Snowbound Halloween (4 page)

She parked her little Escort where she always did next to Nick’s truck in the back of the lot near the big trees waving in the wind. The sky was pretty dark for this early in the evening, but it shouldn’t matter once she was inside with Nick and the customers. She turned off the engine, got out of the car, smoothed the purple front of her wizardess costume and fought off a smile. From the very first time she had seen the painted mages in Nick’s collection of old lead miniatures, she had imagined dressing up as one in a party like this, and tonight that fancy was finally coming true.

Then Thea remembered the pregnancy test she had taken this morning and her high soaring spirits came crashing back to earth. No matter how successful tonight might be, it didn’t change the fact that tomorrow she’d have to tell her boyfriend about their child.

Her boyfriend…the words drummed home the severity of the situation Thea had put herself in. She was thirty-eight, pregnant and not even engaged to be married. She lived with her very religious mother who was completely dependent upon her to pay the bills. In an absolute best-case scenario she was going to have to live with the
shame
that this pregnancy would cause her mother being shoved in her face every day for the rest of her life. And it wasn’t going to be a best-case scenario. Nick might say he loved her, but he was a young man obsessed with building his business. There was no way he was going to stand by her through this.

Not that she really needed him, Thea decided as she started across the parking lot. She was thirty-eight years old. She was fully capable of taking care of herself and her baby—no matter what load of shit her mother and sister were about to shovel on top of her.

Pulling this newfound confidence in place like a new hat, Thea ducked against the wind and hurried into the bar.

Thea stood still for a moment, her eyes adjusting to the gloomy conditions and the discombobulating flash of the strobe light. Well over one hundred people were already standing about drinking and fully two-thirds of them were in costume.

As her vision slowly adjusted to the gloom, one of the regulars spotted her. “Oh, Thea, I think that’s even better than Nick’s costume!”

Thea couldn’t help but smile at the complement. She’s put a lot of evenings into sewing these outfits and she was really proud of the end products. “Thanks, Margie! I love your skeleton suit too. It’s especially effective with the black light highlighting the bones like that.”

The costume did look good. Margie drank a little too much beer for her figure but the dark cloth that formed most of her costume hid the excess flesh from casual observation.

“Why thank you!” Margie said as she spontaneously hugged Thea.

“Margie, tell Thea we need two more beers over here,” Matt Dunne called out from a nearby table.

Margie turned on him with surprising vehemence. “She just walked in the door! Hold your horses, why don’t you?”

Thea couldn’t figure out why Matt and Margie were together. They didn’t actually appear to like each other very much, but since this was a bar and Nick and her wanted everyone to drink as much as possible she sided with Matt on this one. “That’s okay, Margie. I don’t mind getting the drinks at all.”

She slipped away and hurried up to the bar where Jim, Nick’s other bartender was filling drinks. Thea could work behind the bar too now that she had passed her exam and earned her license, but she really only worked at The Church Key as a way of spending more time with Nick so she didn’t usually work a shift alone.

“How’s the weather?” Jim asked her. It was almost an oxymoron to say that he looked worried. Jim was born worried, and if his biggest fear was being caught in a snowstorm—hurricanes, thunderstorms and basically any weather systems involving wind and rain were only a little bit lower on his list of fearful things.

Even in her bad mood, Thea had to suppress the desire to tease Jim lest he panic and quit for the night right now. “It’s not bad,” she assured him.

The front door banged open. “I cannot believe how windy it is out there!” a tall man who appeared to be dressed as the tin woodsman from
The Wizard of Oz
shouted. “Brrrr! And the temperature dropped about ten degrees in the last half hour. I feel bad for any kids trying to get candy tonight.”

Even in the poor lighting, Thea could see Jim’s face blanch.

She placed a reassuring hand on his arm. “Oh come on, it’s not that bad.”

“But he—”

The tall man finished bounding across the room and gave Thea a quick hug. “Hi, Thea, Bob’s parking the car. Are Patty and my parents here yet? Where’s Nick?”

Thea hoped that Nick’s older brother wasn’t smearing her costume with silver paint. She pushed at him futilely—Nick’s whole family was overly affectionate—and wondered for a moment if Nick and her child would be more like Nick and the Morrows or more like Mom and Thea’s sister, Becka. The comparison didn’t help her revive her good spirits.

“Let me breathe, Tim!” she said a bit more forcibly than necessary. “I don’t know where Nick is and I haven’t seen your parents yet!”

Tim backed off without looking like his feelings were hurt in the slightest. “You are going to love our costumes,” he announced.

He spread his arms and whirled around to make his point. He wore a funnel on his head like a cap, and had built the rest of his tin woodsman suit out of spray-painted cardboard. “What do you think? I still think you and Nick should have been Dorothy and Toto.”

Thea rolled her eyes, feeling a little bit of good spirit squeezing back into her soul despite her best efforts not to react to Tim’s cheerfulness. “I thought your mother wanted us to be a bride and groom.”

Tim flashed her another grin. “She can dream, can’t she? I don’t know if you’ve noticed this yet, but Mom is really ready for some grandchildren.” He leaned down and whispered conspiratorially. “I don’t think she cares if you and Nick get married before you start having them.”

Thea froze, her hand moving instinctively to her belly, but Tim had no idea he’d just stuck a nerve. He straightened up and started looking around for his brother. “You sure you don’t know where Nick is?” he asked.

Thea couldn’t answer him. She imagined for a moment getting kicked out of her mother’s house and moving in with Nick’s parents. It should make her feel better to know that the Morrows probably would welcome her even if Nick freaked out and broke up with her—but somehow she didn’t find the thought comforting. There really was such a thing as being
too
welcoming. It was like an old Bing Crosby song about the Donovan family that Nick had played for her on St. Patrick’s Day.

“Is it really getting bad out there, Tim, or are you just messing with me?” Jim asked.

The words pulled Thea back into the present. She hoped Tim wasn’t going to make this evening even harder by scaring Jim away.

Nick’s brother placed his silver hand over his heart. “It looks like snow to me, Jim, but what does an old tin woodsman know about such things?”

Jim looked at him quite seriously for a minute, then scowled and shook his head. “That’s not the kind of thing you should be joking about,” he muttered before turning back to the taps.

Thea told him Margie’s order as the front door opened again, admitting the scarecrow—Tim’s new boyfriend. Nick appeared a moment later in his knight’s costume—tunic, leggings and flowing cloak. He looked incredible, his long blonde hair adding to the medieval ambiance.

For a moment, she was tempted to pull him aside and tell him everything—trusting that her handsome boyfriend really was ready to be a father and a husband to the baby and her.

Then Jim called to her from the bar and sanity reasserted itself.

She left Nick to play host to his brother and used work as an excuse to put some space between them.

Chapter Four

Ron and Kara arrived twenty minutes later, dressed as Frankenstein and his bride. Thea was impressed by how well Kara pulled off the costume. She hadn’t realized her cousin had that much of an exhibitionist streak in her. It wasn’t that her costume was revealing, but putting her hair up like that and adding a few strategically placed scars and stitches made her look very sexy. And Ron…well Ron would be a hunk no matter what he was wearing.

They stopped for a kiss on the cheek and then Kara sent Ron off to convince Nick to make them black and tans to drink. Then she immediately took advantage of her fiancé’s absence to pull Thea to the side where she could shout over the music and still not be overheard by anyone they cared about.

“What was wrong this morning? You turned your phone off! Do I have to get Ron and Travis to work over Nick for you? I’m not going to put up with him hurting my favorite cousin!”

The suggestion that Kara would actually arrange to have someone roughed up was so absurd that Thea started laughing. She couldn’t help herself and it felt good. After a day of increasing worries, it felt wonderful to let her guard down and simply enjoy herself for a moment.

“Oh, Kara, that is so—damn, I’m glad you came tonight!”

Kara still looked seriously concerned. “What happened between you and Nick?”

Thea wasn’t ready to tell Kara yet—not here where they had to shout to hear each other. Not here in the bar where there really couldn’t be any secrets. “It’s nothing!” she lied.

One look at Kara’s face made it clear that Thea’s explanation wasn’t going to hold water. “If you don’t want to tell me here, then let’s go out to Ron’s car. Come on, it’s obviously bothering you. I’m sure you’ll feel better if you can talk about it.”

Thea wanted to do that very badly. The immensity of her secret was smothering her. But she wasn’t certain she could keep it together after telling someone and she couldn’t afford to start crying here at the bar.

She offered Kara a compromise. “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow, okay?”

“Thea, we’re family,” Kara reminded her.

“I know,” Thea assured her. “I promise I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”

Kara opened her mouth to protest again, but Thea preempted her. “I have to get back to work, okay?”

She served two Sam Adams to the werewolf and Little Bo Peep. They made a cute couple—especially on Halloween. The werewolf—or maybe he was simply supposed to be a
wolf—
had pulled back his mask and was wearing it on his head like a hat so that it didn’t interfere with his drinking. Thea didn’t know them, which was a little bit unusual and further evidence that the party was working out great for Nick.

The front door opened again and Jo Taylor entered—all dolled up as a football player sans helmet. She had the black gunk smeared beneath each eye, shoulder pads beneath her jersey and tight little pants that really showed off her waist and presumably her ass.

Thea immediately pushed through the crowd to give her a hug. “Jo! You did come! You look fantastic!”

Jo’s laugh was higher pitched than usual, showing off a lot of nervousness. “I said I would, didn’t I?” She looked around her uncertainly. “It’s a lot more crowded than I expected.”

Thea suspected her younger friend was getting ready to back out, which would really be a shame since she’d already come all the way out here. She’d have to do something about that. “Yes, it’s going great! Come on, I want to introduce you to someone and then I’ll get you a drink.”

Jo perked up right away. “A
male
someone?”

“That’s right,” Thea told her. She felt good that Jo had come tonight—especially since she’d done so by herself. “You don’t mind a younger man, do you?”

Jo immediately began to look suspicious. “How much younger?”

The expression on the oral hygienist’s face was so comical it perked up Thea’s spirits. “We’re in a bar, Jo. How young could he be?”

Charlie suddenly loomed in front of them wearing a hockey jersey over his t-shirt. “Hey Thea, how do you like my costume?”

Thea didn’t follow sports that carefully and had no idea if Charlie was dressed as a generic player or thought he looked like someone in particular, but she knew what to say in this situation. “You look great, Charlie? You need another drink?”

He raised his glass. “No, I’m good.” His eyes shifted to Jo. “Is this your friend?”