Dick Cheney had a kid. Holy hell. I would file that under questions I would ask Jane when I wasn’t surrounded by birthday-party chaos.
“When are we going to start the Sasquatch hunt, Mom?” Danny called from the couch, where he and Dick were going over the Young People’s Guide to Cryptozoological Wonders, a softcover volume Jane had found in her shop.
“What’s a Sasquatch hunt?” Gabriel asked out of the corner of his mouth. “And will it hurt? Because if it hurts, I say we put Dick in charge.”
I grinned at Jane’s husband and wondered what karmic debt had been owed to Jane that she’d found a partner in life who fit her personality so well. The doorbell rang, distracting me. I opened the door to find a woman in peach nurse scrubs with unruly dark hair standing in my doorway. A tall man with sandy hair and a crooked smile was standing behind her, holding a bright blue gift bag.
“Sweetheart!” Dick crowed, hitching Danny on his hip and dashing across the room so fast even my vision couldn’t track him. He handed a squealing Danny off to me while he threw his arms around the brunette, lifting her off her feet with the force of his hug. “Oh, I have missed you so much, Nola. I think you’ve grown! Are these summer visits to Ireland really necessary? Can’t ya just tell the whole McGavock clan just to move their asses to Kentucky?”
“Yes, Pops, I’ll tell my Irish family to abandon their ancestral lands and move to the land of the Yanks because you have separation anxiety,” she said, her odd lilting accent muffled by her burying her face into his shoulder.
The sandy-haired man snorted at her comment and shook Dick’s free hand. “And you saw us a week ago when we got off the plane. And three days ago. And yesterday.”
“I know, Jed, I’m making up for lost hugs,” Dick said, not relaxing his grip.
“Is that your girlfriend, Mr. Cheney?” Danny demanded, his blue eyes narrowing suspiciously at Nola. “Because I thought you were married to Miss Andrea. I like Miss Andrea. She looks like a Disney princess.”
I had mentioned my son’s ability to pick up on potentially awkward social situations and zero in on them like a hawk, yes?
For a second, Dick looked completely horrified. Nola’s head popped up from Dick’s shoulder, and she let loose a great, braying laugh. Andrea took pity on both of them and said, “Danny, honey, this is Nola. She’s Mr. Cheney’s granddaughter. Several times great-granddaughter, but we shorten it for convenience’s sake.”
Danny’s eyes tracked between Dick, who was in his mid- to late thirties, and Nola, who was maybe pushing the bottom of that range. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“It is, trust me,” Dick assured him. “And I haven’t seen my lovely granddaughter for two months because she just had to go visit her family in Ireland.”
“Let it go, Pops.”
“There are some really nice rentals right here in the Hollow. They could relocate. You could get them a group rate,” he noted.
Nola’s voice was flat as she said, “Grandpa Richard.”
Dick winced and took Danny by the hand. He told him, “When she uses my proper name, that means I’m in trouble. Let’s go get you another cookie, huh, bud?”
“There are cookies?” Jed asked brightly, following them to the snack table. “Do I get a cool hat, too?”
“You brought me a present, so yes!” Danny crowed.
Nola closed her eyes and shook her head. “Give me strength.”
“The infamous Nola,” I said, stretching out my hand to shake hers. “Nice to meet you!”
Nola grinned broadly, snapping out of her prayers. “Sorry, we should have stopped in days ago, but I’ve been settling back into my work schedule at the clinic, which is always difficult after getting back to the States.”
“I’m glad to meet you. Jane said you were a nurse, but she didn’t mention the connection to Dick. I’m sure we’ll be taking advantage of proximity the next time Danny wakes up in the middle of the night throwing up.”
“Does that happen often?” she asked.
“One time, I did it off of Seth Perkins’s top bunk,” Danny boasted, running across the room and climbing up my leg. “It was amazing.”
“Not for the kid on the bottom bunk,” I told him, hoisting him onto my hip.
“Well, Danny, distance vomiting notwithstanding, happy birthday to you,” Nola said, extending her hand for a shake. “Thank you for inviting us. I’ve never been to a Bigfoot birthday party before,”
Danny shook her hand firmly and whispered, “It’s the perfect spot for one, and do you know why?”
“Tell me,” Nola said, grinning.
“Because there’s a Bigfoot living in the backyard.”
Nola’s dark brow winged up. “Really?”
Danny nodded. “Uh-huh, I’ve seen him out my window.”
Nola glanced up at her boyfriend and gave a sort of exasperated roll of her eyes. “You don’t say.”
“Yep. And we’re going to catch him tonight,” Danny declared. “Mom got all of the equipment.”
Nola grinned suddenly. “I’d say you have a better-than-average chance. Now, I didn’t have time to go shopping for a present, but I’d like to give you this.” She pulled a Mason jar from the blue gift bag with a flourish. An empty Mason jar.
Danny, who had been schooled thoroughly on the proper response to presents—any present—glanced up at me and smiled very sweetly before responding, “Thank you very much, Miss Nola. I can use it to catch lightning bugs.”
Nola offered him an approving pat on the head. “Well, what lovely manners you have, birthday boy. And it’s funny that you mention lightning bugs, because this jar contains a night-light.”
Nola put her hands over the jar and closed her eyes. She seemed to be muttering something under her breath, but even my keen vampire ears couldn’t make sense of the words. A warm, golden-green glow fluttered to life inside the jar, reflecting brightly in the blue depths of Danny’s eyes.
“Whoa,” he whispered. “What is that?”
“A very special night-light,” Nola told him solemnly. “Whenever you are in your room and trying to fall asleep, it will glow until you drift off. But be very careful with it. If you break the jar, it won’t work anymore.”
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“An old family trick,” she said. “Take good care of it, OK?”
He nodded, carefully cradling the jar to his chest and running up the stairs toward his room. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you!”
“How did you do that?” I asked her.
“Old family trick,” Nola repeated with a shrug. “Will you excuse me? I need to go talk to my wayward boyfriend for a moment.”
“Sure.” I watched her walk away and wondered what exactly she meant by “old family trick.” Was she a witch? A fairy? Were there other supernatural creatures out there besides vampires? It stood to reason that if we were real, there were other beasties out there, lurking in the dark. Maybe Danny’s claims to have seen Bigfoot weren’t so impossible after all.
I shuddered as the doorbell rang, and I opened it, expecting more undead revelers. Imagine my surprise to find Wade the Cranky Janitor standing at my door, cheerfully wrapped present in hand, standing behind the little boy my son had dragged around like a rag doll on school registration night.
What the hell?
My jaw dropped, and fortunately, I was left unable to say anything to hurt the little boy’s feelings. Wade’s eyes narrowed before he smirked at me. “Crazy closet lady.”
“Of course.” I saluted him. “Cranky maintenance man.”
“Charlie!” Danny cried, running across the living room and throwing his arms around his friend. “You came!”
The little boy grinned and hugged Danny. “Yeah! I’m excited! I’ve never been to a sleepover party before.”
“I’m real sorry we’re late,” Wade said. “Harley was having a problem with his inhaler, and we had to make a last-minute visit to his doctor. I didn’t want to take any chances b
efore a sleepover. I’ve got his sleepin’ bag and stuff in the truck. I thought I’d keep ’em there for a while. Give him a chance to bow out graceful-like if he changes his mind about sleepin’ over. This is new territory for him.”
I eyed Wade carefully. What did he mean by that? Was he really concerned about his son’s big-boy face? Or did he not want his son sleeping at my house because he didn’t want to leave him in my care? He had to have known whose house he was coming to when he saw the invitation. Oddly enough, I didn’t remember filling out an invitation for a “Harley.”
“Danny, I thought you said your friend’s name was Charlie.”
“I thought it was, too,” Danny said as he helped Harley shove a straw into a chilled Capri Sun. “By the time I figured out I was wrong, I was used to calling him Charlie, so I stuck with that.”
I turned to Harley, smoothing the strawlike blond cowlick from the back of his head. “Why didn’t you correct him, hon?”
Harley shrugged and sipped his juice. “I didn’t wanna hurt his feelings.”
“You don’t have to let someone call you the wrong name to be polite, Harley.”
“Oh, OK,” Harley said, nodding his head as if this was a big revelation.
“And Danny, make an effort to call him by the correct name. How would you feel if someone called you Fanny every day?”
Danny’s face twisted in disgust. “Ew, no.”
Harley snickered. “Fanny.”
Danny pointed a finger at Harley’s face. “Don’t even think about it.”
Harley pinched his lips together, but his little shoulders shook with repressed laughter.
“Harley, why don’t you and Danny go get some food? There’s plenty of hot dogs over there. Kerrianne will help you with your plates.”
“There are more adults at this party than I expected,” Wade observed.
“Not all of the kids came,” I said. “In fact, Harley is the only kid who came, so my friends are here to even out the room a little bit. You should know that most of the people here are vampires. So if that bothers you, you should find a way to make your excuses without hurting Danny’s feelings.”
Wade scoffed. “Hell, no, it doesn’t bother me. I know Jed from the gym. We went to Nola’s clinic once when Harley had an asthma attack. I’ve done some special modifications for Dick at my shop, which I’m not supposed to talk about ’cause of some paperwork I signed. They’re all nice enough.”
Nola’s hunky boyfriend walked over and handed Wade a beer. “Hey, man, come on in.”
“I thought you worked at the school. How do you find the time to work in a garage?” I asked.
Wade frowned at me. “I don’t work at the school. I’m a volunteer.”
“You clean the school for free?”
“I don’t actually clean the school,” he said. “I own my own shop, so I make my own hours. I’m at the school almost every day, mostly in the mornings. I help the kids take their reading-comprehension tests in the library. I try and fail to control the chaos in the cafeteria at lunchtime. And yeah, when the occasion calls for it, I help out with maintenance.”
“So why are you so territorial about the supply closet?”
“That’s where I keep my stuff,” he said. “You get thrown up on enough times, you learn to store extra clothes in a handy spot.”
“Yikes.”
He pursed his lips, making the golden-blond beard undulate over his cheeks. He nodded toward his son. “You’d think after nursin’ that one through every one of his stomach flus, I’da learned the signs of Vesuvius about to blow.”
I laughed, watching Danny drop an Outback hat onto Harley’s head while Harley scarfed down a hot dog. “It seems that our sons are inseparable.”
“It does.”
“So we might as well try to get along.”
“I s’pose.”
“Do you ever give answers with more than two words?” I asked. “I mean, I’ve heard you string together more words, but that was when you were yelling at me, so I figured that might be special circumstances.”
He smirked. “Sometimes.”
“Well, that’s still one word. But I’ll take it. Libby Stratton,” I said, offering him my hand.
“Wade Tucker.” He shook my hand, and I yowled in pain as my skin came into contact with something that burned and itched and stung all at the same time. Fangs sprung, I yanked my hand out of his grasp and stared at the dirty gray streaks across my fingers. I looked down at Wade’s hand and saw that he was wearing several silver rings.
“Huh,” Wade said, pursing his lips as I worked to get my fangs back into my mouth.
“It’s a problem,” I admitted, shaking my injured fingers. “OK, so you want to stay for a while and help us plow through an insane amount of beef jerky and foot-shaped cookie cake? Almost eighty percent of the guests cannot eat solids, so you’d be doing me a big favor.”
“I don’t think I can pass up an offer like that,” he said, shrugging.
I grinned and turned to the kids. “OK, boys, are you ready for your ‘Sasquatch hunt’?” I asked, using that hypercheerful voice only mothers who’d suffered through birthdays could fully understand. The boys abandoned their plates and bellowed a mighty hunters’ roar, dragging Dick and Braylen and Sam and Gabriel out to the backyard. The rest of us followed this brave battalion of cryptozoologists. I handed each boy his own binoculars with green Saran wrap over the lenses to make them look like night-scope goggles. They also got a flashlight and a butterfly net and beef jerky to sustain them on their perilous backwoods safari. Danny had his little camouflage digital camera strapped around his wrist, just in case he needed photographic evidence.
I wished I could accurately describe the heart-melting adorableness of fully grown, supposedly vicious vampires holding hands with little boys as they were dragged through the bluegrass, hunched over and searching for Sasquatch sign by moonlight. Wade and I followed at a casual pace. We exchanged grins every time the boys crowed over the clues. They loved the jerky wrapper I’d left by the rain spout, the faux fur I’d tangled around the rosebushes, the Swiss Rolls I’d dropped as Sasquatch scat. (Don’t judge me.) I tried to guide the boys toward the huge footprint I’d made in the softened earth just beyond the border of the yard, but my hints weren’t quite blatant enough. Before I could drop a more anvil-sized verbal clue, Danny yelled, “What’s that?”
In the distance, I could make out a tall, furry shape near the tree line, at least eight feet tall, with long, apelike arms covered in reddish-brown fur. Danny gasped, and the shape’s head whipped toward us. Its yellow-gold eyes flashed in the moonlight, and I sprinted across the grass to plant myself in front of the boys.
I clamped my hand over my son’s mouth and glanced around, wondering why the other vampires didn’t seem all that alarmed by the appearance of a Bigfoot in my backyard. Dick was freaking smirking at me. You didn’t smirk in front of Bigfoot. It was just asking for trouble.
I didn’t smell anything. It seemed completely wrong that this hulking, fur-covered creature was standing upwind of us and the only scent I could detect was a touch of sweat and Polo cologne. I stepped toward it, a growl forming on my lips, and Nola put her hand on my arm, smiling gently and shaking her head. “It’s OK,” she whispered. “Really.”
What in the flaming hell was going on here? Was this some sort of weird initiation into the vampire world? Social acceptance through cryptid pranks? Reluctantly, I loosened my grip on Danny and let him wander closer to the mystery guest.
“Look at him, Mom,” he whispered reverently. “He’s real.”
“Take a picture,” Harley hissed through the hand clamped over his mouth. I noticed that he’d hung back, clutching at my shirttail and watching the proceedings from around my hip.
“Oh.” Danny fumbled with the camera, but before he could raise it and hit the right buttons, the creature let out a low sound, a cross between a moo and a bark. He—I was assuming it was a he—made a strange hand-jerk ges
ture toward Danny and then lumbered into the woods.
It wouldn’t do, I suppose, for Bigfoot to pose for a selfie with the birthday boy.
“Let’s go after him!” Danny said, still trying to aim his camera at the retreating Sasquatch.
“Er.” I struggled to find the right explanation that wouldn’t scare Danny but would drive home the “don’t go running off into the woods alone in the dark” lesson.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Harley supplied. “It looked like he’s just eaten and taken a crap. He’s probably off to bed. You don’t want to interrupt a Bigfoot’s bedtime, Danny. It’s dangerous.”
“Solid logic,” I told Harley.
“Harley, we’ve talked about usin’ the word ‘crap’ like that,” Wade said pointedly.
“Sorry, he’d just taken a dump,” Harley amended.
I snickered but managed to hide it with a cough. I knew how much it annoyed me when other parents found Danny’s particular brand of “forthright humor” charming.
“Aw, man!” Danny cried, snapping a photo of our now empty backyard. “I could have had photographic evidence. But Mom, he waved at me. Did you see? He waved.”
“Bigfeet love birthday parties,” I told him. “They love cookie cake. It’s a scientific fact. And you know what? It’s almost time for cookie cake and presents. How about you and Harley go inside and wash your hands?”
“OK!” Danny dragged Harley back into the house. Wade’s poor son was going to have NBA-length arms come morning.
“That was awesome,” Jane told me. “You’re totally planning Jamie’s next birthday.”
“Darling, Jamie is almost twenty-one years old,” Gabriel said as he followed her through the back door. “He’s a little mature for streamers and goodie bags.”
“But I missed so many of his birthdays!” Jane protested.
Without a word, Wade wandered toward the tree line, as if he was considering following the creature into the woods. I might have worried, but Wade struck me as a particularly capable guy, as in, when the zombie apocalypse finally happened, I expected to see him rolling through town in a tow-truck-turned-tank, picking off zombies with a potato gun modified to launch grenades. And he would probably look crazy hot while doing it. Stupid effective cheekbones.