days, we’d switched. Our respective roommates didn’t care. We bunked together right through college.”
“And apparently still are,” Cybil commented.
“Remember you read my palm that first night?”
“You read palms?” Fox asked.
“When the mood strikes. My gypsy heritage,” Cybil added with a flourishing gesture of her hands.
And Cal felt a knot form in his belly. “There were gypsies in the Hollow.”
“Really?” Carefully, Cybil lifted her wineglass, sipped. “When?”
“I’d have to check to be sure. This is from stories my gran told me that her grandmother told her. Like that. About how gypsies came one summer and set up camp.”
“Interesting. Potentially,” Quinn mused, “someone local could get cozy with one of those dark-eyed beauties or hunks, and nine months later, oops. Could lead right to you, Cyb.”
“Just one big, happy family,” Cybil muttered.
After the meal, chores were divvied up again. Wood needed to be brought in, the dog let out, the table cleared, dishes dealt with.
“Who else cooks?” Cybil demanded.
“Gage does,” Cal and Fox said together.
“Hey.”
“Good.” Cybil sized him up. “If there’s a group breakfast on the slate, you’re in charge. Now-”
“Before we…whatever,” Cal decided, “there’s something we have to go over. Might as well stick to the dining room. We have to get something,” he added, looking at Fox and Gage. “You might want to open another bottle of wine.”