Thirty-Two and a Half Complications (33 page)

I was trying to figure out which ones were freshest when I saw a man out of the corner of my eye who looked like the Batman robber from the bank. My head jerked up and I moved down the aisle, trying to get a better look at him, but no one was there.

I was officially losing my mind.

Mason’s car was parked in front of the house along with his mother’s. I burst through the front door, the shopping bags hanging from my arms.

They were both in the living room, and they got to their feet as soon as they saw me.

“I’m so sorry I’m late!”

Mason’s mom moved toward me and pulled me into a hug, grocery bags and all. She was a startlingly beautiful woman in her early sixties, but her warm heart was what drew me to her.

“Rose! It’s so good to see you again. Thank you so much for inviting me to stay with you for the holiday.”

I gave her a warm smile. “You are always welcome here, Maeve.” It felt strange calling her by her first name, but she’d insisted against Mrs. Deveraux and Miss Maeve was out of the question. “You have no idea how happy it makes me that you’re here.”

“Mason tells me I didn’t need to come to Henryetta so early. He’s going to stay with you here at the farm?”

I looked for any hint of disapproval in her expression, but found none. “Yes.” I set the bags down on the coffee table and hugged Mason’s arm. “I’ve grown very fond of your son. I suspect if he moved out, we’d just take turns staying at each other’s place’s anyway, so why not keep living together?”

She clasped her hands together. “Well, I’m thrilled. I was just telling Mason he couldn’t find a sweeter girl.”

I tilted my head to look into his face. “I think I’m the lucky one,” I said.

Mason leaned down to give me a kiss. “Let me help you with dinner.”

I stepped away from him and grabbed the bags. “Don’t be silly. You talk with your momma.”

“Rose, I don’t feel right not helping,” Mason’s mother said.

“Don’t you worry! I’ll put you to work on Thanksgiving. But tonight you relax and let us take care of you.”

I hurried into the kitchen to get started, but Mason rounded the corner and pulled me into a hug to give me a better kiss hello.

“I missed you at lunch today,” he murmured.

“I missed you too.”

“You look nice.” I could hear the question in his voice. “I figured you must have come home since Muffy was here when I got back.”

“We didn’t have anything for dinner. So I came home and showered and put on nice clothes for your momma. I don’t want her thinking I’m always grungy.” I laughed even though I felt bad for fibbing. “She’ll figure that out soon enough.”

“You sure I can’t help you with dinner?”

I stood on my tiptoes and gave him a long kiss. “Go talk to your mother, who you don’t call often enough. She misses you. And then after we go to bed, I’ll show you how much I missed you today.”

He groaned. “That’s hours from now.”

“Get!” I gave him a tiny push.

He grinned and my heart flooded with love.

Mason and his mother ended up helping me in the kitchen anyway. We ate at the never-used dining room table and sat talking and eating long after we finished. Mason’s mother was funny and sweet, and she regaled me with stories about Mason and his sister when they were kids.

I drank it in, so grateful I nearly burst. This was what I’d spent my whole life longing for—a loving family. Was that why I was so worried it was about to be snatched away from me?

We left the dishes in the sink and Mason stood on the front porch with me while we waited for Muffy to do her business. He kissed me in the moonlight…and in that moment, I was almost happy enough to take that stupid test I’d started to carry around in my purse. I just needed to get everything settled with my business first.

“Mason, I think I’m going to split my share of the business from Violet’s. It’s just not a good idea for us to work together anymore.”

“Rose, it’s your business. It may say ‘Gardner Sisters’ on the sign, but you’re the complete financial backer. If you want her gone, you can get rid of her.”

“That doesn’t seem right. She may be acting like a total witch right now, but she loves what she does. And honestly, I wouldn’t be doing what I love right now if she hadn’t goaded me into it.”

“So maybe you split it up and you take over full ownership of the landscaping portion and you’re the silent partner in the greenhouse side.”

“That might actually work. Only I won’t be full owner of the landscaping side.”

He leaned back and studied my face. “Why not?”

“I want to be co-owners with Bruce Wayne. He feels a sense of ownership already and the work makes him so happy. I realize he didn’t put any money into it, but neither did Violet and she—”

He kissed me for several long seconds, then lifted his head and gave me a grin. “If you’re worried about my reaction, you needn’t be. For one thing, it’s your business. You can go to work wearing clown suits without it being any business of mine. And if you’re worried about whether I think it’s a wise business move…well, Violet didn’t put any money in and she’s a great co-owner, your personal arguments aside. Bruce Wayne is loyal and hardworking; he’d be thrilled to have more of a stake in the business.”

“Thanks.”

“What are you and Violet doing about the missing money?”

Oh, crappy doodles. “We’re working on it.”

He took my chin between his finger and thumb and tilted my face up to his. “If I’m going to be living here, I need to start contributing to the expenses more than I currently am. And if you need money to help with the nursery, I can cash in part of my 401K to help.”

I gasped. “Mason! I can’t let you do that!”

“You love it and it makes you happy. I would gladly do it. Just tell me how much you need and I’ll have my financial planner put things in motion.”

Putting my pride aside, surely taking Mason’s money was better than getting in any deeper with Skeeter Malcolm. While Mason wasn’t as freaked out over my amateur sleuthing as Joe had always been, he would never approve of me doing business with Skeeter. “If I accepted your help, how long would it take to get the money?”

“Well, it will slow things down with Thanksgiving coming up, but I suspect we could have it by the first week of December.”

I rested my cheek against his chest so he wouldn’t see my disappointment. “I love you, Mason. Thank you.”

“How much do you need?”

I wasn’t sure what to tell him, especially since it would be too late. “I’ll figure it out and let you know.”

“Okay. Come on. Let’s go to bed.”

The next morning, Mason and I both went to work late so we could have breakfast with his mother.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do all day,” she said, carrying breakfast dishes to the sink.

“I haven’t talked to Violet for a few days, but she probably needs help getting ready for the open house on Friday. I suspect she’ll put you to work, though.”

“Oh, that’s perfect. I’d love to help.”

I gave her the directions to the shop, then texted Violet. I hadn’t talked to her since Friday, so I was almost sorry I’d made the suggestion, but Violet had met Mason’s mother when he was in the hospital. I knew the two of them got along well.

Mason’s mother is in town and would like to help you get ready for the open house. PLEASE be nice to her.

She answered back a few minutes later.

I would never consider being anything but nice to her. That’s just insulting
.
Tell her I look forward to seeing her.

Typical Violet.

Are you still planning on coming for Thanksgiving?

There was a ten-second lapse before she answered.

Are we still welcome?

Despite everything, we’re still sisters, Vi. Of course you’re welcome.

There was a pause again, then:
I’ll let you know.

Bruce Wayne and I met at our new jobsite. It was a small job and would only take a few days. “We need to scrounge up some follow-up work,” I said as we used a garden hose to figure out the curve of the short landscaping wall we planned to build. “The trouble is that most people think we can’t work in the winter. We need to make them realize that as long as the ground’s not frozen, the cooler months are the best time to plant.”

“Have you got any ideas?”

I sighed. “Not a one. I guess we should worry about surviving first.” I told him about Mason’s offer of financial assistance. “But it’s a few days late and probably several thousand dollars short. Not that I told him how much we needed.”

“I suspect it’s too late to get out of our deal with Skeeter anyhow. Now that he knows about your gift, he’s not gonna let it go.”

“Great.” I sighed again.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have told him, but I was scared.”

“No, you did the right thing. I just hope to hear something from him soon.”

After we wrapped things up for the day, I stopped at the Piggly Wiggly to do my Thanksgiving shopping. The turkeys were picked over, but I found a twenty-pounder and filled the cart until it was overflowing since I was out of just about everything I would need. Just my luck, I’d gotten a cart with a sticky wheel, and the more I piled in, the harder it was to push. Realizing I couldn’t fit any more groceries onto my heaping pile, I leaned over and gave the cart a good shove toward the checkout lane when a man by the bakery section caught my eye. I wouldn’t have thought anything about it, except I thought I’d seen the bank robber in the same location the previous day. Stopping in the middle of the main aisle, I turned around and gasped in shock.

The Batman bank robber was standing there in the Piggly Wiggly’s bakery aisle, squeezing the day-old bread.

It took me a full two seconds to overcome my shock. But by the time I’d come to my senses, he was already moving toward the back of the store.

“Excuse me,” a grumpy woman snarled.

My cart was currently angled diagonally across the main aisle, blocking customers coming from both directions.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, leaning into the cart and putting all my weight into it to change directions.

I finally got the buggy turned around and headed down the cereal aisle toward the possible robber, hoping to intercept him. But as I reached the end of the aisle, a cart came barreling out of nowhere and slammed into mine, sending it toppling onto its side with a loud bang. The contents of my cart spilled out, the turkey sliding across the floor and slamming into a stack of canned sweet potatoes, which toppled over like pins in a bowling alley.

Several customers screamed and jumped out of the way of rolling cans.

“You tried to kill me!” A man’s irate voice filled my now-aching head.

I glanced up to see Officer Ernie with his half-empty cart. He was dressed in skin-tight acid-washed jeans, a Def Leppard T-shirt, and a puffy, sleeveless powder-blue ski vest.

I put my hands on my hips. “You’re the one who slammed into me!”

“I shoulda known.” The police officer shook his head with a disgusted look. “If there’s trouble, I can bet you’re a part of it.”

“I need to—”

“You need to clean up this mess.”

“But I think I saw one of the bank robbers!” Oh, Lordy. Why did I tell him that?

He snorted. “And I saw the Easter Bunny on aisle four. Start cleanin’. Now.”

The Henryetta police would never listen to me and I needed to track down that bank robber since that liar Skeeter Malcolm wasn’t going to come through on our agreement. I jumped to my feet and took off running toward the back corner of the store, but Officer Ernie caught up with me and grabbed my arm. I shook him loose, but he tumbled sideways into a giant cereal box display arranged into the shape of a giant turkey.

The tower of boxes fell, a few of them bursting open to send tiny cereal letters flying everywhere. I gaped at the angry police officer climbing to his feet in front of me.

He grabbed my arm before I had the sense to take off running. “Rose Gardner! You’re under arrest.”

As he handcuffed me, pushing me out the front doors, I wondered what else could possibly go wrong.

I should have learned long ago to never ask that question.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I stared at the holding cell walls, not surprised by how familiar they looked. I’d been in this same jail cell several months before for contempt of court.

I flopped down on the small cot, which wasn’t any more comfortable than it had been last time. “I wonder if they’ll give me a bologna sandwich this time too,” I muttered to myself.

Mason’s voice drifted down the hall. “Only if I leave you in here for long enough to find out.” He stopped at the front of my cell, hanging onto one of the bars. “I’m feeling a bit of déjà vu.”

I gave him a regretful smile. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself. I hear you had an eventful afternoon.”

“You could say that.”

A slow grin spread across his face. “For this to truly be déjà vu, you’d need to come over here and talk to me through the bars.”

I shook my head, smiling. “And I was hoping you were here to spring me loose.”

“Come on over here and work out your plea bargain.”

I got to my feet and walked over to the bars. “What are the charges, Mr. Deveraux?”

“Destruction of property, willful vandalism. Evading a police officer.” He tried to look serious, but a smile tugged at his lips. “You’ve been a very bad girl, Ms. Gardner. How do you plead?”

“Not guilty.” I turned serious. “Mason, I saw the bank robber from my visions. He was at the Piggly Wiggly. I saw him yesterday too, but only from the corner of my eye. But this time I got a good look at him and I’m positive it was him. I started to run after him, but Officer Ernie slammed his cart into mine, spilling my food everywhere. And when I ran after the robber, Ernie hunted me down. He fell into a cereal display and the bank robber got away.”

“So I heard, but with a slightly different spin.”

“Are you mad?”

“Why would I be mad? Every assistant DA loves to hear that his girlfriend has been arrested.”

I cringed. “I’m sorry.”