I GOT UP SLOWLY, MAKING sure not to put too much weight on my bum foot, and snuck out into the hallway where I found a bathroom. Stepping inside, I emptied my bladder and did the best I could to fix my hair. It was pretty much a hopeless case. I had no brush to smooth out the lumps and bumps, and when I took my elastic out to try and tighten the ponytail I’d put in earlier, it broke.
“Dammit.” I stared at it, wondering if I could knot it back together and try again.
“Hello?” came a voice from the other side of the door. It was the woman who’d given me the Gatorade. “Andie? Can I get you anything?”
“Uh, no, thank you. I’ll be right out.” I rubbed a wet finger over my teeth, trying to get rid of the sour sleep taste in my mouth, and washed my hands. Before walking out the door, I took one last look at myself; I was a sunburned, tangle-haired mess. Why Mack wasn’t rushing to sign the papers was some kind of weird mystery. If I were him, I’d be doing everything I could to get my sorry-looking butt out of here.
I walked out of the bathroom to find the older woman waiting patiently in the hallway.
“There you are. Did you sleep okay?” she asked.
“Um, yes. Sorry about that.” My face went redder with embarrassment. “I only meant to take a little catnap to get rid of that dizzy feeling, but I must have really dozed off.”
She put her hand on my shoulder and gently but firmly guided me down the hallway in the opposite direction of the living room. “You were all tuckered out. It’s perfectly fine for you to take a nap here, it’s not a problem at all. We were just sitting down to an early dinner and thought you’d like to join us. My name’s Maeve by the way.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “Dinner? With your family?”
“Well, yes, sweetie. We eat as a family here, every night.” She smiled warmly. “It’s kind of a tradition. Our boys have always been the type to run out the door with friends and work and everything else, but one thing we always insisted on was dinner at home, all of us at the table with no television, no phones, and no radio. Just eating and talking and hopefully laughing but sometimes a little bit of yelling happens too.” She gave me wry grin. “Comes with the territory of having all men in the house.”
I smiled, despite my panic. “That’s nice. The eating together part, anyway.”
“We like it.” She pushed on me to make me move, but I stayed put.
“I’m sorry, is it your ankle or your foot?” She looked down at it in concern.
“No, it’s mostly fine now. But I don’t think I should eat dinner here, though. I appreciate you inviting me, but I think I’d prefer to just get a bite in town.”
“Oh, no, I insist,” she said, pushing me more firmly.
I moved because to do otherwise would have been rude. Besides, it was very possible that I’d need this woman to intervene on my behalf, so getting on her bad side would be seriously counterproductive. “I guess if it isn’t any trouble...”
“No trouble at all. I’ve never learned to cook for less than ten people.”
“Ten?” I squeaked out. The closer we got to the next room, the louder the voices became. Are there ten people in there?
“Sometimes we have that many. Tonight it’s just the four of us, Boog, and you. But since I cooked for ten again, we’ll have leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch. I hope you like ribs.”
My stomach chose that exact moment to growl like a bear. Ribs were one of the guilty pleasures I allowed myself about once a month from a local eatery that specialized in authentic pit barbecue.
She laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes. Come on. I’ve put you across from Gavin.”
We turned the corner together and my feet slowed as I took in the scene before me. Maeve and I were the only females in the room. The rest of the space was taken up by giant men. Not one of them could have weighed less than two hundred pounds, and Boog himself was almost twice that, with hair enough for a couple wookies.
It was easy to see where Ian and Mack got their good looks. They were a perfect combination of their parents, getting their large frames and square jaws from their father and their hair color and smiles from their mother.
As soon as they realized I was in the room, the smiles disappeared. The talking stopped and all eyes were on me.
Boog turned around to see what the silence was all about. He was the first to speak. “Well, there she is. Sleeping beauty rises from the dead.” He chuckled and went back to gnawing on the bone he held in his hand.