Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

“Yes, darling, very.”

“Do you miss me?”

“Terribly.”

Her sigh was loud.

“I’ll be there tomorrow,” he told her. “And we’re staying with Aruna and Liam; they at least have a guest room.”

“Hey,” I growled.

“And I’m going to kick the crap out of you when I see you,” he warned me.

“If you can get through the Green Beret to me, more power to you.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Ian’s a Green Beret?”

I grunted.

“Huh.”

“Yeah, huh.”

“Well, Liam will help me.”

“Have you met Ian?” Liam asked.

Ned cleared his throat. “I’ll be there in the morning, and God help you if my flight’s delayed.”

I really hoped he’d have clear skies. “I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

“I need you all to go away so I can speak to my wife.”

Liam took it off speaker, and Janet took his phone and walked into the living room, curling up on one end of my couch.

“He loves her,” Aruna said, hand over her heart. “It’s sweet.”

“Do I get to eat any curry?” Liam asked her as she made me a plate and added the dill rice I loved that she’d made special.

“I don’t know, are you sure you want it?” she asked sharply. “Your mother didn’t.”

“For crissakes, woman, that’s not what she said.”

“Oh?”

I wanted to hear the explanation as well.

He huffed out a breath in exasperation. “She said since you were going to make the Indian dishes, that she would make the traditional ones so you didn’t have so much to do.”

She nodded slowly. “Because I can’t do both. Because it was finally my year to host, and now she’s going to horn in and cook.”

“No, she was just trying to help because you work, plus you take care of Sajani.”

“She didn’t ask Karrie if she needed help last year, and Karrie has two kids, Liam, two, plus she’s a full-time graphic artist, so…. Where’s the disconnect here?”

“Maybe Karrie wanted help too.”

“She did, and she asked me, not your mother! When it’s finally your turn to have the whole Duffy clan over, you don’t want to mess it up! But your mother is just waiting for us to crash and burn because then this experiment will be over, and she’ll go back to hosting all the holidays at her house.”

“Well, sweetie, she is the matriarch of the fam—”

“Who complained every year for years that it was so much work, and so we all agreed to the rotating holidays, and now this year, when it’s finally my turn, she needs to help me because my dishes are too ethnic?”

He made a noise of pure disgust. “That’s not what she said!”

“She hates me.”

“Oh, she does not.”

“The acid that drips from her voice when she speaks to me could etch diamonds,” she said flatly.

I lost it.

“Oh God,” her husband lamented.

“You know what, you can go over there and eat with your family, but Sajani stays with me. We’ll be here eating with my family.”

“We went to see your family in Dallas last year.”

“Well, I’m lucky I have family there too. I have you, Sajani, Miro, and Ian here, and that way I’m never alone, even if I never lay eyes on your mother again.”

His smile was defeated and gentle at the same time. “You realize you counted me in with our kid and the boys, right?”

She glared at him. “Of course I did. You belong to me. Why wouldn’t I include you?”

He moved then, fast, and grabbed her, scooping her up off her feet in the princess carry, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned in and kissed him.

It was not a PG kiss, and when she leaned back to smile at him, I saw that he was flushed.

“I’m still not going over there, even if you sex me up.”

I choked on my curry.

Liam groaned.

And Aruna looked very pleased with herself.

When Ian and Sajani and Chickie came home right before the sky opened up and dumped down rain, Ian asked what he’d missed.

“Not too much,” Aruna assured him, swapping him a plate of food for her daughter. “Eat something. You’re too thin.”

He glanced at me.

“Just eat.”

After I fed Chickie, I got a call from Barrett. I let it go to voice mail, as well as the other four.

“Oh shit,” Aruna announced. “I need marshmallows. Crap!”

Sometimes it was a domino effect. Ian needed beer, and Liam was more than ready to go with him to get that. Janet wanted some things from the store because now Ned was coming, and there was a grape salad that was his favorite thing in the world. But Chickie had eaten, so he had to take his constitutional.

“I’ll stay here,” I told everyone.

No one moved.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you know I’ll be fine.”

But no one was moving, especially Ian, who crossed his arms as he looked at me.

“Oh come on.”

He didn’t move an iota.

“May I remind you that there are two FBI agents on our front curb.”