Thirty-Three and a Half Shenanigans
Page 4

I sat in one the chairs by the window, and she sat in the brown chair beside me, tucking her feet underneath her. “You’re sure making it nice. How much time are you planning on spending in here?”
“I dunno yet. Since we don’t have any jobs to work on right now, I splurged and got us professional landscaping software. Bruce Wayne and I can spend our time learning how to use it.” I shifted in my chair, getting antsy. “So, are you gonna tell me who you saw at the doctor’s office or not?”
Her eyes lit up. “Lucky for you, I don’t hold a grudge.”
I could have argued that point, but wisely held my tongue.
“Hilary.”
“Joe’s Hilary?”
“Do we know any other?” she asked, incredulous.
“What was she doing there? She has a doctor in Little Rock. In fact, what’s she doin’ in Henryetta period?”
“She’s moved here.”
I bolted upright like someone had held a lit candle to my butt. “What?”
“I heard she rented one of those restored older homes off the square.”
“Why?”
She scrunched her nose. “You know why. She needs to be close to Joe to get him back. Have you talked to him?”
I shook my head. “Not since we had the argument over him going behind my back and hiring a company to clean up the nursery after it was vandalized.” It had been more than a week, now that I stopped to think about it.
“Are you still planning to make him an official partner?”
Joe had bailed out the nursery after my sister Violet overextended us financially. She’d missed multiple loan payments, putting us in danger of a foreclosure. It didn’t help that a bunch of cash had been stolen from me in the lobby of the Henryetta Bank before I could make a deposit. In any case, we’d been in trouble up to our eyeballs. Violet had gone behind my back to ask Joe—whose family was probably rich enough to own half the state of Arkansas—to loan us the missing payments. Instead, he’d paid off the entire loan. All one hundred thirty-six thousand dollars of it. Everyone kept reminding me that I hadn’t entered into any type of legal agreement with him, which meant essentially his money was a gift. But what he really wanted was to be a partner. He’d put so much work into the nursery since the very beginning, I couldn’t help but think that getting me back wasn’t his only motivation.
“Yes.”
Neely Kate groaned, then leaned her head back on the seat. “Rose.”
The disappointment in her voice hurt more than I cared to admit. “Mason’s fine with it,” I said. “Why can’t you be?”
She gripped the arms of the chair and leaned forward. “If you think Mason is fine with this, then you’re even more deluded than I thought you were.” She stood, putting her hands on her hips. “Mason’s toleratin’ it because he loves you and doesn’t want to make waves.” She pointed her finger in my face. “You better think long and hard before you give that man any legal rights to the business, Rose Gardner. You can’t go undoin’ it once it’s done. You’ll be stuck with him indefinitely.”
I paused. “I know.”
She shook her head once for emphasis, then gave me a soft smile. “You have a good heart, Rose. But sooner or later, it’s gonna bite you in the behind.”
I grinned. “Then let’s hope it bites me later.”
My cell phone started ringing, so I hopped out of my chair to retrieve it off the desk, nearly passing out when I saw the caller’s name on the screen.
Skeeter Malcolm.
Chapter Two
Neely Kate stood and took several steps toward me. “Rose, you look as pale as a ghost. Who is it?” She grabbed the phone out of my hand and glanced at the screen. “SM.” She gave me an ornery grin. “I didn’t know you and Mason were into that. Is he trying to give you some secret code?”
I stared at her for a second until I realized what she was saying. “What? No! It stands for Skeeter Malcolm!”
“What’s with the initials?”
“I can’t very well have the new king of the Fenton County crime world’s name on my phone, now can I? Not with an Assistant DA for a boyfriend and a chief deputy sheriff ex.”
“Are you gonna answer it?”
I looked at the still-ringing phone. “I’m thinking. . .”
Bruce Wayne emerged from the tiny back room. “Darby promises to have someone here first thing tomorrow morning, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.” He took one look at the two of us staring at my ringing cell phone and stopped in his tracks. Fear crawled into his eyes. “It’s him, isn’t it?”
“What should I do, Bruce Wayne?”
He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders, shrugging off his fear as he moved forward a few steps. “Don’t answer it. I’ll call his brother Scooter to see if I can find out what he wants.”
I nodded, my heart racing. “Okay.” Whatever Skeeter wanted couldn’t be good. He was never going to leave me alone now that I’d used my visions to save his life . . . even though I’d spent the past couple of weeks pretending otherwise.
The phone stopped ringing, but the three of us continued to stare at it, as if we expected it to sprout legs and attack us.
“Don’t you be gettin’ mixed up with him again,” Neely Kate finally said. “You got off lucky last time. The next time . . .” She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t need to. There were a whole host of scenarios that could play out, not a single one of them good.