Joy gave him her patented affronted mother look. “I haven’t uttered a word.”
Jack was about to speak when Belle put in, “She hasn’t.”
Jack looked down at Belle to assess if she was lying in a misguided attempt to assist his mother or if she was serious.
With one look, he knew she was serious.
He found this mildly surprising.
However, considering the sum total of melodramatic femininity which was currently housed under his roof, he didn’t find it troubling.
“I didn’t say anything to Rachel or Lila either,” Joy added. “You, and your father before you I might add, always get so foul tempered when I even mention it. So I usually don’t bother.” She turned to Belle and added conversationally, “Though, it’s a fascinating story.”
“Mum,” Jack warned when he felt Belle’s body tense at his side.
“Well, it is,” Joy defended.
“It doesn’t matter. They scare Belle and I don’t want you saying another word,” Jack asserted.
Joy turned to Belle. “Oh darling, there’s nothing to be scared of. I promise, they’re actually quite –”
“Mum!” Jack clipped sharply and Joy jumped.
“Um, I hate to interrupt your chitchat but my daughter is freaking out!” Lila called from down the hall while walking toward them. Her eyes were on Jack. “And you better do something about it, my man, because she’s upstairs, in Belle’s room, packing her things, mumbling about haunted houses and how her pregnant daughter was getting as far as she could from this creepy place.”
“Fucking hell,” Jack muttered.
At the same time, Belle mumbled an alarmingly experienced, “Uh-oh.”
When Lila arrived at their group, Jack made a swift, acutely irritating but necessary decision and asked, “What does she drink?”
Lila blinked up at him and parroted, “Drink?”
“Rachel,” Jack went on with slipping patience. “What does she drink?”
Lila looked at Belle and mumbled, “Better question is what doesn’t she drink?”
Belle giggled, it wasn’t with humour but with nervousness and Jack’s patience slipped further.
“Lila,” he said low and her gaze snapped to him.
“I’d say this was a tequila moment,” Lila answered.
“I think we have tequila,” his mother informed them quickly.
“Get it,” Jack ordered and looked at Lila. “You get Rachel.” Then he told them both. “Meet us back here in the study.”
“Gotcha, big man,” Lila said breezily and moved down the hall.
Joy looked at Jack and asked, “What are you going to do?”
Jack pulled Belle closer to his side and answered, “I’m going to do nothing. You’re going to tell the story of Myrtle and Lewis.”
Before she could think better of it even in the face of Jack’s visibly slipping patience, Joy exclaimed excitedly, “Oh goody, I’m going to call Yasmin.”
“If you call Yasmin, I’ll break your fingers,” Jack clipped out his empty threat with as much menace as he could muster which was rather a lot at that juncture.
Joy ignored the considerable menace and smiled radiantly at him. “No you won’t, darling.” Then she looked at Belle and confided, “Yasmin loves this story. She’s never seen Myrtle and Lewis but she’s dying to. She’ll be so jealous.”