Twenty-Nine and a Half Reasons
Page 19

I stood and brushed the dirt off the back of my legs. “You’re probably right.”
Laughing, Neely Kate linked her arm in mine. “The sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be.”
At the moment, I wasn’t about to argue.
“If you like, I’ll ask my Great Aunt Opal about it the next time I see her. She’s psychic.”
My feet stopped of their own volition and my jaw dropped. “What did you just say?”
Neely Kate scrunched her nose. “You mean about my Great Aunt Opal?” She shrugged her shoulders and gave my arm a tug. “Everybody on the western side of Fenton County knows she’s got the sight.”
“What…” My mouth had suddenly dried out and my tongue refused to work. I swallowed and tried again. “How do you know she’s psychic?”
“Because she knows stuff nobody else knows.”
“Like you?”
She grinned and winked. “I’m her protégé.”
I spent the rest of lunch wondering if Neely Kate’s Great Aunt Opal actually had the sight or if she merely had extra-perceptive powers like Neely Kate. I suspected the latter, but I couldn’t let it go.
“How is your aunt teaching you to be psychic?” I wasn’t so sure being psychic was something a person could learn. I’d simply been cursed with it. I’d give anything to unlearn it.
“She’s teaching me all her ways. Tarot cards, horoscopes. But her specialty is reading tea leaves.”
I tried to hide my disappointment. Her aunt was a fraud.
“I can practice reading your tea leaves if you like.”
I forced a smile. “So you can predict my future?”
With a laugh, she lifted her eyebrows. “Don’t you be hatin’ on the ways of the mysterious and mystical, Rose.”
If she only knew.
Neely Kate dropped the subject and turned out to be the perfect distraction once again, telling me about her upcoming wedding and all the drama she was dealing with her fiancé’s family, who lived in the Texas Panhandle.
“They want the groomsmen to dress up as cowboys, spurs and all. Can you even imagine?”
No, but the most recent wedding I’d attended was Violet’s and Mike’s, and thinking about it made me sad. Maybe they just needed a night out together. I could volunteer to watch the kids overnight and they could plan a romantic getaway. The thought cheered me up. Finally, I’d found something I could do something about.
I was desperate to talk to Joe, now more than ever. I decided to listen to Neely Kate and trust him, but I had to admit that hearing Joe deny being with Hilary would make me feel better. Mostly I needed his advice on how to handle what I knew about Bruce Wayne.
When we returned to the courtroom, Judge McClary was fit to be tied that the A/C problem hadn’t been fixed. “This court is adjourned until morning!”
And I suddenly had my afternoon free. I considered heading to work but just couldn’t bring myself to go there. The county was paying me for the day, no matter how long I was at the courthouse. That was good enough for me. Even if it was only eight dollars.
My cell phone rang as I walked to my car and I dug through my purse to find it. Violet’s name showed on the screen. “Hey, Vi.” I couldn’t hide my disappointment.
“Don’t sound so happy to hear from me.”
“Sorry, I just thought maybe you were Joe. I haven’t heard from him since yesterday.”
I could almost hear her happiness in her silence.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said, feeling the need to defend him. “He’s just tied up with work is all.” There was no way in God’s green earth I was going to tell her about Hilary. “Hey, I was thinking, maybe you and Mike would like go out soon and I’ll bring the kids over to my house to spend the night.”
“Yeah…maybe…” Her voice brightened. “But right now, I’m calling about tonight. You’re home alone and last night was a bit tense, so I thought maybe you’d like to come over and we could grill out.”
Grilling out in this heat sounded like asking for heatstroke, but Lord knew Mike loved his smoker like a duck loved water. And spending the evening alone with my worries didn’t sound very appealing. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
“Great, see you at seven. Not a minute sooner.” Then she hung up.
Seven? That was odd. Usually dinner at Violet’s house was around six and I never arrived at a specific time. I just showed up.
The boys next door were running around their house, digging up the azalea bushes under the kitchen window. A wave of melancholy washed over me. My daddy and I had planted those for our neighbor back when I was a little girl. Gardening was the one thing we shared that Momma couldn’t take away from us.
One of the boys turned to look at me and chewed on the side of his lip. He tugged on his brother’s arm. “Andy Junior.”
“What?”
The boy tugged harder and Andy Jr. glanced over his shoulder, the shovel dropping to the ground.
The first boy squinted. “How come you look like you’re about to cry?”
“I was just thinking about my daddy.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s in heaven.”
The boy’s mouth dropped open into an O.
The topic of death caught Andy Jr.’s attention. “What happened to him?”
“His heart gave out.” Although now I wondered if he died of a broken heart. I suspect Daddy never recovered from the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of my birth mother. “Daddy and I planted those bushes when I was about your age.” I looked to the first boy. “Your name’s Keith, isn’t it?”