“Fix the situation we find ourselves in.” He sat up, taking the warmth of his body with him.
“Where are you going?”
He pulled on his pants and as he fastened them, he looked at her,smiling mischievously. “Sit tight. I’ll be back.” He walked to the door of the studio, but he turned back as he tucked his shirt into his pants. “Can you leave very quickly if this works out?”
Amy got off the cot. “You would be amazed at how quickly I can leave.”
“Good.” He left.
Amy watched him jog up the steps in the sleet. She felt both sad and excited. Sad that this would all come to an end. Excited that this man was going to fix something for her. For once, it was not her doing the fixing. It was almost enough to make her believe she was falling in love.
23
Harrison entered the house through the mudroom to a surprising silence. He expected to hear arguing or, at the very least, cackling. He approached the kitchen warily, hoping to find they’d gone out rather than discovering them all murdered. It really was hard to explain the silence.
No one was in the kitchen. But nothing was disturbed—the nutcrackers were still standing sentry. The mistletoe was still hanging from the arch. “Silent Night” was drifting through the rooms.
He moved through the kitchen and into the living room. There, the mystery was solved. The Posse, minus Barb, was standing at a window, along with Amy’s brother. Their attention was on something outside. No one noticed his entrance. “Hello?”
Carol whipped around. “Sssh,” she said, waving him down, as if he was speeding toward them.
“They can’t hear us, Carol,” June said.
“But they might see us,” Carol responded.
Amy’s brother turned from the window and eyed Harrison curiously. “So my dad says you’re a golfer?”
“I am,” Harrison said.
“I’m Kevin. Kevin Anderson.” He came forward, hand extended.
Harrison took it. “Nice to meet you.”
“I never met a pro golfer before.”
Harrison expected that statement to be followed up with questions about golf, as that’s the way it usually went when someone met their first professional golfer. But he was not expecting Kevin to ask, “So what exactly is up with you and my sister?”
Fortunately, June stepped in to answer for him before anyone else could take a breath. He’d noticed that June was especially good at answering for people.
“Nothing is up, Kevin,” she said, her tone suggesting it was a stupid question. “They just double-booked the house.”
“Technically, they triple-booked,” Carol said.
“Except the first two were the mistake. We were an add-on no matter what,” Melissa chimed in.
“Wait…what?” Kevin asked.
“Hello,” Melissa said, looking around at the rest of them. “We’re losing focus here!”
“Right,” Kevin said.
They all turned back to the window.
As it was clear that no one was going to fill Harrison in on whatever they were losing focus of, he moved forward to see for himself, standing behind June so he could peer over the top of her head.
Barb and her husband were sitting on the covered deck, side by side, facing the gray sleet and the lake. Neither of them moved save the occasional head tilt or hand shift. “What’s going on?” Harrison asked.
“We don’t know,” Carol whispered. “They were absolutely furious with each other and went outside. I thought they might come to blows! But things seem to have settled down.”
