Collard Greens and Catfishing

by Kelsey Browning

  “Besides. We lied too.”

  “No.” Maggie glared at Abby Ruth. “We posted younger pictures of ourselves. We didn’t grab pictures of strangers off the internet. Heck, I would’ve never even thought of doing that.”

  “So,” Sera said cheerfully, in an obvious attempt to break the tension. “Who’s our guy?”

  They all looked at one another.

  “I don’t think a picture of George will snag anyone.” Maggie glanced at the diamond chip-studded band on her finger. How she missed that man. “Even when we were in college he wasn’t all that much of a looker. Bless his soul.”

  “You know what?” Sera raised a finger. “I have a picture we can use. Just a sec.” She leapt from the porch to her feet and fluttered inside. In just a moment she was back with the laptop in her hands. “Okay. What should we name him?”

  “Something romantic,” Maggie said.

  “Let’s play to the paintball thing,” Sera said. “How about RainbowShot?”

  “Sounds like a gay pride NRA parade to me,” Abby Ruth said. “Uh-uh. Too controversial. How about Shot2TheHeart?”

  “Better,” Sera said and began typing.

  They spent the next thirty minutes brainstorming traits for the perfect man—loves to cook, enjoys the outdoors, plays the guitar. Maggie wished the guy they’d just made up was really a resident of Summer Shoals. She wouldn’t mind having another date with a nice man.

  “Here we go.” Sera pressed ENTER.

  Maggie was heading inside for more tea, when Sera’s huff made her turn around. “What’s the matter?”

  “You won’t believe this. In the “About You” section, the guys only have to fill out three things. Screen name, real name and billing address.”

  “Well, that’s a bunch of bullcrap,” Abby Ruth complained. “What about the medical records, birthday and all that? Hell, I figured we’d have to upload a blood sample for our profiles.”

  “Are you sure there’s not another page?” Maggie asked.

  Sera ran her finger along the screen leaving a dull smudge as she reviewed all the questions to be sure they’d populated each one with something. “I’m sure. Once I added Shot’s minimal info, the system took me to the page that normally asks all those crazy questions, but look at this.”

  Abby Ruth scooted her chair closer to Sera and scowled. “What in the world? Those aren’t crazy questions, and there are only four of them.”

  Maggie hovered over their shoulders and scanned the screen.

  What’s your favorite sports team?

  What’s your favorite type of beer?

  Are you looking to get married?

  Do you live with your mother?

  “That last question is important,” Sera commented.

  “Not nearly as important as the first two,” Abby Ruth said.

  Sera clicked again, and the site took her immediately to the payment screen, and Maggie leaned closer to be sure she was seeing correctly. “Wait a minute. Did you say we were charged a hundred dollars for each profile?”

  “Yep.”

  “And the men are only paying twenty?” she asked. “Something doesn’t seem right about that.”

  “It sure looks like this whole thing favors the guys.”

  “I don’t like it,” Abby Ruth said. “Something is rotten in Datingland.”

  “Well,” Maggie mused, “it’s certainly not fair, but it also doesn’t get us any closer to finding out anything about OnceUponATom.”

  Sera sat back and did that spooky looking-off-into-the-distance thing she did when she was about to come out with something strangely insightful. “What if Martha’s right—not only about her niece’s guy, but the whole darn dating service?”

  “What do you mean?” Maggie asked.

  “I have the feeling this isn’t just about a few guys pretending they’re younger and more handsome than they really are,” Sera said. “I think this site was set up specifically to scam women.”

  “Isn’t there a way to find out who owns the darn thing?” Abby Ruth asked.

  “Hang on a sec.” Sera’s fingers flew over the keyboard. After a couple of minutes, she said, “Should’ve known it.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “The registrar was one of those big domain registration places, but the person who bought it is protected by a private registration.”

  “Does that help us at all?” Maggie asked.

  “Not really, but it’s a start,” Sera said.

  Maggie sighed. “Regardless, I think it’s time I went to the prison to give Lil an update.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Although Jenny’d shot him down like a World War I fighter plane last night, Teague tried to be optimistic as he pulled into Summer Haven’s driveway. He had a cooler with sodas, sandwiches and bait in it so he could take Grayson down to the creek for the kid’s first fishing expedition. Today was about getting to know Jenny’s son better.

  If he just kept that in his mind, he wouldn’t go crazy rolling all his mistakes over and over in his head.

  Because by the time he’d made it out to Miller’s Pass last night to check out someone supposedly cooking meth, only to discover Mrs. Miller was making up a batch of some noxious sauerkraut, it had been too late to return to Summer Haven. If Barnes hadn’t been MIA for an hour, things might’ve turned out differently. But when the deputy had finally showed up at the supposed crime scene, he’d been pale and clammy, claiming food poisoning.

  Maybe it had been for the best. Sometimes it didn’t make sense to push a woman, especially one like Jenny.

  Summer Haven’s circle drive only held two cars—Maggie’s small truck and Sera’s van. Abby Ruth’s dually and the compact he’d assumed was Jenny’s rental car were missing.

  Don’t flip out, Castro. They’re probably just running errands around town.

  Still, he dashed up the stairs and jabbed the bell. When no one answered, he rang it again.

  Sera answered the door with her hair pinned up with about a dozen pencils and a faraway look in her eyes. “Teague,” she murmured. “Did you leave something last night?”

  Yeah, he’d left his heart in Jenny’s clenched fist. “I’m here to take Grayson fishing.”

  Her fuzzy look cleared, and she stood straighter, dislodging a couple of pencils and sending them tumbling to the floor. “Oh…hmm…well.”

  He pushed past her into the house because, hell, it wasn’t breaking and entering when she’d answered the door. “Where is everyone?”

  “I was just doing something on the computer. Abby Ruth and Maggie went to visit L—”

  He turned back to see Sera’s mouth moving like a hungry guppy. Whatever lie she told this time might be a good one.

  “—Love Lines.”

  “Love Lines?”

  “Yes, it’s an…uh…adult store.”

  He’d seen plenty of those kind of signs lined up down Interstate 75, interspersed with the church advertisements, but he’d never heard of Love Lines. “That a normal Saturday morning errand around here? Kinda like hitting the farmers market?”

  Sera lifted her chin. “Women have needs too.”

  Gah, these women made him want to poke a skewer in his ear at least once a week. “I don’t suppose Jenny and her needs went with them?”

  “Teague, I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Although his relationship with Sera had started out in very rocky territory, they’d become friends. So he didn’t hesitate to touch her shoulder. “Sera, I’m a cop. I’m tough.”

  “No man is tough when it comes to the woman he loves.”

  “How did you know…” Of course. Women talked. Jenny had probably blabbed all about him spewing out his feelings like a runaway garden hose. He’d be humiliated if he hadn’t meant every word he’d said.

  “You have very expressive eyes,” Sera said. “Every time you looked at her last night, they were full of emotion. The vibrant aura around—”

  He held up a hand to st
op her. “We have a deal on the aura talk.”

  “Right. Well…about Jenny…” Her eyes cast downward.

  “She’s gone, isn’t she?”

  Sera’s nod was slow and somehow sad. “Apparently, she and Grayson left first thing this morning. Told her mom she was able to catch an early flight and that Grayson needed to get back to finish a school project he’d forgotten.”

  “She was lying, huh?”

  “I wasn’t there. I don’t—”

  “You’re a good judge of people.”

  “Yes, she was probably lying.” Sera didn’t even try to soften it with a perky smile. He gave her points for not trying to pass it off as something unimportant. “Hey, we have some of Maggie’s tea left over from last night. Why don’t I pour you a glass?”

  “A little early for that. Even under these circumstances. I’d planned to take Grayson fishing.” And now going by himself seemed like the loneliest thing in the world. “I don’t suppose you fish?”

  She grimaced. “You know I’m not much of a meat eater.”

  “What if I promise we’ll catch and release?”

  “How about you fish and I’ll keep you company?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Then I’ll meet you outside,” she said.

  When Sera met him in the driveway, she had a thermos tucked under her arm. “Figured special tea could only make things better.”

  Or at least anesthetize them. “You up for a PB&J?” he asked her.

  She bumped him with her hip. “You’re already a better date than the guy I was supposed to meet last night.”

  “Whatever happened with that?”

  “You’ll be relieved to know he cancelled before I ever made it out of the house.”

  “He’s obviously an idiot.”

  Her laughter was pleasant. “If you weren’t twenty years too young and absolutely not my type, I might make a play for you, Teague.”

  He couldn’t decide if that was a boon or a blow to his ego. “The first day I met you, I thought you were making a play for me.”

  That put a little spring in her step as they trooped through the pasture toward the creek. “Why in the world would you think that?”

  “Because you were talking about my—” he twirled his finger in the general area of his crotch, “—sac thingie.”

  “Ah, your sacral chakra. Well, it was dammed up.”

  “Was?” What was he doing? He needed to know the state of his sex chakra about like he needed Jenny to have flown the coop this morning.

  “Well, now it’s flowing. But I’ll be honest. It’s on a sort of a loop. Normally, I’m a fan of recycling. But too much of that in the sacral chakra can eventually dissipate your sexual energy.”

  Great news just kept coming today. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Dotted with a few remaining sprigs of grass, the creek bank was a gentle slope to the water. Within a couple of weeks, the grass would be brown and all the leaves that shaded the creek in the summer would have fallen. Autumn was pretty in Georgia in a stark sort of way. But it could be depressing if you let it.

  He and Sera settled onto the ground, her with a thermos cup full of tea and him with a baited pole. They spent several companionable minutes with her sipping and him casting.

  Finally, she asked, “What are you going to do about her?”

  “Isn’t that the million dollar question?”

  “She’s a mother. You can’t just think about how you feel about her. You have to consider the little boy too. Children are such a gift, yet too many adults don’t treat them that way.”

  “Last night was the first time I’d met Grayson. He hung out with my parents a few times before Abby Ruth packed up and left Houston. My mom thinks the kid hung the moon.”

  “Are you jealous of him?”

  Teague cast in a jerky motion, and the whole thing became a tangled mess of line. “Not the way you think.” He pulled the line in, tried to sift through it, but his fingers were a fumbling mess. “It eats at my gut that Jenny’s kid isn’t my kid. That was the way it was supposed to be, the two of us with a family. The way we’d always promised each other it would be.”

  “You’ve loved her for a long time.”

  “Since I was ten years old.”

  “But you hurt her.”

  “It was one of those situations where I was damned either way.”

  “I don’t expect you to tell me the story. That’s between you and Jenny. But just remember, if you’re mourning what should have been, she is too.”

  He glanced over from untangling the fishing line to see Sera propped up on her elbows staring at the clouds. Her normally cheerful expression was nowhere to be seen. Instead, her mouth was a downward curve and cheeks were hollow. “You sound like you know something about that,” he said.

  “Oh, Teague,” she said, her words piggybacking on a sigh. “We all know something about what it feels like to make the wrong choices.”

  * * *

  When Maggie and Abby Ruth sat down at the table with Lil, darned if Martha wasn’t with her again. Maggie supposed she should be glad Martha was there so they could seal the septic deal, but next time she got some alone time with her best friend, she would tell Lil how she felt about it.

  Then again, maybe Lil felt the same way about Abby Ruth. Lil smiled her polite smile toward Abby Ruth but focused primarily on Maggie, as if poor Abby Ruth didn’t exist. That felt a bit familiar.

  “How are you doing, Lil?” Maggie asked. “Sorry I missed your call last night. Things have been hectic, but we’ve made some good progress.”

  “I’m fine.” Lil waved off the question. “I’m not going anywhere…yet.”

  “Did you get some good news?” Hope percolated inside Maggie. When Lil returned to Summer Haven, it would be so nice to rebuild their old relationship.

  “No. No word on an early release, but we can hope.” Lil smiled at Martha, but her lips trembled. “Martha and I are working on another project for the warden. Hopefully, these favors are adding up.”

  Martha snapped her fingers twice. “We’re short on time. Do you have something for me or not?”

  Maggie’s heart rate picked up speed, and her shoulder muscles tightened. This woman would make a man of the cloth contemplate breaking one of the Ten Commandments. A very specific one.

  Lil flashed Maggie a pleading smile.

  “Yes.” Maggie forced the word from her tight throat. “Something weird is going on with that website. This is bigger than Martha’s worry about OnceUponATom. First off, not everyone is getting dates. Maybe that’s not so odd, but as Sera and I looked over all the men we were matched with and you won’t believe what we found.”

  Abby Ruth cut in, “Basically, a lot of those guys are lying. Their profile pictures aren’t really them. They’re photos these guys scammed from the internet.

  Maggie let out an exasperated breath. “I’m telling her.”

  “I know, but at this rate we’ll have to do it in episodes. This ain’t no Lifetime movie.”

  Lil clasped her hands together and leaned toward Maggie. “So are you telling me these men are lying about who they are?”

  Maggie shrugged. “Well, they’re definitely lying about what they look like. Then, there’s this.” She shoved the honey-golden card across the table to Lil.

  “What is this?”

  “Who is it?” Martha asked.

  “Me,” Maggie told them. “It’s a picture of me on my date with DanOfYourDreams.”

  Martha let out a snort, and Abby Ruth grinned wide. She was having so much trouble containing her enjoyment that her leg was moving, her roach-killer boot bonking Maggie in the shin with every swing.

  “What’s so funny?” Maggie slapped Abby Ruth’s knee to stop the assault on her leg.

  “Beekeeping?” Martha let out a hearty laugh and then pushed the picture back over to Lil. “Seriously. Now, that’s a first. I thought paintball was bad.”

  “It’s a nice picture,
” Lil soothed. “Too bad we can’t see your face.”

  Maggie lifted a brow. “You should’ve seen my hair before they stuck that safari hat on my head. Sera fixed me all up in a pretty sleek ’do.”

  “Wait a second.” Martha pulled the picture back. “You couldn’t see his face?”

  “Nope, but I’d seen his profile. He was the right height and build. I guess he could have favored the picture, but the photo was of some model from a stock site.”

  “That’s it. The connection,” Martha exclaimed. “I bet your guy is my niece’s guy.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because Tom kept his face hidden too.”

  Maggie’s mouth dropped. “But my guy was DanOfYourDreams and hers was OnceUponATom.”

  “And she had a picture from her date too.” Martha’s mouth twisted up. “You’ve found him.”

  “Well, I don’t really have his address or anything yet. I mean…”

  “I need you to find this guy. Now,” Martha demanded. “I just thought he was a tool, but what if he’s using this site to troll for pretty young victims?”

  “Has your niece received any gifts from The Perfect Fit?”

  “No, but she said Tom sent her flowers.”

  “She get a note with that?” Abby Ruth asked.

  “Didn’t mention one. Why?”

  Maggie leaned forward. “Because both Sera and Abby Ruth have gotten the kiss-off from the dating site.”

  “It was not a kiss-off,” Abby Ruth said through gritted teeth and a forced smile.

  “Whatever you call it,” Maggie said, waving her fingers in front of Abby Ruth’s scowling face. “Regardless, some women are getting kicked out of the site. They’re sent a form letter that, strangely enough, comes with a gift.”

  “Isn’t that nice?” Lillian angled her head and raised her eyebrows. “What’d you get?” she asked Abby Ruth.

  “Cube steak.” When Martha snickered, Abby Ruth raised a finger and locked eyes with her. “Not a word.”

  Martha’s nostrils swelled as she held back a grin, then she shifted her focus back to Maggie. “What else you got?”

  “We decided to register as a man,” Maggie told her, “and the process is totally different for them. Fewer personal questions and fewer profile questions. Plus, they have the ability to search through all the women’s profiles.”