Scarlet Nights (Edilean 3)

She brought herself out of her reverie to look around. Her mother and two sisters were inside the tent, all of them wearing the medieval costumes Sara had made for them in previous years. Sara’s had a dark green velvet bodice and a plaid skirt that was said to be the old McTern tartan. Her sisters wore blue and burgundy, and her mother’s costume was in shades of brown and yellow. “The colors of the earth,” she’d told her daughter when Sara made it.

The inside of the tent was full of boxes and baskets of fruit. Coolers of cooked food were stacked high. Her mother said that even though it was a fair she refused to serve unhealthy food.

“She just rolls the fruit in batter, deep fries it, then coats it with sugar,” her doctor-father said. “Perfectly healthy.”

Sara thought she needed to send her father to Joce for a tarot card reading so he could hear what sarcasm really meant.

Sara was still standing by the tent entrance when her mother, a crate of cantaloupes in her arms, saw her. She smiled, but that expression turned to a smirk when she saw the faint redness on her daughter’s neck. Sara had covered it with foundation and powder, but the red still showed.

Ellie instantly knew what it was. “Ah, whisker burn. That takes me back. I remember the time your father and I—”

“Mother, please!” Sara said.

Laughing, Ellie left the tent.

“Wait until you have your first kid,” her sister Jennifer said. “You’ll be totally grossed out by the stories she tells you.”

“The sex sagas are my downfall,” Sara’s other sister, Taylor, said.

“Dad delivering you on a mountaintop didn’t do you in?” Jennifer asked.

“No. It was the details about Mom and Dad’s Scarlet Nights in Mexico. Even Gene turned red at that one.”

Sara was blinking at her sisters. For the first time ever, they were talking to her as though she were, well, like she was a grown-up woman.

Jennifer had a box of fruit pies in her hands, and she seemed to understand Sara’s puzzlement. “Didn’t you realize that Mother considers you a virgin until you’re married? That’s why she’s not told you any of her sex stories.” She left the tent.

Taylor had three boxes of cookies. “You’re lucky to have evaded her spicy little tales for this long.” She followed her sister out.

Sara stood looking after her two sisters in shock. She was still standing there when Mike came in.

“Your mother sent me in here to get a couple bags of potatoes. And why the hell are your relatives asking me so many questions about my beard? I meant to shave, but—” Pausing, he looked at her. “Are you okay?”

“My sisters were nice to me.”

“Sisters are supposed to be nice.”

“Not mine.”

Mike picked up a fifty-pound bag, slung it over his left shoulder, then squatted down to get a second bag. When he had one over each shoulder, he walked back to Sara. “So what did they say to you?”

“They said my mother is going to tell me sex stories.”

“I know I didn’t grow up here, but, Sara, isn’t that a little …”

She came back to the present and looked at him. He looked great! He wasn’t in a kilt as she’d thought he’d be but was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. But it looked as though her mother had been working him hard, because his shirt was drenched in sweat and it clung tightly to his body. She could count his abs.

In the next moment she realized that every other female there could also do the arithmetic. “I think I’ll get you a clean, fresh shirt.”

Mike’s eyes told her he knew exactly what she was thinking. “A shirt that’s twice as big as this one?”

“I wa

s thinking three times.”

“Gimme a kiss.”

She turned her head to maneuver through the bags, but Sara’s mother called, “Mike! Where’re those potatoes?”