Thirty and a Half Excuses
Page 30

Violet rolled her eyes. “That again? How are you gonna fit their car seats into your truck?”
“Seeing as how I’m not their mother, I don’t suppose I need to worry about fittin’ their car seats in my truck.”
Her mouth dropped in surprise at my snippy tone.
I couldn’t believe I’d said that to her.
She stared at me, clearly waiting for me to apologize, but I just stiffened my back, staring at her.
I suddenly wondered if I was being fair. Violet was my sister and her husband had left her. She needed help from time to time, and why should I begrudge her that? A good sister would offer without resentment. “Look, Vi. A truck seats three people, so of course the car seats will fit. Besides, I did a little research on the Internet last night and lots of trucks have a back seat. We can fit the car seats there if not in the front.”
My answer somewhat appeased her, but she gave me the cold shoulder most of the morning. When I took off my apron to meet Mason for lunch, she eyed me up and down. “I didn’t mention how pretty you look today. I like your hair like that.”
Since I hadn’t planned on working at the church, I’d worn a sundress, and I’d pulled my hair back into a loose French braid that Neely Kate had taught me how to do. But I wasn’t sure how to address her obvious insinuation. For someone who wanted me to watch her kids, she was acting pretty spiteful. “Thank you.”
“You’re gonna be back in time to watch the kids, right? You can pick them up from Mike’s parents’ house.”
I paused, picking up my purse. “You’re not bringing them over?”
She scrunched up her face. “Why do you think I mentioned the car seats? Mike’s parents have them.”
I stared at her for a full five seconds, wondering where in tarnation my sister had gone, because the woman on the other side of the counter wasn’t her.
“Any other instructions?” I’d meant it as a snide comment, but it went right over Violet’s head.
“Just bring them here tomorrow morning. We’ll let them play for a while, and then we’ll send them off with Mike.”
Since the beginning of our joint venture, I’d wondered how she was going to make the nursery work with her kids. At the moment, it seemed as though her plan was to ship them off to everyone else. But that wasn’t fair. Violet was a single mother, trying to build a business that would support her and her children. It was obvious she would have to spend a lot of time away from them. I had just expected that it would bother her more.
I was so frustrated with her that I didn’t even tell her goodbye when I left. I tried to settle down by the time I found a parking spot on the town square, only one block from the restaurant. I arrived early and was seated by the time Mason showed up at the door. He spotted me right away and made his way through the narrow aisle, a wide grin on his face.
“Ready to get a truck?” he asked, sitting across from me.
“Yeah.” Trying to find enough excitement to match his.
His eyebrows lifted. “Are you having second thoughts? We don’t have to do this today if you want to take more time to think it over.”
“No.” I looked into his face and smiled. “That’s not it. The more I think about it, the more I know getting a truck is the right thing to do.”
“So what’s the problem?”
The waitress came over and took our order before I could answer Mason. A vision popped into my head. When it was done less than a second later, I was staring up at her. “Your mother-in-law is going to call you tonight.”
“Excuse me?” she asked.
Mason’s eyebrows rose.
The waitress put her hand on her hip. “Why would you say that?”
I cringed in embarrassment and lowered my gaze to the table, my hands shaking in my lap. “Just call it a hunch.”
“What a strange thing to say,” she muttered, walking away.
Mason studied me for several seconds as I willed my racing heart to slow down. It had been inevitable that I’d have a vision in front of him sooner or later. How he reacted to it would determine if he’d remain my friend.
He ignored the bizarre interaction, picking up the thread of our previous conversation instead. “Rose, I can’t help noticing that you’re not very enthusiastic about this. If you’d rather go alone, I understand.”
“No, I want you to come. I just wish my sister understood.”
“Ah.” He picked up a sugar packet and twisted it around with his fingers. “What’s the real reason she doesn’t want you to get a truck?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
Mason set the sugar on the table and lowered his head so his eyes were level with mine. “The relationship between siblings is fascinating, don’t you think?”
“I’d never really given it much thought.”
“I bet you and your sister fight? Right?”
“You don’t know that half of it.”
“And you drive each other crazy.”
“Yeah.”
“But you’d do anything to protect her if you could, right?” he said with a hitch in his voice.
Something in his eyes grabbed my heart. “Yes,” I whispered.
I wanted to ask him about his sister. Mason had told me something really bad had happened to her, but I didn’t know what. I couldn’t help thinking that Joe was somehow involved. I wasn’t sure why, maybe because this was Mason’s deep, dark secret, and Joe had a secret too. How many deep, dark secrets could there be? But somehow I knew what had happened to Mason’s sister was twined with Joe. It was a deep, gut instinct. And that knowledge scared the bejiggers out of me.