* * * *
She wasn’t even surprised when Karen Van Ryland came in Tuesday at 11:30 and announced she wouldn’t work for Paul Monroe.
“That’s it. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take any more of this, Darla.” Bette pressed her hands on the desktop and rose slowly from her chair.
“What are you going to do?”
Do? Yes, she had to do something. The weekend had turned out worse than miserable—it had been unproductive. She hadn’t caught up with the paperwork from Top-Line the way she’d wanted to. She hadn’t investigated the two prospective neighborhoods she’d had on her agenda and she hadn’t attended the real estate open houses she’d targeted.
In fact, all she had accomplished was carving jack-o’-lantern faces into the three pumpkins that had taken up residence on her front steps. Oddly, they all bore a striking resemblance to the mask of tragedy. Her neighbor had remarked that she had the most depressing doorstep in town. She had added that only seemed fitting since Bette’s expression matched that of the jack-o’-lanterns.
Yes, she had to do something. She had to at least try to stop this.
“I’m going to face that maniac on his own turf and tell him he can’t get away with this!”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
She hadn’t told Darla what Paul’s condition for behaving normally was, but she had an uncomfortable feeling the older woman had her suspicions.
“No, I don’t think it’s wise, but I think it’s inevitable.”
As inevitable as it had been that those three pumpkins would get faces.
The phone rang and they looked at the instrument, then at each other. Bette swung her coat on as it rang a second time, grabbed her purse and was to the door by ring three.
“Tell him I will be in his office in fifteen minutes, and then we’ll just see about this nonsense.”
Prelude to a Wedding (The Wedding Series Book 1) Page 24
