Picnic in Someday Valley (Honey Creek #2)(35)

She’d opened that anger at him. Nothing seemed right between them, so any subject was on the table to fight about.

Colby must have felt the same way, but he changed the direction of the argument. “Anyone ever tell you that you are the worst driver in the state? If you were on the highway, I swear I’d pull you over. You’ve broken three laws and you’ve only gone three blocks.”

She was too exhausted to defend herself. “Then get out, Colby.”

“No way.” He sounded just as tired and just as angry. “If you kill us both, I want to tell you ‘I told you so’ when we get to the hereafter.”

She slammed on the brakes in front of Widows Park. Colby hit the dashboard.

“You really should wear your seat belt.” She stepped out.

“I had to jump into a moving car to get in. I figured you already had your best chance at killing me. When you wreck, I wanted to be able to crawl away.”

She didn’t wait for him to come around the van. She started toward the house.

As they walked up the drive, Piper noticed the drapes were drawn. They were never closed during the day. It was a house rule. First one up at dawn opens all downstairs drapes.

Something was going on. Piper could feel it. Something was terribly wrong.

She started running and darted for the side door. Colby was five feet behind her when she reached the study.

The sight before her chilled her to the bone. It was worse than she could have imagined.

Aunt Morgan was dealing cards on a hand-carved Lincoln dining table loaded down with empty beer bottles. Aunt Dee sat beside her, counting her chips.

Piper stopped breathing and stared.

Two men lay on the Persian rug her grandparents had brought back from Paris. Both men looked dead. Another was under the coffee table, looking like an improbable version of Sleeping Beauty in a glass coffin, and six more men were sitting in dining chairs wearing only their underwear. No, five had on underwear. One must have forgotten his because he was covered by one of Linda’s hand-embroidered tea towels. The last fisherman, tall and bony, was standing in the double doors leading to the kitchen. He was wearing what looked like long johns that might have survived the gold rush.

“Anyone want some more cheese and crackers?” he offered. He was eating off the tray as he served.

Piper started hyperventilating just as Colby looked over her shoulder. His reaction to the scene fresh out of an old Gunsmoke episode was to laugh.

She jabbed him in the ribs.

All he did was smile and rub his side. “Morning, kids,” he said to the seniors. “You guys having an all-night poker game? Hope you’re not betting with money. It’s illegal in this state if the house takes a cut.”

Half of Colby’s relatives played a round of poker now and then, and none used chips.

“We’re not illegal.” Piper’s Bible-thumping aunt Morgan stood up and used her teacher voice. “We’re playing strip poker. I’ll have you know, no money is involved.”

Colby couldn’t seem to stop smiling.

If Piper hadn’t been about to faint, her aunt’s comment might have pushed her over. She crumbled, suddenly boneless. Colby’s arm circled her waist a moment before she hit the ground.

The room began to fade.

Vaguely, she was aware of everyone at the table rushing toward her. Well, everyone but the guy with the tea towel. He stood up for a moment, but then just sat back down.

Piper welcomed the blackness. Maybe she’d wake up and all would be normal. This could be some kind of hallucination. No sleep. Nothing to eat. Being panicked with fear most of the night. Twenty cups of coffee.

Slowly, as if coming out of a deep well, she began to hear voices, then a tiny bit of light shone from beyond her closed eyelids.

“Piper, can you hear me?” Colby now sounded worried. “Piper!”

She didn’t answer. But she heard her grandmother say, “She used to hold her breath when she was a little thing. First few times we all got upset and tried to keep everything calm around our fragile little Piper. Then the doctor told us she did it just to get her way, so her grandfather told everyone to leave her alone. Let her faint, then she’ll start breathing. Of course, unless she breaks her nose. If that happened, blood would be everywhere and we’d never get the poor child married off with a smashed nose. He was just kidding, it was his way, but Piper never held her breath again.”

Colby had to ask, “Because she wanted to get married?”

“No. She can’t stand the sight of blood.”

Piper decided she’d just stay down in the dark well. She didn’t want to wake. Colby just learned her worst two secrets. He’d never look at her as the mayor again. All he’d see was that little girl holding her breath or afraid of blood.

Aunt Linda lifted Piper’s head and inched a throw pillow under her chestnut-colored hair while Colby used more pillows to elevate her legs.

“She’ll come around.” Piper’s practical grandmother added, “Men, your clothes are all washed and dried. Why don’t you get dressed before she wakes? The sight of those hunky bodies might make her faint again.”

They all laughed and shoved their hairy, wrinkled, baggy bodies back into clothes.

Piper heard Colby ask, “How come all you men are naked and all the ladies are fully dressed?”

“They cheat,” one chubby man who seemed hairy from his toes to his eyebrows said. “But we didn’t mind. Let ’em look.”