Page 19 of A Dark and Stormy Night

"But we have so much in common! He's my age. He's an electrician. He looks like me."

For the first time since Cecily and Landon had arrived, Gwen laughed. "He does not look like you." She placed her glass on the shelf next to canned tomatoes. She turned Mario's face toward hers. She ran her fingers through his dark, curly hair, looked into his warm brown eyes, and rubbed the stubble of beard on his deeply tanned skin. "Landon looks like a faded copy of you. His complexion is yellow. His hair is gray and lank and thin. You've got a nose that rides proudly on your face."

Mario touched it. "It's a big nose."

"A noble Roman nose. The tip of Landon's droops as if it is tired. And he's skinny."

"I am not skinny," Mario admitted.

"Women all over Virtue Falls would love to run their fingers over your broad and manly chest."

He chuckled deeply when her fingers followed her words. "You are a wicked creature." He captured her hands and kissed her palms, first one, then the other, then dipped his head in to kiss her on the lips.

But after twenty-two years of marriage, she could tell he wasn't really paying attention. "What are you thinking?" she asked.

He pulled back. "My cousin Landon is pussy-whipped."

She waggled her finger at him. "That is not politically correct."

"Sometimes my English fails me. How do you say it so it's politically correct?"

She didn't have an answer, and even if she had, it wouldn't have done any good. Mario ran their company with a firm hand and a low tolerance for inanity, and based on the hour Gwen had spent in Cecily's company, that woman specialized in inanity and, perhaps, malice.

"Cecily is Landon's second wife," Mario told her. "She was his secretary, then his executive assistant. Then his first wife divorced him and left town, and these two immediately flew to Las Vegas and married. I assume it was then she cut off his balls and put a chain through his hole punch."

Torn between horror and amusement, Gwen said, "Figuratively, I hope you mean."

"Yes, yes, I suppose. But I have no patience for men who let their women run roughshod over them."

She lifted her eyebrows at him.

"I am the boss here!" He thumped his chest with his fist. "As long as you let me be."

"Good that you realize that." Because she had a determinedly cheerful personality, she said, "Maybe it won't be so bad. They're only staying two days. Then we can have our lives back.”

Mario nodded solemnly. “Yes. Thank God.”

***

Landon planted his feet on the front porch. "We shouldn't walk into their house."

"Cousin Mario and Cousin Gwen both said to come over any time. This isn't any time, it's dinnertime." Cecily walked into the ground-floor entry of Mario and Gwen's home. "And I'm hungry."

Landon didn't move. "Here it's only five o'clock."

"My stomach says it's seven o'clock. Are you coming or not?"

"Let me ring the doorbell so they know—"

Cecily got back there in time to grab Landon's wrist. "Absolutely not. I want to know what they're up to."

"They're not up to anything. They live here!"

"Then it won't matter if I come in." Cecily squeezed his wrist and winked. "Come on. Maybe we'll catch them doing the wild thing."

"I don't want to catch them doing the wild thing." But Landon followed her in.

Before he could loudly slam the door to let Cousin Mario and Cousin Gwen know they had company, Cecily rubbed up against him and fanned his check with her lashes. "What do you say to us doing the wild thing later?"

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