Page 10

Ten

I motored into my parking space only five minutes late. Kudos to me for showing up almost on time with an iced coffee, breakfast sandwich, and a sparkly attitude. The sparkle was mostly due to the half-day Saturday work schedule and the new intel Ace found.

Mary, the office manager, and Paulina, Eli’s chiropractic assistant, stood hands on hips, staring at the phone.

“What’s the matter?” I put my coffee on the desk and bit into my breakfast sandwich.

“Someone keeps calling and hanging up.” Paulina motioned at the phone like it was a rodent they had cornered.

“Did you check the caller ID?” I chewed my way through the words. “Maybe it’s a patient trying to schedule?”

“Nothing comes across the ID.” Mary twisted her mouth into a disgusted scowl.

“It’s like a ghost calling us with a message from the outer banks,” Paulina said.

A shiver ran up my spine, followed by a piece of breakfast sandwich falling out of my mouth onto the desk.

“The outer banks are in North Carolina.” Mary looked at the half-chewed sandwich on her desk and then narrowed her eyes at me. “You gonna clean that up?”

I scooped the runaway bite into a napkin. My stomach got all squishy with the mention of a ghost.

The phone rang again. Mary snatched it off the hook. “Dr. Cloud’s office. How can I help you?” Her tone a mix of sarcasm and strained sweetness.

“Listen.” She shoved the phone at me. Paulina stuck her head next to mine. Heavy breathing came from the other end of the line.

“Ewwwe.” Paulina leaned away.

Mary pulled the phone back to her ear. “Is that you, Bob?”

“Who’s Bob?” I mouthed at Paulina.

“Bob’s the stalker.” Paulina pumped some hand sanitizer into her hands as if the breather had somehow contaminated her through the phone line. “He’s the vertically challenged, skinny accountant who’s been stalking Helga.”

Helga, the office’s German massage therapist, was six feet tall, ate raw eggs for breakfast, and won some kind of wrestling championship back in her home country.

“Really?” I threw away the rest of my sandwich. “If a man was stalking Helga, he’d have to be brave.”

“Or insane.” Paulina giggled. “She’d squash him flat as a fritter.”

Mary slammed the phone into the receiver. “He’s not much of a man. Don’t know why Helga’d want to bed that one.”

“Who am I to bed?” Helga rounded the corner, her shoulders barely passing through the doorway to the front office.

“That Bob’s been breathing on the phone again.” Mary sent Helga an accusatory glare.

“Not Bob.” Helga shook her head. “I bed him last night. He still sleeps from time vit Helga.” Her face split into a wide, post-coital grin.

“That means we have a new stalker.” Mary rolled her eyes to the ceiling as if this job came with unnecessary problems.

“Or a ghost,” Paulina added.

I hoped it was Bob, or a new stalker, and not Marco calling from the great beyond. Was that even a thing? I picked up my coffee and left the front office and the talk about ghosts behind. I found my brother sitting on the floor repairing a piece of equipment.

“Whatcha doing?” I scooted back on the therapy table across from his makeshift mechanics.

Eli pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked at me with vigilant blue eyes a shade lighter than our mom’s. “The intersegmental traction machine threw a belt. I’m fixing it.”

“Impressive.”

He studied me a second. “Victory asked me if you were OK.”

Victory was my other roommate. She had adorable twins and was currently visiting Aunt Itty at Fantasyland in Florida.

“When did you talk to Victory?” I slurped the last of my iced coffee and wished I’d supersized it.

“Last night.”

“Are you two,” I paused a minute, trying to figure out how I felt about Eli possibly dating a time traveler who spent years of her life stuck in the 1800s as a slave on a cotton plantation. “Dating?”

“I wouldn’t call it dating. I mean, she’s had a lot to deal with since she returned to our time.”

“I’d say.” She was held hostage by the crazy Mafusos, gave birth to twins, and almost drowned in my living room.

He picked up a wrench and cranked something on the table. “She’s not ready for a relationship, but we talk on the phone, and we take the twins to the park.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and wasn’t even sure why. Victory was a beautiful, intelligent woman, and I should be happy my brother liked her, but she could predict the future and had scary visions, making her just shy of being labeled a clairvoyant. Having her dating my brother and being a potential sister-in-law made me uneasy.

“Jen?”

“What?”

“I asked if you were all right?” He paused with the wrench in his hand and his elbow balanced on his knee. I had told Eli about Marco. He respected my choice to time travel and I respected his decision not to, but occasionally he offered his brotherly advice.

I chewed the corner of my lip. “Did Victory have another vision?”

“No. Just a feeling that you were going on a journey. And something about another trip to the ocean. A trip I hope whoever travels as your defender doesn’t summon you to help.”

Damn.

“Can I have Monday off?” I paused when he stopped and looked up at me. “The jump is on Tuesday, and I know I’m already off the rest of the week, but I need the extra day to prepare.” What I didn’t say was I didn’t have a defender. I’m the primary on the mission, and I needed to hunt down my invisible boyfriend and ask him if he has a secret map.

“Sure. Paulina can cover. We’re not swamped on Monday.” He turned back to the broken table, tapped something metal with the edge of the wrench. “Are you going to Sunday dinner?”

Double-damn with a mental head slap. I’d been so focused on Marco that I’d forgotten about Sunday dinner at my parents’.

Family dinners were always on Sunday. I’d missed many of them when I became a time traveler. The full moon didn’t care that my family held dinner on Sunday. I had to make a choice. Help save the world or have pot roast with my parents.

“Of course.” I tried to sound confident, like I had planned to go.

He cut his eyes at me. “You forgot.”

I glanced down at my empty coffee cup.

“Before you run off on another dangerous ocean adventure, you should see the parents. Dad’s smoking a brisket, and that means mom’s potato salad and baked beans with those tiny pieces of pineapple.”

It also meant homemade chocolate cake for dessert. My stomach grumbled.

“You’re thinking about the chocolate cake, right?” Eli grinned, and his dimple cut deep into his cheek.

Eli rarely ate what Gertie called the three F’s: fast food, fried food, and feel-the-fuck better food. The last one included ice cream, moon pies, and anything with the word chocolate in the ingredients. But he loved my mom’s cooking. Everyone loved Mom’s cooking. It wasn’t uncommon to have a houseful on Sunday afternoon for what my dad dubbed “Linner,” or lunch and dinner rolled into one.

“Yeah. I’ll be there. Tell Mom I’m bringing Gertie.”

“What about the Scot?” Eli stood and moved the top of the traction table back into position. “I saw him at Uncle Durr’s wedding.”

“He’s working.”

The bell rang on the front door, signaling patients had arrived. “Time for work.” I slid off the table and threw my cup in the trash.

Eli tested the table. It made a whirring noise. The roller began moving horizontally up and down the table. “That ought to do it.” He picked up his tools. “Let’s get crackin’.”

I finished my last ultrasound for the day—-a sturdy woman who worked a farm and had five kids under ten. Rubbing a wand over someone’s butt wasn’t exactly the most glamorous job in the world, but the patient swore it made her feel better.

“Thanks. Between you and Dr. Cloud’s adjustment, I’m right as rain until next month. It’s from milking the cow. All that leaning over business makes my ishies hurt,” she said, sliding off the therapy table and buttoning her jeans.

“My pleasure.” Lordy, I never want my ishies to hurt, whatever that is. I initialed her chart, walked her out to the checkout area, and waved to Mary. She pointed at her watch and made the clock-out sign.

I gave her a salute.

Paulina stopped me on the way out. “I heard you were off next week for a romantic rendezvous with your Scottish boyfriend.”

“Yeah. We don’t see each other often.” Not a total lie.

“I want to hear all the details.” She winked at me as I walked away. “See ya when you get back.”

“I hope so,” I called to her.

Her eyes widened with a look of questionable concern.

“I mean, see you too.”

“Hey Jen,” Eli caught up with me at my car. “I forgot to tell you, Cousin Darryl is coming to linner on Sunday. He’s got a special announcement and wants to tell the family.”

My palms went clammy. “Oh jeez, he’s not proposing to Ragina, is he?”

Ragina, whose name is pronounced like vagina and Gertie sometimes calls her that, was my arch nemesis in high school. She’d sprayed Stickum on the toilet seats, stolen my boyfriend, put half-eaten cherry Gummy Bears on my chair the day I wore white pants, and shared her lunch of special delivery pizza with everyone except me.

Her helicopter parents brought her fast food every day for lunch. Eating a soggy PB&J when there’s a scent of a giant pepperoni with extra cheese drifting down the cafeteria table from you was depressing. She’s currently dating my cousin Darryl and making every day miserable for me.

Eli’s face showed surprise. “Darryl’s got single guy syndrome. He always says he’s not cut out to be married. Why would he propose?”

I eyed my brother with an isn’t-it-obvious glare. “She’s not putting out. She’s withholding sex from him. He was complaining about it yesterday. Now he’s going to do something stupid.”

“Maybe they have more in common than you think.” Eli shrugged with his palms up.

“Let’s pray he’s asking Dad for a loan or donating a kidney to a homeless person.”

“Aren’t you overreacting just a little?” Eli quirked a smile at me.

“No. If Darryl pops the question, the pressure will be on from Mom. She can’t stand it if all Aunt Loretta’s kids are married before hers. She’ll freak out. She’ll hound us every minute of every day.” I breathed out a contemplative sigh. “At least you’re older than me.”

Eli stood motionless in the parking lot. He knew I was right.

I sent him a cheeky grin. “See ya Sunday.”