Marti: Seven Sisters Book Read online

  “That sounds strange. Everything turned out all right?”

  Marti shrugged. “As right as it possibly could have given the circumstances. Are we going back to the house the way we came?”

  He nodded. “Why?”

  “Race you!” Marti didn’t wait for a response and headed for the trail they’d forged coming out this way. She knew she needed a head start if there was any chance at all she could beat him back.

  He laughed and started after her, shaking his head at her antics. There was no woman on this earth more perfect for him, and he was sad she’d decided not to let their relationship go anywhere. He’d convince her otherwise, though. He had to.

  He let her beat him back to the house, knowing it would thrill her. “You cheated, though.”

  She shrugged. “I gave myself a head start because you’re so much more experienced on a snowmobile than I am.”

  “That would sound fair if you’d asked for a head start. But you didn’t.” He opened the door and led her inside. “We should eat in town while we’re there.”

  “Sounds good to me. I had soup for lunch.”

  “Soup’s good on a cold day.” He grabbed his keys from a hook where they were hanging. “Let’s go. We’ll eat supper and get you some boots and a coat. You definitely need your own coat.”

  “And gloves and . . .” She thought about how much money she had in her checking account, and she hoped it would be enough. She’d gotten her first paycheck from Michael and Heather, but she hadn’t had a chance to deposit it yet.

  “Come on, you.” He grabbed her hand and tugged her toward his truck, not thinking about the simple gesture. Once they were in, he turned the heat on high. “It’ll warm up in a few minutes.”

  As they drove, they listened to music, discovering they liked a lot of the same songs. “I don’t like the hard rock stuff,” Marti told him, “but I love most of the pop. And country. Country is good.”

  They sang along with songs, and the time flew by. When they reached the big city, where the Wal-Mart was, they headed into the store. “We only have a small feed store in town. You could get a coat, but it wouldn’t be a cute one, and I can tell you like cute coats.”

  “Well, yeah. Why wear something if you can’t make a fashion statement with it?”

  She found everything she was looking for, and a pair of cute leg warmers as well, and headed to the checkout. She’d added everything in her head a dozen times, and she should be under her budget.

  After she’d paid, they went back to the truck.

  “Let’s get food! What are you hungry for? Italian? Mexican? Something else?”

  “I’d love some Mexican, but I’m not risking my taste buds on Idaho Mexican food. And I totally forgot I was supposed to make you nachos today! I’ll do that after we sled tomorrow. Does that work?”

  He nodded. “But I’m not worried about eating tomorrow. I need to think about eating today!”

  “Fine. How about Chinese?” She had no idea if there was Chinese somewhere in town, but usually there was.

  “Chinese it is. There’s a good little buffet not far from here.”

  When they got to the restaurant, he immediately paid for both of them, and she thanked him. “I’ll pay you back.”

  “No you won’t. You’re with me, and even if it’s not an official date, I’m buying. That’s how it works.”

  She made a face at him, but at the moment she couldn’t complain too much. She didn’t have the funds to make a big fuss. They got their plates fixed, and she dug into the food. “Hey, this isn’t bad!”

  He rolled his eyes. “Why did you think it would be bad?”

  “Well, you guys can’t do Mexican, so I didn’t think you’d be able to do Chinese either. It’s a cuisine thing.”

  “Hush and eat your food.”

  She grinned, realizing she’d told him to hush before she’d said any other words to him. “I’ll think about it.”

  “You’re a pain, McClain. Anyone ever call you McClain the pain?”

  She chewed up her bite of food before responding. “Only once.”

  He laughed. She couldn’t be taller than five-two, and he was six feet. And she was acting like she was threatening him. It was downright amusing. “So you’re making me those special nachos tomorrow, right?”

  “Yeah. My sister Tracy made them up. They’re not really a traditional Irish thing, but she loved Irish food and Mexican food so much, she had to combine them. One day I’ll lure you back to Bagley, and you can eat at her pub. The food is amazing!”

  “I don’t think it would take a lot of effort to lure me,” he said with a grin.

  “Then we’ll do it. Soon.” She wanted to take him to Bagley and show him around town. Take him to the boys’ ranch that had been in her family for generations. Maybe take him to the Riverwalk in San Antonio, and they could wander up and down the walk and ride in the boat. There were so many special things she wanted to do with him.

  “I’ve only been to Texas once, and that was for Michael and Heather’s wedding. I don’t remember there being an Irish pub in town.”

  “My sister just opened it last month. It’s been her dream since she spent a year backpacking through Ireland and England. She’s talked about little else for years, and her dream is finally a reality.”

  “Is she married?”

  Marti nodded. “All my sisters are either married or engaged. Last woman standing!” She raised her arms in victory.

  He laughed. “Are you sure you want to be the last woman standing? I could lure you into my life with snowmobile rides and sledding.”

  “You could . . . but you respect me too much for that. At least for now. We’re going slow, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m not so good at slow.”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure I am either. But we need to be friends.”

  As she said it, another vision hit her, one of the two of them as an older couple, at least in their seventies, surrounded by grandchildren. He was holding her hand.

  “Are you sure you have no regrets?” he asked her.

  “I married my best friend. Who could have regrets?” was her response.

  She blinked a couple of times and frowned. Her future self, married to him, had no regrets. Not even about triplets? That was hard to believe.

  He waved a hand in front of her face. “Earth to Marti! Are you still in there?”

  “Just daydreaming,” she responded. She thought about telling him about the visions, but she just couldn’t. Maybe someday, but not now.

  They finished their meal in silence, and he led her to the truck. “What’s going on in your head? I thought we were all good now.” He couldn’t figure out why she went silent on him so often.

  “Nothing. Just thinking. Some of us do that from time to time.”

  “I think.”

  “Sure you do.” Marti settled into the seat and grinned over at him. “Have you thought about having steps installed on this truck? It’s a mighty big step up for those of us who are vertically challenged.”

  “Have you thought about growing an inch or two?”

  “Are you saying there’s something wrong with my height?”

  Josh shook his head adamantly. “I would never say that. You’re just pocket sized. Mind if I put you in my pocket and carry you around?”

  “Yes, I do.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I’m taller than some people!”

  “Like who!”

  “Like Heather! She’s the shortest of all seven of us.”

  “So you’re taller than a very short woman. Congrats!”

  She made a face at him, before turning to look out the window on her side of the truck. “Do you come into town often?”

  “About once a month for supplies I can’t get in town. I usually plan it in advance and ask Mom and my siblings if they need anything. Usually each of us comes into town once a month, so there’s one of us coming in weekly. Makes it so even if we forget something, someone is here t
o get it.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Bagley wasn’t a big town, but it seemed to have most of what you need. And how far is Austin?”

  “About thirty minutes. I hope Austin never grows so much that we become a suburb. I like having a quiet little town. It suits me.”

  “I can see that. Did you like going to school in Austin?”

  She shrugged. “Austin is the party capital of Texas. Don’t tell any of my sisters, but I kind of wish I’d followed family tradition and gone to A&M. Austin was a little too wild for my tastes. I ended up spending a lot of time alone in my dorm room because I didn’t do the party scene.”

  “That makes sense. How about roommates?”

  “After my first semester roommate overdosed on some drugs and spent the rest of the semester in the hospital, I decided it was time for me to live alone. I got a single room every semester after that.”

  “Wow. Yeah, I’d have probably done the same thing.”

  “Did you go to college?”

  “I did. I went to Utah State University in Logan, Utah. Good school, and it taught me a lot. I graduated from there.”

  “And? Do you use your degree? I had in my head that because I graduated with a four-point-zero, companies would roll out the red carpet for me.” She shook her head. “I’ve been job hunting for months and only had a few interviews.”

  “Didn’t your powers tell you that you wouldn’t get a job immediately?”

  She sighed. “I wish people understood better how my powers work. They only tell me what they want me to know. So I could sit all day trying to get a premonition about lottery tickets, and it would only tell me what color I’d wear the next day. Stupid power doesn’t do what I want it to do.”

  He laughed. “So will you give me the winning lottery numbers? Please?”

  Chapter Eight

  Marti was up through the night with Heather as usual, and once they were truly alone and the babies were sleeping, Heather asked how her day with Josh went. “Did you guys work things out?”

  Marti shook her head. “We’re going to be friends . . . at least for a while. We got me new clothes, and we had so much fun on the snowmobiles. I had to get new boots because yours were pinching my toes.”

  Heather shrugged. “My feet are dainty.”

  “So are mine. Yours are micro-dainty!” Marti shook her head. “We’re going sledding tomorrow, and I’m going to make him Tracy’s Irish nachos.”

  “Oh, yum! Make them for him, and then one day this week, make them for all of us. I can’t believe you’ve been here for two weeks and haven’t cooked those yet. Do you have any idea how much I craved them while I was pregnant?”

  “You could have made them yourself!”

  “I could have . . .” Heather said with a grin. “I’m not fond of making them. They take a lot of work.”

  “But it’s worth it if I do it, right?”

  “Well . . .”

  Marti rolled her eyes. “I’ll do it. Maybe on Monday night. Tell Amy not to cook anything, and I’ll make them. You don’t deserve it, but I love you.”

  “Have you had more visions?” Heather asked, bringing the topic back around to where she wanted it. Right smack on Marti and Josh’s relationship.

  “I have. I had one where he and I were old . . . grandchildren around us. And I told him I had no regrets. I guess that means that I came to terms with the triplets and all that, but I don’t see how that could happen. Not quickly anyway.”

  “Just don’t burn your bridges. I can see how he feels about you, and it’s pretty obvious you’re head over heels for him. If you do something stupid, I’ll have to disown you as soon as my babies don’t need you anymore!”

  “Very smart of you to wait. I can’t imagine you having to do the night shifts all alone again,” Marti said, shaking her head.

  “I’m nothing if not practical.”

  Marti went back to the laundry and ignored her sister. It was amazing how many loads of laundry four adults and four babies generated. She needed to get down on her knees and thank her mother for every load of laundry she’d done for her. Laundry was a boring, tedious task that needed to be done constantly. She wished she could just tell everyone to go naked, but she didn’t want to think about the messes she’d have to clean up off the floor.

  * * *

  When Marti got to Josh’s house the next day, he had two huge red plastic circles ready for them. “What are those? I thought we were sledding.”

  “These are my favorite things to sled on! I have some boring sleds that are normal, but these will spin us in circles as we go down.”

  “And if I get sick to my stomach?” she asked, her eyes wide as she tried to imagine sliding down a hill on one of the contraptions.

  “Then you get sick. We’re outside. No big deal.”

  She sighed. “I’ll give it a try. Can we take the other kind of sled as backup?”

  “Sure. If you’re that worried about it, we’ll take both kinds.”

  “Good.” Josh went to get another sled that looked more like what she was expecting. It was wooden with metal rails. “That’s more like it!” she exclaimed.

  “If you won’t trust someone who has been sledding since he was knee-high to a grasshopper, then I don’t know what to tell you.” Josh took her hand and pulled her toward his truck. “We’re going to sled at Amos’s. He’s got a hill that’s more accessible and better. Trust me. We’re going to do this right.”

  “Amos’s? Is he going to come out and start acting all weird again?”

  Josh shook his head. “I had Mom invite him to Michael’s for lunch so he would be distracted. By the time he gets home, we’ll be done.”

  “You’re a closet genius, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t you forget it!” Josh grinned at her as he pulled the truck out onto the highway and headed up the road to Amos’s.

  “Heather said you guys usually do big family dinners at least once a month,” she said, wondering when the next would be. It hadn’t been mentioned since her arrival.

  “Yeah, but we’re putting them off until Heather is a little less exhausted from the babies. Probably until about . . . oh . . . 1999. We had one the day you got here, but the girls couldn’t come, and then we figured it was too much anyway.”

  Marti laughed. “So when the babies are fourteen? I think they’ll be more work as teenagers, don’t you?”

  “That’s quite probably true. Can you imagine four teenage girls in your house all at once?” He shuddered.

  “I can. Remember I have six sisters. Heather, Jessica, Gaylynn, and Rebekah were all teenagers at the same time. Thankfully, I wasn’t fighting them all for the bathroom.”

  “Why weren’t you fighting them for the bathroom?” he asked.

  “By the time Heather moved out, I was nine. I was in my ‘no shower unless Mom strips me and throws me into the bathroom and bars the door until my hair is washed’ stage.”

  He chuckled. “I remember going through that stage. Thankfully it was over before I hit high school.”

  “Glad to hear it. I don’t want to have to think about you coming over with your hair hanging down in greasy sheets.”

  Josh stopped the truck in front of a large ranch house. Marti immediately unbuckled and opened her door. “This is Amos’s house? Nice.”

  “Not as nice as mine, though, right?”

  She laughed. “Are you in competition with your brother about everything?”

  “Well, yeah. What brothers aren’t in competition?”

  “I have no idea. But you two do seem to take it to ridiculous extremes.”

  “Yup.” Josh grinned at her, letting her know he knew how bad they were and he really didn’t care. He walked to the back of the truck and took out the two disks and the sled. “Let’s go do this thing!” He pointed off in the distance. “That’s our sledding hill.”

  “Okay!” Marti was glad she had boots that fit, because it looked like it was a decent length walk just to
get to the hill. Then they’d be trudging up and down it dragging sleds. This was going to be more work than snowmobiling.

  After her first run down the hill in the disk, she grinned at him. “Yeah, that was fun! I’m going to try the regular sled once and see which I prefer.”

  “Okay, but you should go down head first . . . on your belly. That’s the best way to use a sled.”

  “What if I break my neck?”

  “Don’t!”

  She rolled her eyes and grabbed the rope at the front of the sled, dragging it up the hill. He kept pace beside her with his disk. “This is so much more work than snowmobiling.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, but it’s worth it. It’s not safe to go down a hill at that speed on a snowmobile. It could easily flip on you. With the sleds, you just go, and if it does flip, you don’t have a heavy machine weighing you down.”

  “This is true . . .”

  When they reached the spot where they started sledding, which wasn’t really the top of the hill but rather a slight indention where it went flat for a few feet before a sharper incline, she put the sled down and gingerly got onto it. “Race you!” And she again took off without waiting for him.

  He laughed and jumped on the disk, riding it down after her but knowing he’d never catch up.

  When she reached the bottom, he crashed into her, knocking her backward into the snow. She laughed helplessly, laying under him sprawled on the ground. “Get off. You’re heavy.”

  “Are you hurt?” he asked. He wanted to laugh, but he had to make sure she was all right first.

  “No, not at all.” She giggled. “I can’t believe you knocked me down. You big oaf.” She pushed against his shoulder, trying to get him to roll off her.

  “I’m not sure I can get up without a forfeit.”

  “A forfeit?” She frowned at him, wrinkling her nose. “What kind of forfeit?”

  “I was thinking maybe a kiss.”

  “A kiss? But what if my lips fall off! They’re frozen, and if there’s pressure, they could fall right off into the snow, and I’d run around for the rest of my life, absolutely lipless!”