Page 137 of Mark my Words

I knew she meant well, but I had to bite my tongue to tell her he’d missed family gatherings before because he was trying to create a successful future for himself. But he’d warned me about her sometimes passive-aggressive commentary. And that it was mostly harmless.

As she released him, her eyes caught mine. She quickly pulled Sam behind her, opening her arms as she stepped toward me.

“Kristine! It’s so great to see you again. Maybe we can get to know you a little better this time.” She wrapped her arms around me, surprisingly strong despite my being at least five inches taller than her. “Now that you two have come up for air.” I thought that she was done, but she wasn’t. “I know I couldn’t stay away from that Langley wood when we first started dating either.”

“Mom,” Sam scolded, but she smiled wider, waving her hand at him to leave her alone.

“How do you think you got here?” she teased, winking at me. “Langley men are virile too. Hope you two are using birth control. Unless you’re ready to give me a few more grandbabies, not that I’d be opposed to that.”

“Not right now,” I squeaked, glad I was religious about the birth control shot I’d started getting in lieu of the pill. I knew it wasn’t foolproof, and I’d recently begun to think about long-term plans with Sam, but I wasn’t ready quite yet. “Maybe after we’re thirty.”

“We’ll see. Five years is a long time,” she smiled, patting my arm as she released me, turning back toward Sam. “Get that knife away from your father. He’s not ruining the meal with another trip to the ER. I told him Brad was on his way over here, but he’s squirrelly and got the knife from the cabinet before I noticed.”

Sam, ever the devoted son, relieved his dad of the sharp implement, laying it down on the counter while he reached down to unbutton his cuffs, methodically folding his sleeves up his toned forearms. Before I could ogle my boyfriend anymore, an older version of Sam stepped into my line of sight, holding out his hand. I didn’t see any fingers missing, but I wouldn’t argue with Sam’s mother about knife safety.

“She’s not as scary as she appears. Don’t let her steamroll you. She means well, but she’s not known for her tact.”

“Thanks for the warning,” I said with a smile, shaking his hand.

He pulled me in slightly, leaning down to whisper in my ear. “But she’s right about the virility thing. You might want to wrap it before you tap it. Isn’t that what the kids are saying nowadays?”

Before I could respond, the back door to the house swung open as a crowd of people filled the small kitchen. I could see that the Langley genes ran strong, Sam strongly resembling his sisters. I recognized Becca, who’d been at the wedding, and a few of their voices seemed familiar, but they paid me no mind, filling up the rest of the counter space in the kitchen with various covered dishes.

The chaos continued as the sound of the carving knife drowned out the voices, Sam expertly wielding it to carve up the large bird sitting on the stovetop in a roaster pan. It was oddly arousing to watch him, but I kept it under a lid, trying to figure out who was who as I eavesdropped on the conversations going on around me. Sam had prepped me with details of his sisters and all of their families, but now I felt like I might have needed an illustrated family tree to keep it straight.

Despite my attempts to blend into the background, I was unsuccessful, my eyes catching Sam’s as his sisters seemed to turn as a pack and set their sights on me.

“We’re stealing your girlfriend,” one called over her shoulder as she hooked her arm in mine and started walking toward the door to the hallway. Sam smiled at me from across the room, winking before he returned his attention to his task.

“Don’t bother fighting,” another sister teased as they led me to another door, revealing a staircase as it opened.

“Down the stairs, Kristine.” I was a little freaked out as they surrounded me, dragging me into their lair.

Their lair turned out to be a large finished basement, one half filled with a large sectional couch and the other piled high with toys and various baby equipment.

“How was the drive over?” Another asked as she sat down to my left, pulling a leg underneath her to face me. “I know when we lived in the city, fighting traffic on a holiday was a nightmare.”

“It was good. Not as bad as traffic in Manhattan on Thanksgiving.”

“Don’t scare her with a ton of questions,” another chimed in, settling on the other side of the large couch. “They just got here, and you haven’t even introduced yourself.”

“The whole reason we dragged her down here was to ask her questions. It’s not like Sam has given us many details to go on. But his mood seems greatly improved over when he first moved back.”

Seeming to remember their manners, they went around, introducing themselves. I’d met Becca briefly at the wedding, Claire had been the one to run point on the grand gesture, but I’d only heard about the other two, Alison and Fiona.

“Tell us about yourself,” Fiona encouraged, crossing her arms and settling back against the cushion behind herself. “Why exactly would you give up a promotion to follow Sammy out here?”

That question was easy. “Because I love him. The promotion was nice, but after a few weeks, I knew I couldn’t live without him and didn’t want to.”

My answer seemed to open the floodgates to their easy acceptance, and their postures relaxed, the conversation flowing easily as they fed me embarrassing stories about Sam’s childhood, making sure I knew all his dirty secrets. While I’d feared gaining their approval, it had been easy. As long as I loved their baby brother, they’d treat me like part of the family.

“Mom!” The little boy from the front door came thundering down the stairs, the flour mostly missing from his damp hair. On the other hand, the water gun was still gripped tightly in his small fist. “Nana said it’s time to eat. She made me help Felix set the table, but he had it handled. That little brown noser didn’t want to share the ice cream she promised us after dinner.”

“Alex,” Claire scolded, shaking her head. “We have company. You could behave yourself and let her believe I haven’t raised a pair of savages.”

“I could,” he agreed, shrugging. “But that sounds boring. It was more fun to shoot water at Uncle Leo’s crotch and call him pee pants.”

Fiona burst into laughter, clearly entertained by her husband’s run-in with his nephew.

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