I rolled my eyes. We weren’t a bloody comet that only passed by the Earth once in a millennium.
I wanted to get the picture done, but Marie wouldn’t move until Clare, my meddling mother, was next to her.
I put my arm sharply around Darcy’s waist and left it hover there, making sure to barely touch him.
I refused to look at him as the side of his warm, hard body moulded against mine and his intoxicating scent surrounded me.
Damn.
Why did he have to smell so good?
“We haven’t seen this type of picture in nearly a decade!” Marie suddenly stated, making Jess, who had come up beside her, laugh.
“You both look great together,” Jess commented just as my mother appeared.
My flesh and blood, a.k.a. my cow of a mother, squealed, “Oh, don’t they just.”
To which I growled, “Don’t.”
Jess smirked, my mother ignored me, and Marie pretended the camera suddenly wasn’t working just so Darcy and I would have to stand next to one another longer. She thought she was being clever, but she was just being obvious.
Well, to me she was, anyway.
Darcy suddenly grunted. “Come on, Ma, you turned it off. So just turn the fecking thing back on.”
I mentally snorted.
Okay, so he knew what she was up to as well.
“Don’t rush me. I birthed you so I can unbirth you just as quick!” Marie snapped at Darcy, making Jess laugh.
I glared at Jess, who only continued to beam in our direction. It was honestly starting to freak me out, so I switched my gaze to my mother, but when I saw water pool in her eyes I quickly made Marie my focal point.
Bloody women.
“Okay, both of you smile,” Marie said in a cheerful voice, then huffed, “and don’t force it, Neala!”
I inwardly rolled my eyes but did as asked and smiled wide – and because Darcy didn’t get told off I imagined he did the same. I flinched a little after the flash went off, but I quickly snapped out of it.
“Oh, my goodness!” Marie beamed. “It’s beautiful. I’m framing this!”
“Me too!” my mother gushed.
“Oh, my God,” I grumbled as I quickly dropped my arm away from Darcy and took a step to the left.
My freedom was short-lived, though. My mother shot forward and pushed me back against Darcy, which surprised me and caused me to stumble. I was even more surprised when large hands gripped my waist and kept me upright and on my feet. The feeling of his hands on me caused my pulse to spike and my heart to race.
“Careful,” Darcy murmured, his voice surprisingly soft, as he pulled away from me once again.
I brushed myself off with my hands and mumbled, “Thanks.”
I blinked when I realised those were the nicest things Darcy and I had willingly said to one another in years.
Wow.
My mother’s giggle got my attention.
“Sorry, baby, but I want pictures with both of you . . . with Sean.”
I glared at my mother. “You’re pushing it.”
She just smiled at me like she had no clue what I was talking about, but of course she did, because she knew everything. The witch knew Darcy and Sean were on my hit list and she wanted me in close proximity with both of them? She really was testing a girl’s restraint.
“Sean!” my mother shouted.
I don’t know how he heard her over the punters in the pub, but Sean popped up behind Jess and rubbed his neck as he said, “Yeah, Ma?”
My mother snapped her fingers at him. “Picture time with Neala and Darcy now.”
Sean hesitated as our eyes locked.
He swallowed and shook his head. The worry on his face made me happy. He was scared, and he should be.
“Sean, don’t make me ask again. Get in the picture with Neala and Darcy.”
Sean paled visibly as he stepped around a laughing Jess and walked in our direction.
“Please don’t hit me,” Sean muttered as he came up against my left side.
I gritted my teeth. “No promises.”
My mother was exasperated as she gave the lads orders on where to put their hands on my body. They were both told to place their hands on my back and lean into me, because I was considerably shorter than both of them. I blew out a breath when their hands pressed against me. Someone told us to smile.
Sean’s hand was in the middle of my back, and Darcy’s was on my lower back. I knew this because I was acutely aware of how close to my arse it was.
“Stunning!” Marie gushed.
Suddenly Justin’s voice sounded in my ear, and I could feel the lads start to pull away.
“Don’t forget me.”
Our mothers squealed with delight.
Justin placed his hands on Sean’s and Darcy’s shoulders and rested his chin on my head.
“Smile!” Marie shouted proudly.
We did as ordered, and when the flash went off I couldn’t help but groan.
“Was that the last one?” I asked.
I felt a hand nudge my back. “Don’t complain about getting in pictures with family, kid,” Justin said.
I didn’t want to seem disrespectful, so I kept my mouth shut.
“No, it’s not the last one,” Marie stated. “Now one with you all and Jess, since she is legally joining the family in a few short months.”
I smiled to myself. Sean and Jess were a brilliant couple, but had worked hard to get to where they were. When they met, they’d had a one-night stand and Jess had got pregnant with Charli right away. They had decided to stay together and make a go of a relationship for Charli’s sake, but they soon fell in love and seven years later they were still together and on their way to marriage.
“Where is Sarah?” Marie’s voice cut through my thoughts. “I want a group photo of all of you together.”
I growled at my mother as Jess pranced over to Sean’s side. My mother shouted Sarah’s name, and like Sean she appeared out of nowhere and stood behind me with Justin.
“Okay, big smiles, everyone. This is one for me wall,” my mother said excitedly.
I couldn’t help but smile at my mother’s excitement.
Her ‘wall’ was the one along her hallway in her house. She had a pretty big house; the hallway was very long and pictures covered its entire wall. It looked beautiful, but only the nearest and dearest pictures went up onto the wall – and if you were in one that made the cut, you knew you were being honoured by my mother – and by Marie, because behind every decision my mother made was Marie, and vice versa.
After the final flash from the camera I stepped away from Dumb and Dumber and surged towards my mother. “Where is me da?” I asked.
She waved towards the back of the pub where the plasma screens were. “Back there – he’s watching some football manager’s documentary. I don’t know.”
Without a word to anyone I took off in search of my father, because he had something I needed, something I’d asked him to bring. Something that would partially get Darcy back for what he’d done to me over the past few days, and also something that would lead to my getting the doll back.
I found him right where my mother said he would be, watching a football documentary with his friends while drinking – it was a pub we were in, after all.
I moved over to my father and leaned down. “Did you bring it?” I asked.
Darcy’s father, Jimmy, smiled and shook his head as my father discreetly reached into his shirt pocket and took out a strip of tablets.
“No more than two. You’ll cripple the lad otherwise,” my father said without looking away from the plasma screen.
I smiled; he was all for me getting revenge on Darcy, but he didn’t want him severely hurt. My father loved Darcy; he thought of him as a son. But I was his baby girl, so when I’d rung him in tears (fake ones, by the way) and explained how Darcy and Sean had robbed me of Charli’s Christmas present, meant for his precious granddaughter, he was bothered and more than ready to
help me get revenge – and also get the doll back.
He came up with a deadly idea, and even though it was old-school, it was still gold. It wouldn’t harm Darcy, only his pride, and it would help me get the doll back. All I had to do was execute my plan perfectly.
Jimmy laughed out loud, which got my attention. “Feck him. He deserves whatever’s coming to him after the stunt he pulled. I’m with you on this one, Neala.”
I high-fived Jimmy, lovingly patted my father on the back, then turned and went searching for Darcy so I could put the laxative tablets to work. My plan was to give Darcy the shits for two reasons.
One, he deserved crippling stomach pain and ring burn for stealing the doll from me. Two, it would guarantee he had to go into the toilets and stay there for a long time.
Once Darcy was resigned to a painful night in the pub toilets, I would then happily head to his lodge farther up the mountains, break into said lodge – let’s see how he liked it – and get the doll back.
Everybody wins.
Well, everybody except Darcy.
Darcy didn’t get to win at all.
CHAPTER NINE
I scanned the pub for the tenth time in the thirty minutes since the forced picture-taking had ended. Actually, being next to Neala wasn’t too bad, because it meant I could keep my eye on her, but now that I couldn’t see her chocolate brown–haired head anywhere, it made me uneasy.
It was Neala’s turn to strike, and that meant I couldn’t drop my guard.
I was one hundred percent certain she knew I had taken the doll from her apartment. I just didn’t understand why she hadn’t outed me to everyone, or at the very least got me on my own to attack me over it. Christmas was in four days’ time, and I knew she needed that doll for Charli, so she couldn’t afford to wait around; she had to come at me sooner rather than later for it. The when was a question, but the how was an even bigger one that played on my mind.