I grinned at her back.
“I really don’t,” I lied. “How about you tell me what has your knickers in a twist?”
She stopped and turned. “My ‘knickers’ aren’t in a twist. In fact, I’m pretty sure my knickers are none of your business.”
I winked at her and moved past her, making my way back to the large screened-in back porch where I was holding today’s class.
I could hear Audrey’s hurried footsteps behind me, but she wasn’t quite tall enough to keep up with my stride that took me out into the sunny February day.
“Everybody good?” I asked.
I received nods from the rest of the class, and a grunt of annoyance from the woman who’d passed me on her way to her seat.
“Now,” I pointed at the man who was going to be the annoying avenger. “Tell me. Can you take a concealed handgun, even with your license, onto a college campus?”
Four hours later, I was picking up the trash that was left after today’s class.
Audrey was sitting on the back of my side-by-side off road vehicle, swinging her legs, watching me do all the work.
“You could come over and pick up some of this,” I gestured.
Before she could answer, the sound of a truck pulling into the back pasture of my property caused me to look up, and I frowned.
Handing the trash to Audrey as I moved past her, I walked to my brother’s truck, and stared at him when he rolled down his window.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
Normally, my brother announced himself, but today he hadn’t.
I could tell instantly that something was wrong.
“I need your help.”
My brows rose.
“Okay,” I said. “What’s up?”
He pointed to the seat beside him, and I saw the familiar boxes.
“I don’t want any,” I told him.
He grinned. “I’ll tell your niece that you’re not willing to help her.”
I growled. “Fuck you.”
His smile was contagious, and I shook my head. “How many do I need to buy?”
He shrugged. “I think she really wants to sell them, but I was called into work, and I really, really don’t have time to do it. Do you think you could take her around my neighborhood tomorrow and do it?”
There was nothing I wanted to do less than walk around my brother’s neighborhood selling stuff, but then Audrey caught my brother’s attention, and I realized that maybe there was a silver lining in it for me.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
I grinned. “That, brother dear, is a badass.”
His chin jerked. “Looks like she wants your attention.”
I grunted. “She wants nothing to do with me. Really, she just wants to go home.”
He hummed. “Well then take her.”
I shrugged. “I fuckin’ plan on it.” I eyed him speculatively. “You didn’t have to come all the way out here to ask me this.”
My brother shrugged as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “I really just wanted to know what was keeping you distracted enough that you weren’t answering your phone.”
I glared at him, but wisely chose not to say anything.
My brother didn’t need any more ammo than he already had.
Somebody had been talking.
My eyes went to Audrey, who was still swinging her legs.
“Who called you?”
He shrugged.
“Can’t drive through my neighborhood, bro, and not expect me to know,” he said, winking. “Just you remember that.”
Which meant one of two things.
He’d seen Audrey in my front seat when I’d left with her this morning, or old Mrs. Shoe did.
My guess was that it was Mrs. Shoe.
She had nothing else to do with her life but to sit and watch others living theirs, and it was likely that when I pulled into Audrey’s driveway to pick her up, Mrs. Shoe had been watching.
The moment I left, Mrs. Shoe was probably already on the phone with my brother.
“Anyway,” my brother put the truck into reverse. “You enjoy the rest of your…class.”
I flipped him the bird and returned to picking up the trash.
The entire time, I could practically feel the inquisitiveness prickling Audrey’s tongue.
She surprised me, though, and never said a word.
The only thing I got out of her the rest of the day, in fact, was a ‘thank you’ when I dropped her off.
But tomorrow, I’d be back.
She could count on that.
Chapter 3
Please don’t snort cocaine in the bathroom.
-Things I never thought I’d have to say to houseguests
Audrey
I opened the door and looked down.
“Hello,” the girl said. “I’m with the Girl Scou…”
“Thin mints,” I blurted.
She blinked.
“That’s…”
“Oh, and give me four boxes of those Trefoils,” I ticked off my fingers. “Three thin mints.”
Her mouth gaped.
“How much?”
She gaped some more.
“That’ll be thirty-five dollars.”
I looked up to find my archnemesis, Tobias Hail—don’t ever call me Fender—jerk wad on my front step.
“What are you doing here?”
He gestured to the girl.
“My niece,” I said. “I knew you’d buy some. She’s having some trouble selling them.”
My mouth pursed.
“I used to be in the Girl Scouts,” I told her sympathetically, instantly feeling terrible for this little girl that looked like she’d be eaten alive by the go-getter Girl Scouts that hustled the people of Wal-Mart. “Where have you hit?”
“Hit?” she stuttered.
“Hit. Where have you gone?” I asked. “You can get some door-to-door, but the best places to go are where the hormonal women and hungry men are.”
“Where would that be?” she asked hesitantly.
I pushed the door open wider and then gestured her in. “Let me go get my shoes and we can go.”
I didn’t miss the smirk that lit Fender’s—I refused to call him Tobias because that’s what he wanted—face. The fucker.
He knew that I’d go with him…that girl, well she was freakin’ adorable.
I didn’t know that he had a niece!
Then again, I didn’t know much about him at all. Only his name and that he gave me the chills—and not in a bad way.
In a way that I wasn’t quite sure about just yet.
I was sure, given time, that I could get used to those chills—and that’s what scared me.
“Where are you going?” Mina asked from the couch.
She was laying there, her arm up high over her head, with her daughter asleep on her belly.
“I’m going to help Fender’s niece sell Girl Scout cookies,” I said. “Do you…”
“Does she have any?” Mina sat up, her arms placed protectively over her daughter’s back and head.
I hid my grin as I walked to my shoes and slipped them on.
It was eighty degrees out. In February.
But, that was the way of the South.
I didn’t much care. I loved wearing flip-flops and shorts. The hotter, the better, in my opinion.
Tunnel, my brother, who’d been asleep in the recliner when I went to answer the door, cracked open his eye and stared at his wife as she deposited his daughter into his lap.
He’d been gone all night due to a case he’d caught a break in late yesterday evening, and he’d just gotten home an hour ago.
“Weren’t you just telling me yesterday that you wanted to fit into those pants…”