I rolled my eyes. “Dad doesn’t freak out.”
“He’s checked his watch forty-two times in the last fifteen minutes.”
I snorted. “Okay, that sounds more accurate.”
Sunday dinner was sacrosanct in our home, and I was four minutes late. And by late, I mean, wasn’t there by four p.m. to help my mother with the table setting. Or whatever. We didn’t actually eat until five, but even though we’d all flown the coop, so to speak, we were all expected to be home at four on Sundays no matter what we were doing, period. Every Sunday, every week without fail, so today’s conversation was going to be a tough one.
Because I was moving out of the country. It was temporary, but they would see it as forever, and they were going to lose their minds.
You see, my father was an uber Catholic, Ronald Reagan worshiping, high-ranking admiral in the U.S. Navy, and he didn’t like it when I went up the street alone. He and my mother had been married for more than forty-five years. He was twenty, she was eighteen when they tied the knot, and my brother came along ten months later. After that, my mother pretty much got pregnant every time my father washome for any period of time. We had been raised partially in our historic home in Bethesda, Maryland, and our other home in Camden, Maine that had been in my mother’s family since it was built in 1830.
There are six of us, all named after amazing historical figures. Well, my siblings are, anyway. My eldest brother, Grant (named in honor of Ulysses), Lincoln (named in honor of good ol’ Abe), Theodore (in honor of Roosevelt, of course), Sinclair (in honor of Upton Sinclair), Sherman (named in honor of William Tecumseh Sherman) and then me. I’m the baby, and I was a surprise.
And I was named after… wait for it… Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Yep, no world leader or important American historical figures for me. Oh, no, I’m named after the protagonist in the book my mother read at least once every few years to get her cry on. I’d read it one time and one time only. What a massive bummer. Literary masterpiece, sure, but how much horror can one woman endure? Lordy. No thank you. I will stick to my D.W. Foxblood and Clay Morningwood happy-ending romances and will not apologize for them.
To say my parents set me up for my current career (at least in their eyes) is an understatement. I scout for Hollywood filming locations. I don’t actually do that, but it’s my cover story, and helps to explain why I travel so much.
“Mom wants you to make the rolls,” Sinclair said.
I frowned. “From scratch or did she buy the premade ones?”
“She bought the pre-mades.”
“Okay, good. I was about to open a can.”
“Oh, please.” Sinclair snorted. “Like you’d ever open a can of whoop-ass on either of our parents.”
“One can dream,” I breathed out, following her to the kitchen.
“You are so weird, Tess.”
“So you keep telling me,” I said.
“Why is she weird?” Grant asked.
“Because she has such violent thoughts.”
I rolled my eyes as my brother laughed. “No, sissy, it’s weird that you don’t.”
“Right?” I retorted as I stepped to the sink and washed my hands.
“Oh, good, you’re here,” Mom said as she breezed into the kitchen holding a small wicker basket. She wrapped me in a warm hug and kissed my cheek. “Happy Sunday, my darling.”
“Hi. I understand I’m on rolls.”
“You are.” She set the basket on the island and placed a dish towel inside. “You can put them in this.”
“Okey doke.” I finished with the rolls and slid them into one of her four ovens, then faced her. “Are you sure you don’t want me to make pie while I’m at it?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Where are you going and for how long?”
I sighed. “Europe. No more than five or six months.”
None of that was true, but my mother was on a need-to-know basis, and she most certainly did notneed to know.
“What?” Mom screeched. “Six months?”
Dad came rushing into the room. “What happened?”
