Anger and irritation battled for top billing as I finished the article. “How is this news?”
“It’s because of the doc. It did big numbers over the weekend.”
I should never have agreed to sit down and talk about that stupid curse. I’d only done it because it seemed important to my little sister Cheyenne.
A thought occurred to me as I stared down at the paper. Was that doc or the article why Melody was calling me out of the blue? She hadn’t lived in Firefly for over fifteen years so if I had to guess I’d say that she must’ve seen the documentary that had just premiered on Netflix.
“Hey, look on the bright side. No press is bad press. Maybe it will be good for business,” Billy reasoned.
“Which one?” Billy ran Southern Comfort, the bar that my brothers, sister, and I had inherited when our father passed away. Jimmy owned a charter boat business, Firefly Ocean Tours. And I owned Comfort Construction.
“I was talking about the bar, but I guess all of them.” Billy continued. “And don’t worry, as soon as the next season of Bridgerton comes out we’ll be old news.”
“Bridger-what?”
“You really do live under a rock.”
Maybe. But I liked it that way.
I heard a voice in the background before my brother added, “Oh, and Reagan wanted me to remind you about your fitting.”
“I’m not the one ya need to be remindin’.” Our little brother Jimmy hated putting on anything other than shorts, flip-flops, and T-shirts. When our daddy passed he’d bitched and moaned over wearing a tie. Now he was gonna have to wear a penguin suit for Billy’s wedding and he wasn’t happy about it.
“He’s there now. Isabella dragged him kickin’ and screamin’. And don’t worry, we’ll be old news soon.” Billy disconnected the call and I flipped it back to the front page and read the byline.
Stewart Davenport
I should’ve known it was that idiot Stewie who wrote the article. He was the conductor on the Firefly Trolley Tours and talked about the damn Comfort Curse on each tour he gave since the first stop was Abernathy Manor.
My blood was boiling as I stood and poured my now cold coffee into the sink. I resisted the urge to put my fist through the wall. The article wasn’t wrong, I was known for fighting. I hadn’t gotten into a brawl since I was in my early twenties, but that didn’t mean the impulses weren’t still there.
There was a knock at the door and it startled me. I didn’t get many visitors or any at all out here on my private slice of the island. My brothers were basically it and since I’d just hung up with Billy that left Jimmy. Although it didn’t sound like his signature break-the-door-down knock.
He was either here because he’d seen the paper or he wanted to complain about the tuxes that Billy had chosen. I was in no mood to listen to his whining, but I knew that ignoring him was futile. He’d keep knockin’ till I answered.
I scrubbed my hands over my face and checked my watch. It was only eight a.m. and I was ready for this day to be over. Between the message from my ex and the damn article, all I wanted to do was take a shot of Jack and go to sleep.
Before I’d made it two steps another knock came from the door.
“Comin’!” I shouted.
Before Pop died, there’d been an open-door policy at Casa Comfort. But after I inherited our family home, I’d enforced a locked-door policy and changed all the locks. As the oldest of four kids, I valued privacy. My brothers weren’t too fond of the new arrangement.
Another knock sounded as I reached the door.
“Hold your damn horses!” I flung the door open and initially didn’t see anyone.
It wasn’t until I looked down that I saw huge brown eyes staring back up at me. A little girl stood at the edge of the porch. Her pigtails had more hair slipping out of them than captured inside, her jeans had large holes in the knees and were either high waters or a size too small, and her worn-out T-shirt was a size too big. Completing the “urchin” look was a smudge of dirt across her nose and a coating of grime on the pint-sized fingers holding a shoebox in front of her that was half her size.
I looked around to see where the adult was that was supervising this trick-or-treat fail before looking back down at the