Double Trouble: Eight; The Crane Daughters having fun in Harmony!
by Cariad
 
 
 

Double Trouble
~Eight~
When Julia pulled up at the end of the Crane driveway, she found Holly shivering in the cold. She was wearing one of their mother’s thin summer dresses from when Julian was courting Ivy, and had only her winter coat on. She opened the car door from the inside, and turned up the heat. Her sister obviously needed it. “Did you find anything,” Julia asked.

Holly shook her head and shivered a bit more. “I had Father going so bad,” she said when she thawed some. “He was calling me ‘Ivy’ ever other breath, but before I could get too deep in his desk, Grandfather Crane called.” She gave Julia a mournful look. “I hate him,” she said. “I wish he were dead!”

Julia patted her sister’s leg. “That’s ok, Hollis,” she said with a grin. “Stepmommy Theresa poured her heart out to me!”

“Stepmommy?” Holly asked. “You mean we were right?”

“Dead on,” Julia said.

“That explains why he’s paying for her exams,” Holly said.

“I wonder if it explains how Ethan got the money to rent out a store-front and open up a practice,” Julia mused. “How much has our dear Stepmother been using Daddy for? Rebecca is not going to like this…”

Holly glanced over at her sister. “Father doesn’t want to marry Rebecca Hotchkiss, but Grandfather Crane is making him. And he mentioned something about Rebecca doing something, but he stopped before he could say anything. I wonder if she’s blackmailing him.”

“I thought we were only working on problem one: Theresa at the moment.”

“But what if Rebecca has something on Father? Wouldn’t that make her more dangerous?”

Julia glanced at her sister out of the corner of her eye. “Suit yourself, but I’m after lunch!” Holly acquiesced, and Julia turned the car to town. “Let’s hit the local burger joint,” Julia said. “I’ve got this craving for a bacon double cheeseburger, lots of salty fries…”

“…And a Diet Coke/Pepsi/or whatever,” Holly finished. “That doesn’t sound too bad, and perhaps we’ll even see some of the native population.”

Julia’s mouth flopped open. “You’re not thinking of that nerdly boy from last night, are you?” she poked with a grin.

Holly blushed. “His name is Reese.”

“You ARE thinking of Nerdly Boy!” Julia shouted. “Oh, this is great!” She was smiling, and having great fun making her sister blush. “The mighty Holly Katherine Crane, refusing every male who comes within a square mile of her illustrious personage, rebuffing even the handsome and clever College-aged Johnny Hotchkiss, falls for the Nerldy Boy after one look!”

“Shut up!” Holly shouted back, hitting her sister. The car swerved into the oncoming lane and narrowly missed getting into an accident. For a moment, both were silent before Julia started giggling once more. Holly suffered in silence before her sister’s contagious laugh infected her.

After remaining undisturbed (to Holly’s dismay) their entire lunch, Julia dropped Holly off at Ethan’s law practice, before speeding off to find some samples of fabric ‘to help with planning Theresa’s wedding.’

“Tomorrow,” Holly said into the driver’s side window, “I get to drive.” Her response was Julia’s laughter. Making a mental note of pulling age on her sister, she stepped into Ethan’s office. He had neither secretary nor a paralegal. The office was basically a single room, though it appeared there was a restroom and perhaps an unfurnished library as well. A cubicle wall partitioned Ethan’s desk from the waiting area—barren of magazines—as if people would have to wait for Ethan’s services.

She knocked on the wall before she turned the sharp corner, startling Ethan from his furious scribbling. “Holly?” he asked, “or Julie?” He gave a wide smile. “I can never tell you two apart!”

Holly smiled patiently at her eldest brother. He always made that stupid joke, which had gotten old when they were seven. “Holly,” she said on a sigh as Ethan rose to embrace her.

“What brings you around?” he asked. “Legal troubles?” he added with a nudge.

“Actually,” Holly said, fingering the desk, noting the false wood finish, “this is what brings me around here.” At Ethan’s blank look, Holly continued. “I wanted to see your law practice. Striking out on your own and all,” she finished with a smile.

“Julie told you then,” Ethan said with a grin. “Isn’t it great? I couldn’t have done it without Theresa,” he said.

“Why?” Holly asked innocently. He certainly had appeared more professional when they thought he was a Crane. Or maybe it was Gwen’s influence. Maybe it was Theresa that made him appear as a lost little boy instead of the self-confident young man she was used to seeing when she was home.

“She got this loan for me, on really great terms, of course!” Ethan said.

Holly nodded. “Look Ethan,” she said sitting on the edge of his desk. “I know love is blind and all, but did you think about this loan? I mean, you’ve been to law school, you passed the bar, and she’s just graduated high school. Does she even have a job?”

“I trust Theresa,” he said defensively. “She would never lie to me!”

Holly nodded again. “I realize that I’m probably not the best person to be saying this, since I just graduated high school myself, but Ethan, I haven’t been mixed up in this mess, so I’m looking at it from a fresh perspective, and something stinks!”

Ethan’s face darkened in anger. “You don’t know Theresa,” he accused. “I know you and Julie were pushing for me to get back together with Gwen, but I don’t love her! I love Theresa. Julie congratulated us last night, where were you?”

“No,” Holly shot back, “I don’t know Theresa as well as you do, but if you take a step back and think, all the pieces don’t add up!” She was really making a mess of this, and Holly knew it. She took a deep breath. “Will you hear me out?” she asked patiently.

“I don’t want lectures about what I should have done and what I should do. I get that from Mother.”

Holly smiled faintly. “Mama is concerned about you, that’s all. But will you hear me out?”

Ethan paced to a bookshelf, nearly devoid of books, and turned back to his sister. “Yes,” he said finally.

Holly exhaled the breath she was holding. “Ok,” she started. “This has nothing to do with class and love or anything. This only has to do with economics, ok?”

“Go on,” he said woodenly.

“Ok, I love Pilar to death. She was my nursemaid as well as yours, but we both know that her husband is gone, and her son is a police officer, and the other two children living at home are either just out of high school or still in it, right?”

“Go on,” he repeated, “but I don’t think I like where this is headed.”

“Oh, no!” Holly jumped. “As I said before, this has nothing to do with you loving Theresa or class differences and overcoming them and all that jazz.” She waited for Ethan’s stiff nod. “Well, we know that Pilar’s family is, for lack of a better expression, fiscally poor.” Ethan’s face had set into a mask of disapproval, but Holly took a deep breath to continue. “Theresa is all of eighteen or nineteen? She’s just gotten out of high school, so she probably doesn’t have any credit history. Or certainly not much of one. Hell, I don’t even have a good credit history. I’ve never had a credit card in my own name… I’ve never purchased anything big…”

“Get on with it,” Ethan growled.

“Who would give her a loan then?” Holly asked. “You could probably get a loan for something like this, but who would give a nineteen year old without a college education, without a credit history, a loan large enough to cover renting this place, fixing it up, and getting you enough other capital to start this place up?”

“You don’t know Theresa!” He shouted.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s Theresa, me, Jules, or any other teenager with a GED!” Holly shouted back. “The point is that none of us is going to get a loan! At least from a bank! And if she got it from a loan shark, you’re probably paying what, twenty-five per cent interest on it? More? Think, Ethan!”

“Did you come here to yell at me?” he demanded. “I can get that enough visiting Mother. She hates Theresa just like you!”

Holly fought the urge to slap her brother. “I never said I hated Theresa,” Holly said. At least not aloud to you, she amended mentally. “I’m just asking you to think about where the money might be coming from. Where could she have gotten the money?” She decided to throw him a curve. “Where is she getting the money for her pre-natal check-ups?”

“What are you implying, Holly,” he demanded slowly.

“Do you want to get married right away?” Holly asked.

“Yes,” he said with exasperation. “What does all of this have to do with anything?”

“Does she?” Holly shot back.

“I think so,” he replied. “Well, she does want to wait a little bit longer. After the New Year.”

“Why would she want to wait, if she loves you as much as you believe,” Holly said gently.

Ethan thought a bit. “I never asked her,” he said. “The timing was off or something. She wanted it on a special day, I think.”

Holly sighed. “Ethan, I don’t want to bring you any bad news, but our father… My father,” she amended, “is paying Theresa’s medical bills.”

Ethan shot up from his chair. “That’s not true!” he shouted.

“I saw them, Ethan,” Holly said. “I’m not implying anything. I’m just saying that my father, Julian Crane, is paying for her bills. I don’t know why.” Well, you wouldn’t believe me, she thought, if I told you the truth outright. “Why don’t you ask her,” Holly coaxed. “What if she got the money for your practice from Father?”

“She wouldn’t go near Julian!” he shouted. “Why do you need to come in here badger me, just like Mother?”

Holly moved to the edge of the dividing wall. “Ethan, we all care about you,” she said quietly. “And I would be more than happy if you found someone completely open and honest and loving…”

“I have found that someone,” Ethan said.

“Then ask her,” Holly said. “Would you like for me to get you her hospital bills?”

Ethan’s face took on a pained expression. For a moment, Holly feared that he had forgotten she was there and he would never answer her. “Yes,” Ethan finally said, slumping into his chair.

“I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for all of this,” Holly promised, knowing there was a completely rational explanation—the love of Ethan’s life had married her father.

“I’m sure there is,” Ethan echoed. “Theresa wold never lie to me again. We worked all that out.”

Holly admired his firm determination to believe in his beloved, but she knew how misplaced his trust was. She decided that the current moment was not the time to bring up Gwen, and Gwen’s decision to always be there for Ethan. Her half-brother would find out soon enough on his own.

She exited his office, feeling a slight sense of accomplishment. Not paying attention to where she was going, Holly stepped right into an innocent passer-by on the sidewalk outside of Ethan’s office. Slipping on a patch of ice, she nearly fell back into Ethan’s door, but the passer-by decided to catch her instead.

“Holly Crane!” said the excited familiar voice. Sure enough, when Holly raised her eyes, she found a pair of blue eyes nearly hidden by thick glasses staring back down at her. “I was hoping I would run into you!” Reese said. “Well, not run into you this way,” he stammered and pushed his glasses up his nose. “I mean… I’m sorry I wasn’t watching where I was going, you see I was following the lay of the sidewalk, trying to figure out a way for the frost not to get under it and cause it to buckle and result in pools of ice like the one…”

“Thank you, Reese,” Holly said, failing to force back an idiotic grin. “But I wasn’t looking either. I’m glad it was you who I ran into,” she said.

They stood on the sidewalk, staring at each other for a moment, grinning like fools. “Oh!” Reese said, breaking the silence. “I wanted to find you to show you some of the sights around town, and perhaps some of the creepy history of Harmony,” he said, dropping his voice to a spooky level when he spoke of Harmony’s history.

“I’d love to!” Holly said, hoping it would take her mind off of Ethan’s stubbornness. “I mean,” she said, correcting herself absently, “I would enjoy that very much.”
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