Thirty-Three and a Half Shenanigans

by Denise Grover Swank

  When we got up to leave, we had no choice but to walk by Skeeter on the way to the door. I prayed he wouldn’t say anything.

  Of course, that was too much to hope for.

  “Mr. Prosecutor,” Skeeter said with a smirk, dipping his chin slightly.

  “Mr. Malcolm,” Mason returned in a low voice.

  “I like your new accessory.”

  It took me a millisecond to realize he was talking about me.

  Mason took half a step to put himself partially between us. “Are you threatening my girlfriend, Mr. Malcolm?”

  Skeeter laughed. “Threatening a pretty little thing like that? God no. She’s safer than you realize.” He picked up his butter knife. “And why would you assume it was a threat? If you don’t mind me saying so, you seem a little paranoid.”

  Mason didn’t answer him. Instead, he ushered me out the door and into the parking lot, his breath coming in short bursts. “I don’t want you to be alone today.”

  “Why?”

  He stared into my face. “He mentioned you for a reason, Rose. Malcolm does everything for a reason. I’m worried that you’re not safe.”

  Little did he know how safe I actually was. “Mason, you yourself said he’s trying to keep a low profile. He’s not going to do anything stupid. He’s just tryin’ to rile you up.” I put my hand on his arm. “And look. It’s working. I’m fine.”

  He walked me to my truck. “Call or text me today. Multiple times. I mean it. I’ll be crazy with worry most of the day.”

  I placed my hands on his shoulders and kissed him, standing on my tiptoes. “I love how protective you are of me, but I’m fine.”

  “Maybe you should have a vision.”

  “Of how many times I’ll call you today?” I teased.

  “No, to make sure you’re gonna be safe.”

  My heels dropped to the pavement, and my smile fell. “You’re serious.”

  “Yes.”

  “Mason, you know it doesn’t work like that. What you’re wanting to know is so general—”

  “Then try to have a vision of Christmas. That’s far enough away to make sure Malcolm doesn’t go after you soon.”

  I gave a tiny shake of my head. “Mason . . .”

  “If our positions were reversed, would you be willing to wait and see?”

  “That’s not fair.” But he was right. I would want to know. It was just that there were so many peculiarities in my life, I had no idea what would pop out of my mouth. Things I didn’t want him to know. Yet, there was no denying he was worried for my safety, and the guilt of it was settling on my shoulders like a stack of bricks. “Okay. But if I spoil my Christmas present from you, you better get me something else. Despite my visions, I actually like surprises.”

  He kissed me, then took my hands. “Do you want to sit down on the truck seat?”

  “Sure.” I opened the door and climbed onto the driver’s seat, turning so my legs hung over the side.

  Mason moved closer, pressing his stomach into my legs and taking my hands again. “What do you need me to do?”

  I realized I’d never purposely had a vision with him before. “Just keep holding my hands.” I paused. “And promise you’ll still love me no matter what comes out of my mouth.”

  Shock widened his eyes. “What could you possibly say that would change my feelings for you?”

  I had a whole list, but I wasn’t about to pull it out and dust it off. “Nothing. I just hate doing this.” Indecision flickered in his eyes, making me feel guilty. I was more worried about his safety than my own, but I couldn’t very well tell him why. Who knew, maybe my vision would reassure me. I reached up and kissed him again. “It’s okay, really. Maybe I’ll see something wonderful.”

  He looked so serious. “I hope so.”

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, concentrating on Christmas Day. It took longer than I expected—maybe because it was still a couple of weeks away—but the blackness gave way to my living room. A giant real Christmas tree filled the corner with decorations I didn’t recognize. Presents were scattered underneath, and someone’s back was pressed against my chest.

  “I think this is the best Christmas I’ve ever had, Mason,” my voice said wistfully.

  “Me too,” Mason said.

  The vision faded, and I opened my eyes as I blurted out, “It’s gonna be the best Christmas we ever had.”

  His face flooded with relief, and he pulled me to his chest. “Thank God.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I didn’t know you were so worried about Christmas,” I teased. “I better be certain to get you the best present ever.”

  He pulled back, smiling. “You’re the best present I could ever hope to get. Everything else would pale in comparison.”

  “So you’re saying you don’t want a present . . .” I cocked my head to the side with a grin.

  “Now I wouldn’t go that far,” he chuckled. “I like presents, no matter how small.”

  That was good to know.

  “Well, I like presents too, so I’m glad I didn’t see mine.”

  A ringing filled the silence. Mason groaned and pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the screen. “Duty calls. I’ve got to get to work.” He lifted his eyes to my face. “What are you up to now?”

  “I’m going to check on Bruce Wayne and the office before I pick up Ashley to help your mom. I suppose I should call Joe about the papers.” And meet with your current archnemesis.

  “Well, I emailed the papers to him this morning from home, so he’ll have them. Hopefully, you’ll just have to show up and sign them.”

  We both knew that was unlikely.

  He gave me another kiss, then grabbed the side of the truck door. “Despite your vision, be careful, and if you feel unsafe for any reason, call me or the sheriff. Okay?”

  “Mason, I’ll be fine.”

  “Skeeter Malcolm is not a man to mess around with, Rose. He specifically mentioned you. That wasn’t for nothing.”

  “Okay, and do I have a curfew too?” Mason’s forehead furrowed, and I laughed. “I’m teasing.”

  “Well, I’m not. Be careful.”

  “I’ll be as careful as I can be.”

  “Try to be with someone all day if you can.”

  I gave him a slight push. “Mason, go already. I’ll be safe. I promise.”

  He grinned. “Why are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “So you can get to work and come home to me sooner. Go.”

  He gave me another kiss and shut my door. I watched him get into his car as I pulled out my phone. Cringing, I glanced at the screen.

  You’re off the hook. For now.

  I looked back at the restaurant. The text had been sent while I was sitting in the Big Biscuit with Skeeter watching my back. Had he changed his mind after seeing me with Mason? Maybe he was worried I’d tell his secrets to Mason. In any case, I’d earned a reprieve. With any luck at all, there wouldn’t be a next time.

  And if I believed that, then Santa was going to bring me a pony.

  Buying a saddle wasn’t a safe bet.

  Chapter Five

  I decided to suck it up and call Joe on the way to the landscaping office.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he answered.

  “Joe, you can’t call me that anymore.”

  “Why not? It’s true.”

  I groaned. “Mason said he sent you the papers for the nursery, but you want me there when you sign them.”

  “I thought it would be good to go over all of it together.”

  “Well, we still need to discuss some things about the business, so I guess that works. Do you want me to come by the sheriff’s office?”

  “How about we meet at the nursery? I want to tell you a few ideas I have while we’re there in the space.”

  “Is Violet gonna be there so you can both ambush me again?” I asked dryly.

  “Rose, look.” He released a heavy sigh. “I admit that we handled that badly.”
<
br />   “Oh, really? You think so?”

  “I wish I had handled it differently.” He paused. “I wish I’d handled a lot of things differently.”

  I wasn’t going down that road again. “If you feel so badly, then let me buy you out.”

  He chuckled. “I don’t feel that badly.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from cursing. “Then when do you want to meet?”

  “How about mid-afternoon? I’m working on something, but I can be free by then.”

  “Fine,” I grumbled. “Two o’clock?”

  “That works for me.” He hesitated. “And Rose, if you don’t mind, I’d rather Violet not be there.”

  I couldn’t help wondering what he had up his sleeve, but I had to admit that I didn’t want the two of them together. The last time they’d met me at the nursery had turned into a disaster. “Okay. I won’t tell her we’re meeting.”

  “See you this afternoon.”

  Bruce Wayne was already at the office, sitting in his chair, when I arrived. The look on his face told me he was frustrated. He looked behind me, surprised. “Where’s Muffy?”

  “I had too many errands to run to bring her,” I said, unbuttoning my coat. “Did the electrician not show?”

  “Oh, he showed. It’s what he didn’t do that has me perturbed. Or rather what he wanted.”

  I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”

  “He said it was going to cost eight-hundred dollars to fix the mess, and I had to pay up front.”

  “What? But Mr. Darby is supposed to pay for that.”

  “I know, and I told him that, but he said Darby ain’t forking over a dime.”

  I put my hand on my hip and let out a loud huff. “Now what are we gonna do?”

  “Oh, I already done something.” He got up out of his chair. “I called Mason and told him. He’s gonna make an official call to our landlord.”

  I groaned.

  “You got the Assistant DA in your back pocket, Rose. Why ain’t you usin’ ’im?”

  “You know very well why I’m not using him!”

  “Rose.” He took a wary step toward me. “That man would pull the stars from the sky and put ’em on a chain around your neck if you wanted ’em. Why won’t you let him help you with this?”

  “Because I spent twenty-four years lettin’ other people make every single decision for me, telling me what I could and couldn’t do. I was incapable of relying on myself, Bruce Wayne. I’m tired of being weak. I never want to be that girl again. I thought you of all people would understand.”

  “There’s a difference between being weak and lettin’ people who love and care for you help you from time to time, Rose. You made me partial owner of this business when I didn’t put up a dime. Hell’s bells, you gave me a job when no one else would. You saw I was down on my luck and gave me a hand. Was I weak to accept that?”

  “No!” I protested. “That was different.”

  “No, it wasn’t. Not really.” A grin stretched his lips. “Besides, it’s a done deal. Like I said, I took care of it.”

  I sat in my chair, perturbed. He was right, as hard as it was to admit.

  “Nelly Kate dropped in earlier looking for you.”

  I checked my phone. “She didn’t call me.”

  “She was on her way to work. She said to tell you that she’d looked at the books last night.”

  I sat up in excitement. “She did?”

  “She also said she’d tried a new recipe, so she’s bringin’ some over for lunch. Said she’d tell you all about it then.”

  That drew a less enthusiastic response. “Oh.”

  He chuckled. “I suddenly remembered I’ve got somewhere I need to be for lunch. Sorry I’m gonna miss it.”

  Neely Kate had experienced a recent burst of domestication. Ronnie had put his foot down—a rare instance—and told her that she couldn’t decorate the baby’s room until she found out if it was a boy or a girl. Instead, she’d poured her energy into watching cooking shows and trying out new recipes. Only Ronnie rarely liked what she cooked, so she’d been forcing it on me and Bruce Wayne . . . when she could actually catch him. It had only taken two meals for us to figure out Neely Kate’s gourmet adventure was akin to taking a joy ride on the Titanic. Mason seemed to have a sixth sense for when she was about to show up with leftovers. She’d stopped by his office with a stack of suspicious Tupperware a few times while I was over at the courthouse for a quick visit. He’d always claim he had a prior engagement or say he’d already eaten. I hadn’t been so lucky.

  “Did she mention what she brought today?”

  “Something about tofu burgers and Brussels sprouts muffins.”

  I shuddered. “If she doesn’t find a new hobby soon, I’m gonna beg Ronnie to let her decorate that baby’s room.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “Yeah, I know. Did she say what time she was coming?”

  “She really wanted to talk to you, so she said she was coming early. Around eleven-thirty.”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall—10:40. What could she have found in the books? Dread knotted my shoulders. I knew Violet had been irresponsible, but surely she hadn’t skimmed money off the business as Neely Kate had suggested was possible.

  I looked around at what needed to be done. “Until we get the electricity situation sorted, we’re sunk on getting the computers and Internet set up.”

  Bruce Wayne winked. “I got it covered.”

  “How?”

  “I borrowed my cousin’s generator.”

  “He let you?” I regretted the words as soon as I said them. Bruce Wayne’s family had practically disowned him after he was arrested for murder last year. And they hadn’t welcomed him back into the fold after he was acquitted, either. Violet and I had our differences, but we’d never turn our backs on each other like that.

  Bruce Wayne shrugged. “He’s on my biological dad’s side. I didn’t have much to do with them before . . . everything. But I’ve been thinking about my dad lately, so I called my cousin after Thanksgiving.” He grimaced as though he was wading deeper into cold water than he’d planned. “He said we could borrow it until our electricity gets fixed. Or until there’s a snow storm in the forecast, whichever comes first.”

  We spent the next forty minutes getting the computers situated and had just started installing software when the front door burst open. Neely Kate stood in the threshold, holding a plastic tub of food. “Who’s hungry?”

  Bruce Wayne’s eyes bugged out like she was pointing a loaded gun at him. He jumped to his feet and grabbed his coat off the back of his office chair. “I just remembered that I’ve got to go do that . . . thing.”

  Neely Kate shot him a glare. “What thing?”

  “Um . . . the electricity’s out, and I need to run to the hardware store to get some supplies for the generator.” Then he shot past her, faster than I’d ever seen him move.

  Neely Kate shut the door, watching him beat it down the sidewalk. “He’s not goin’ after any parts, is he?”

  “Um . . .” I didn’t want to tell her the truth, but a white lie wasn’t hurrying its way off my tongue.

  She spun around and gave me an amused, disapproving look. “Rose, if you don’t want to share my tofu and chipotle burgers with Bruce Wayne, you don’t have to send him off. I’ll just make double next time.”

  “Oh, Neely Kate. You really don’t have to.”

  A smile lit up her face. “I don’t mind at all.” She grabbed Bruce Wayne’s chair and dragged it over to me, setting the Tupperware on my desk. “Eat up while it’s still warm. I heated it up in the microwave before I came over.” She popped off the lid and handed me a plastic fork. “I don’t have any plates today, so we’ll just have to share.”

  “Okay . . .” I said as I looked down at the green goo-covered patty. Surely it couldn’t taste as bad as it looked. “Bruce Wayne said you had time to look over the books.”

  “Oh, yeah.” She opened her big pur
se and dug out the ledger.

  “I didn’t think you were going to get to it ’til today.”

  “Neither did I, but I had a major case of indigestion and couldn’t sleep.”

  “How bad was it?”

  “My indigestion? Pretty bad.”

  I laughed. “Not your indigestion, although I sympathize. The books. How were the books?”

  “Way better than I expected.”

  “So Violet didn’t try to cheat me?”

  “With the nursery’s money? No. With everything else in your life . . . well, that’s another story. I still think you should switch over to accounting software, though.”

  I let out a sigh of relief, feeling better until she glanced down at the food and up at my empty fork. “You better eat up while it’s still warm.” I noticed she wasn’t exactly pulling out any utensils of her own, but there was no polite way to say so.

  Holding my breath, I took a bite and nearly gagged. I was wrong. It was worse than it looked.

  “What do you think? I made it last night when I couldn’t sleep. I saw it on Chopped.”

  “Uh . . . Neely Kate, isn’t that the show where they make dishes out of weird food combinations? They don’t have actual recipes.”

  Her eyes lit up. “That’s the challenge! To make something so unique without a recipe. When I saw this, I decided to try it. I made it while I was going over the ledger last night.”

  “Did Ronnie like it?”

  She waved her hand, and I noticed her nails were painted green with red polka dots. “Please. That man wouldn’t know fine food if it jumped out of the lake and into his fishing boat on a gold plate. I made it for you.”

  I tried another bite and began to choke. “Me?”

  Neely Kate pulled a bottle of water out of her purse and handed it to me. “You’re the only one who appreciates my cooking.” She pursed her lips together. “I was sure Mason would, but he never seems to be around when I have gourmet meals with me.”

  I took a drink, trying to figure a way out of eating the glop in front of me. I decided to use Mason’s trick. “This is delicious, but Mason and I had a late breakfast at the Big Biscuit.” Then I told her about Skeeter’s comment to Mason and the vision I’d forced of Christmas.