Pound Foolish (Windy City Neighbors Book 4) (46 page)

DaShawn rolled his eyes. “Oh, Gram. Shootin’ some hoops in the alley ain’t gonna hurt Tavis. He’s pretty much healed up. Says the doc just didn’t want him runnin’ himself all ragged up an’ down the gym—that kinda thing.”

Estelle folded her arms across her ample chest and tapped her foot. “Well … you hold off long enough for me to check with his mama. If she say okay, then okay.”

DaShawn rolled his eyes again, but plopped down in a chair while Estelle used the kitchen phone to call Michelle Jasper’s work number at Bridges Family Services. It was tempting to say, “Happy birthday!” when her neighbor answered, but since the cake was a surprise, she kept her query to whether Tavis was allowed to shoot baskets behind the Bentley garage.

“All right.” Estelle hung up the phone. “His mama says he can play for about twenty minutes. Just shootin’ though. No runnin’ around, you hear me?”

DaShawn grabbed his ball. “Thanks, Gram.” And he was out the back door and down the outside stairs. A few minutes later she could hear the
thump thump thump
of the ball on the alley pavement and the indistinct voices of the two boys.

“Thank you, Jesus, that boy gonna be okay,” she breathed. It’d been nothing short of heart-stopping when the two Jasper boys—Destin and Tavis—got shot back in July by some gangbangers who mistook them for drug-sellin’ wannabees, when all they were doing was trying to make some money selling an energy drink.

Well. Harry and Corky would be home soon. She better get supper on so they could eat right away and have time to skedaddle over to the Jaspers with dessert—’specially if Harry wanted to take Corky for her evening constitutional before they went over. Couldn’t blame the dog. Working security at the Amtrak station downtown wasn’t the best place to let a dog trained to sniff out drugs do some free sniffing and running around.

Estelle pulled out a frying pan, and then eyed her lemon creation on the counter. Might be a good thing to hide that cake or she’d be slapping Harry’s hands from taking a slice too.

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Pound Foolish

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Published in Evanston, Illinois. Castle Rock Creative.

Scripture quotations are taken from the following:

The Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

“Leave It There,” by Charles A. Tindley, 1916 (Public Domain).

“New Season,” by Israel Houghton and New Breed, Integrity Music, 2001.

“Only Believe,” by Paul Rader, 1921 (Public Domain).

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones, Decca, 1969.

Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors’ imaginations or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-0-9820544-9-9

Cover Design: Dave Jackson

Cover Photos: Beecham Street: Dave Jackson; Sky: Jake Hurst, www.designerfied.com;

Money: Alex Slobodkin, iStock

Printed in the United States of America

Windy City Stories

by Dave and Neta Jackson

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