Goddess of Love (Goddess Summoning #5)(80)

In the shadowy stairwell of Vulcan's domain, Hera smiled smugly and padded silently back up the stairs.

"Hey Capt! One of your sisters is here."

Griffin looked up from the stack of inventory papers he was trying to make sense of. Why in the hell didn't the grocery money ever balance?

"What?" he barked. Had Robert said something about one of his sisters?

"Wait, scratch that. All of your sisters are here!"

"Shit!" Griffin cursed under his breath and pushed up from his dilapidated office chair. What were all of his sisters doing here? Like that wouldn't cause a damn stampede of testosteronefilled idiots. He checked the clock as he hurried from his office. Venus would be there in less than an hour. Plenty of time to get his sisters out of there, settle the men down to dinner and take a much-earned private break with her. But first things first.

He rounded the corner to see his four sisters sitting in Sherry's cherry red Mustang GT

Convertible - with the top down (did it have to be so damned warm for the end of February?), with half of the damn station slumped around the car eyeing the giggling, flirting girls like prime rib.

Well, in theory he had plenty of time. Time and his sisters often existed at the opposite ends of the world.

"Griff! Hey! We thought we'd come by to remind you of our date tomorrow." Sherry waved at him and smiled like she was Miss America.

"How about you and I have a date tomorrow, sugar?" said a young fireman in a brand new spotless uniform.

Griffin glared at the new recruit. Damn punk had ears that were still dripping wet. He'd never so much as sniffed a real fire, and here he was coming on to Sher?

"How about you finish cleaning the latrine and then you and I will have a talk about why you don't call my sister sugar," Griffin said with a growl.

The new recruit shoved his hands in his pockets, muttered an apology to Sherry, a "yes, sir" to Griffin and hurried back into the stationhouse.

"Okay gentlemen, the show's over. Go on about your business."

Reluctantly the crowd around the Mustang broke up. The men called good-byes to the girls as they shuffled slowly back to the cards and Sports Illustrated magazines they hadn't really been interested in to begin with.

"Griff, you're just a big fat ball of no fun." Alicia pouted.

"And just exactly why can't that adorable young thing call me sugar?" Sher asked.

"Because, as you have explained over and over to me during most of the thirty plus long years I've know you, terms like sugar and honey and sweetie pie are derogatory to women."

"I said that?" Sher asked Stephanie.

"Constantly." Stephanie nodded.

"Was I talking about adorable young firemen?"

"Apparently not," Kathy said.

"I didn't think so, because I really don't feel degraded. So there must be exceptions to - "

"Why are you girls here?" Griffin interrupted before she built up any more steam.

"We were just passin' by, and like Sher said, we thought we'd stop in and remind you that you're supposed to change our oil tomorrow," Alicia said with a chirp.

"Our oil? As in four cars?" Griffin scowled at his sisters.

"You said you would," Alicia said.

"Not all in one day!"

"But, big brother, you can do anything!" Stephanie beamed at him.

"And I'm cooking," Kathy said.

"Ribs?" Griffin felt his annoyance begin to fade.

"Ribs with garlic mashed potatoes," Kathy said. "I also managed to get my hands on some early sweet corn for corn on the cob."

"And I'm bringing the beer," Stephanie said.

"Import or that grocery store crap?"

Stephanie looked totally offended. "Import, of course."

"I'm making pineapple upside-down cake for dessert," Sherry said. Griffin couldn't stop the slow smile. His sisters annoyed the crap outta him sometimes. They could be a pain in the ass. But they sure as hell knew what he liked.

"So, let's say my place, tomorrow at five-ish?" Stephanie said.

"Yeah, all right. You bribed me into it."

His sisters laughed and broke into enthusiastic applause.

"Now get out of here before you make some poor, unsuspecting fireman lose his mind."

Sherry put the Mustang into reverse, and as it rolled backward she called, "Hey! You can bring your new girlfriend."

"Yeah!" Alicia yelled. "We like the goddess."

"I'll see what I can do," he told them, and waved and shook his head as Sherry laid rubber on the street in front of the station.

Vulcan chuckled. Griffin's sisters were amusing nymphs, and they adored him. What would it be like to have a large, boisterous family where everyone cared for each other? Where sisters joked with their beloved brother and families ate together, loved together, raised children together and were there for each other as they grew old and passed on to the afterlife?

It would be wonderful.

Vulcan could see Pea fitting into a family like that seamlessly. Griffin DeAngelo was only a man. He didn't have vast powers he could wield at will. He didn't have a realm of his own. He wasn't an immortal. But Vulcan envied him with an intensity that caused the pillar of fire to crackle and hiss.