Collard Greens and Catfishing

by Kelsey Browning

  “We registered together. Maybe they did too. It’s a long shot, but it’s a shot,” Abby Ruth said. “We can’t afford to pass up this opportunity. You have to find out if Dan knows Tom. Besides, you’ll get a free meal and maybe find true love.”

  Uh-huh. That was about as likely as that septic system out front fixing itself.

  Chapter Thirteen

  While Sera and Maggie were up in the Magnolia Room getting Maggie all gussied up for her date with DanOfYourDreams, Abby Ruth sat downstairs in the kitchen jabbing at the mouse on Sera’s laptop. If she had to answer another round of those damn questions to get favorited by some online dating dude, she would do it. After all, Maggie had a gold star and a date.

  There was a reason Abby Ruth had been a sports journalist. She thrived on the thrill of competition. And good-looking men.

  She logged into her account and smiled at her screen name. TexasTough. Hmm…maybe the men on this site were intimidated by a woman who came out and told them right upfront she didn’t need a man. It was one of the reasons she’d stayed single all these years. It would take one helluva man for her to consider bringing him home, wherever the heck that was these days. She’d never wanted to put Jenny through all that step-daddy stuff some of her friends had subjected their kids to. Sure, it had just been Jenny and her most of the time. But they’d done fine by themselves.

  And she’d never, not even for a day, regretted having her daughter. Even though she had chosen to keep Jenny’s daddy a secret from her.

  Sure would be nice to have a little companionship now that she had plenty of time on her hands. Nothing serious, of course, but someone to kick up her heels with, maybe take to the shooting range.

  When she clicked into her profile, the same pop-up box they’d encountered when Sera tried to unregister Maggie flashed on the screen.

  Abby Ruth scrolled through the questions. And scrolled. And scrolled. “For the love of the sweet baby Jesus,” she muttered to herself.

  Fifty. This damned thing wanted her to answer fifty questions over and above the twenty she’d filled out when she registered.

  Both her competitive nature and the fact that she didn’t want Maggie and Sera out there trolling these virtual dating waters by themselves made her plug along. Who knew what kind of sharks were online trolling back?

  And as Abby Ruth was living in the Summer Haven money pit, she had a responsibility for its upkeep.

  What is your stance on cannibalism? For or against?

  Do you stir your coffee clockwise or counter clockwise?

  Why don’t they make bulletproof pants?

  Lord, these things were getting more and more absurd with every click. Well, except for the bulletproof pants question. That was actually pretty smart. Still, she needed some liquid fortification to get through them, so she hit the cabinet above the refrigerator for her good sipping whiskey. Not that she really had to worry about either Sera or Maggie raiding her stash, but it didn’t hurt that she was the only one in the house tall enough to reach this spot. She poured herself two fingers, then held it up, considering. What the hell. She splashed in another half inch.

  But before she could settle herself back in her chair, the front doorbell rang.

  Unfortunately, no feet pitter-pattered down the staircase. Abby Ruth stuck her head into the hallway outside the kitchen and yelled, “Hey, gals. Someone’s at the door.”

  “I’m in the middle of styling Maggie’s hair,” Sera called back. “Besides, is there something wrong with your legs?”

  Those two gals were getting mouthier by the minute. It would piss off Abby Ruth if it didn’t make her so happy. She strode for the front door and yanked it open. A delivery guy stood there, electronic clipboard in one hand and a small Styrofoam cooler in the other.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  He checked his clipboard. “Got a delivery for an Abby Ruth Cady.”

  “You found her.”

  “Sign here, please.”

  She scribbled AR C~~~ on the screen, and the guy handed over the ice chest. He gave her a quick salute and bounded down the front stairs to his delivery truck.

  What in the world? Maybe Jenny had sent her an early birthday gift. That girl was on the ball that way, never letting details like that slip through the cracks.

  Not like Abby Ruth had done a few times over Jenny’s growing up years.

  But that was in the past. Now, she had the opportunity to develop a new relationship with her daughter and grandson.

  She turned to take the package back to the kitchen when Sera and Maggie appeared at the top of the stairs. She froze in place when she got a good gander at Maggie. “Hot damn,” Abby Ruth said.

  Maggie touched the back of her hair. “Oh, no. If Abby Ruth doesn’t like it, that’s a sure sign it’s too foofy.”

  Maggie’s normal ponytail and mind-of-their-own bangs were subdued in some kind of classy updo that would’ve cost three hundred bucks at a Galleria salon in Houston. “If I had any hair—” she tugged at her short strands, “—I’d be begging Sera to fix me up next.”

  The smile that spread across Maggie’s rounded face was pure pleasure. “I think that’s a compliment, so I’m going to take it and run.”

  “You do that, sugar. You look really pretty.”

  Sera headed down the stairs and nodded toward the ice chest under Abby Ruth’s arm. “What have you got there?”

  “I’m not sure, but I suspect it’s an early birthday present from Jenny.”

  “You’re not planning to open it, are you?”

  Sometimes Sera was three shades of loco. “Uh…yeah.”

  “But it’s bad luck to open gifts early.”

  Abby Ruth patted the cooler. “Seeing as whatever this is probably needs to be refrigerated, I figure it would be worse luck to wait.”

  “She has a point.” Maggie joined them at the bottom of the stairs. “We can cut those yellow straps with scissors in the kitchen.”

  They all trooped to the back of the house. Of course, Sera spied the open laptop in the kitchen right off. “Working on something?”

  No reasonable reason to lie. “I decided it was time for me to answer those questions on the dating site.”

  “Made it very far?”

  “Not nearly far enough. At this rate, I’ll be jitterbugging down at Dogwood Ridge Assisted Living by the time I get through all these.”

  “Maybe I could help—”

  “Presents first.” Abby Ruth plopped the package in the middle of the table. “And dating later.”

  Maggie grabbed scissors from the desk she used to manage all the business—mainly repair business—at Summer Haven.

  Bypassing the plastic encased card on top, Abby Ruth ruthlessly cut through the straps.

  “Shouldn’t you read the card first?” Sera asked.

  “You know, for such a free spirit, you sure have a lot of rules about opening gifts. Haven’t you ever heard that saying about eating dessert first? Well, same thing applies to presents and cards. Always get the goodie and then go back for the boring stuff.”

  Sera read the label and grimaced. “It’s from McAdoo’s Steaks. Your daughter sent you dead cow to celebrate the anniversary of your birth? Something is wrong with you people.”

  Jenny sending steaks? Wasn’t like her, but maybe she’d finally figured out that Abby Ruth appreciated a good piece of beef more than all the pedicures in the world.

  She popped the top and thumbed through six packages.

  Maggie lifted one of the frosted packages from the dry ice and read the label. “Cube steak?”

  “Jenny enjoys a good filet mignon as much as the next girl, but this isn’t really her style.” Abby Ruth flipped the lid over and wrestled with the plastic envelope. Inside, the card was printed in a calligraphy font.

  Dear TexasTough,

  Thank you for registering with ThePerfectFit.com. However, it has come to our attention that you do not fit our site’s demographic so your profile is
being disabled. If you should choose to try online dating again in the future, we would recommend a site better suited to your unique needs.

  Our best wishes in your search for love.

  Sincerely,

  ThePerfectFit.com

  “Son of a bitch,” Abby Ruth said.

  “Not from Jenny then?” Maggie asked.

  “Not by a long shot. It’s from ThePerfectFit.com.”

  “Why would an online site send you—oh, they sent you a birthday gift.” Sera clapped like a child who’d just been told she could eat candy for every meal.

  “No, Sera,” Abby Ruth said, “they sent me a kiss-off gift.” That was when she remembered she’s been in the middle of updating her profile. Maybe if she got back to it fast enough, she could—she lunged for the laptop. Click. Click. Click.

  This time the pop-up box wasn’t filled with idiotic questions like Would you rather marry Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse? Instead, it said You’ve been successfully deleted from the ThePerfectFit.com website. Thank you for letting us be part of your journey to find the mate that fits you perfectly.

  “Oh my gosh,” Sera exclaimed. “You’ve been blackballed from love.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Llewellyn Farm was twenty minutes outside Summer Shoals and as pretty a piece of land as Maggie had ever seen. Even though the fall air was cool enough to drive with the windows open this afternoon, she’d cranked up her truck’s AC because Sera had worked so hard to make her hair look nice.

  She parked near a bright red pole gate and slowly hiked toward the buzz of activity. With each step, she could feel the slight pull of her stitches. But darned if she’d let an annoyance like that impact her—as Sera had called it—investidate. In a huge corn maze, small children darted in and out of the stalks while their parents urged them to go through the maze properly. And although this area of Georgia wasn’t known for its apple orchards like the towns north of Atlanta were, this farm had a small cluster of them. Probably gave them a great reason to serve apple cider and other apple goodies this time of year. Maybe she’d buy some apple butter to take back to the girls.

  Traditional picnic tables were scattered everywhere. A couple of blondish men were sitting alone. Maybe the one wearing the red polo shirt was her date.

  But while Maggie stood there ogling her potential blind date, a woman walked up to the table carrying two plates and sat next to the man.

  Strike one.

  Anyway, Dan had asked her to meet him at the little information booth. It would be hard to miss the purple-and-white-striped cabana sitting in the center of all the action.

  Maggie took a steadying breath and approached the booth where a college-aged girl was handing out pick-your-own instructions and hints to the corn maze. “Excuse me,” she said to the girl, “I’m supposed to meet a friend here. I don’t suppose—”

  “Are you Maggie?”

  “How did you know?”

  The girl gave her a cheeky grin. “I’m magic.” Then she laughed. “Nah, the dude told me to look for a nice older lady with…uh…” The girl’s gaze dropped to Maggie’s bosom.

  “It’s okay,” Maggie told her. “In our family, we call them supersized muffins.”

  She shook her head. “To think yours probably came naturally, and I have friends paying thousands to supersize their muffins.”

  “These are definitely the ones God gave me.” Well, that wasn’t completely true. The boobs she’d been given sixty years ago were perky and bouncy. These were…not. A woman should be able to trade in for a new pair every three years. “Back to my friend. He’s here?”

  “Oh, he’s been here for a while.” She pointed to the west. “If you walk down that way, you’ll find a small barn.” A quick check of her watch, and she said, “You have about ten minutes until the next tour starts, so you probably want to get going.”

  “Tour? I didn’t realize we were taking a tour.” Darn it, her stomach was grumbling because she’d spent the morning frantically making invitation phone calls for Abby Ruth’s birthday party and she’d been too nervous to eat. Besides, she’d been hoping for a fresh air picnic. “What exactly are we touring?”

  The girl gave her another one of those we’re-sharing-a-secret smiles. “The beekeeping operation.”

  Ten minutes later, Maggie was fighting a nervous sweat while a nice lady helped zip her into a pair of head-to-toe coveralls. She was so overheated that she almost regretted rejecting Sera’s suggestion of wearing a thong under her Capri pants. Because her normal granny panties were sticking to her cheeks like an American cheese slice to bologna. She flapped her arms a little, trying to get some airflow, but it was useless with the thick weave of her canvas jumpsuit.

  The woman grabbed a white bush hat from behind Maggie and plopped it onto her head. Then she fluffed the protective veil and tucked it into Maggie’s collar before zipping her up the rest of the way. “You’ll also need gloves.”

  Maggie held out both arms, and the woman worked elbow-length gloves over her fingers and wrists as if she were prepping Maggie to perform surgery. “Is this included in the romance package?”

  The woman looked up, her head tilted to the side. “Excuse me?”

  “On your website, I read about the romance package. You know, the custom picnic, a two-person hayride and a souvenir photo. Maybe the tour is an add-on?”

  “Not that I’ve ever heard of.”

  “Do you know if my…friend…made a reservation for the romance package?”

  “All I know is we booked a private tour through the beekeeping operation.”

  Well, that was sweet. He’d arranged for them to have a special experience together. That spoke well of him. “Did you help him dress too?” Because let’s face it, Maggie was dying to know if he was half as handsome in person as he was in his profile picture.

  “You know, he came with his own gear. We don’t see that every day.”

  Well, dang it.

  The woman grabbed a roll of plain gray duct tape and swept a length around Maggie’s ankles and patted her legs. “That’ll keep the bees out of your drawers.”

  “Another good use for duct tape.” Maggie could just imagine what she’d look like if she got a bee up her pants leg. Probably like she was trying to pull off one of those hip-hop dances and failing miserably. “Thank you so much for all your help.”

  She pointed at a door opposite the one Maggie had come in. “Your tour guide will meet you right out there.”

  Maggie paused with her hand on the knob. When she opened this door, her life could change. She could meet a man who enjoyed her company. Who liked her for herself and didn’t give a hoot about weight or age.

  With a breath, she let out the nerves jittering inside her and opened the door. Outside stood, what she assumed by their height, two men. Both dressed in white like she was. One had his back to Maggie, but the other held a small binder and faced the other man. They almost looked like a groom and preacher.

  Which was utterly ridiculous.

  “Hi,” she said, and the men’s conversation stopped.

  The groom turned slowly, and Maggie’s heart was thumping in her chest. Was he handsome?

  When he was facing her fully, her heart did a stutter-flop. Rather than the see-through veil like she wore, his was so dark and so tightly woven that she couldn’t see through it. His jumpsuit was a bit fancier than hers too. Instead of duct tape wrapped around his cuffs and sleeves, they were secured with jute tied in a cool knot shaped like a heart.

  “You’re DIYDarling?” the man croaked. He shook his head, cleared his throat and reached out to take both of Maggie’s hands in his. “I mean, I’m so glad you made it.”

  The way he said darling almost made her swoon. And his hands. My, he had a nice grip. Firm yet gentle. “Margaret, really, but my friends call me Maggie.”

  “Do you consider me a friend?”

  She raised a shaky hand to hide a nervous giggle. “I suppose so.”

  “I’m Dan.”
Something about his voice seemed familiar, but maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part. Because she would’ve remembered meeting any man as good-looking as Dan was in his picture. She pumped up her smile even though she felt a trickle of sweat roll down her spine and into an unmentionable spot. “Wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  The preacher—uh, tour guide—said, “Let’s get started then.”

  He took them to the Observation Hive, a wall of approximately 50,000 bees. Although he assured them that the bees were safely secured behind glass, just watching them dance around the queen bee made Maggie itch all over.

  For the next hour, the beekeeper showed Maggie and her date the hives, talked about the plight of the honeybee, and gave them the lowdown on the queens and their male harems. The whole thing was much more fascinating than Maggie would’ve imagined.

  But she couldn’t afford to be distracted by bees or romanced by Dan. She was here on a mission, and she needed to keep that forefront in her mind.

  “So, Dan,” she said casually, “have you been on The Perfect Fit for long?” Lord, that sounded about as smooth as one of those you-come-here-often pickup lines.

  “Just a few months.”

  “Are any of your friends registered too?”

  He tilted his head, shook it slowly. “Why? Are you already looking to date someone else?”

  The way he said it, with a small hint of hurt in his voice, made Maggie’s stomach shrink. “No, no. It’s not that. It’s just that some of my friends and I joined at the same time and I thought men might do the same thing. One of my friends has a real thing for men named Tom,” she ad-libbed. “And I just thought if you had a friend named Tom, you might—”

  “Nope,” he shot back, his words clipped. “Absolutely no friends named Tom. Have never known a Tom in my life.”

  That seemed a little unlikely based on the popularity of the name, but Maggie let the topic drop. He obviously wasn’t their path to OnceUponATom.

  Dan held her gloved hand through the entire tour. But since he kept bumping into things along the way, she wasn’t sure if the handholding was a sign that he liked her or a result of his being unable to see what was three inches in front of his face.