Sitting on a Fortune

by Becki Willis

  Warning bells went off in Tom Pruett’s befuzzled mind, but he couldn’t tell where the danger came from. Was it from the earnest but eager look upon the woman’s face? Was this some sort of trick to gain access to his fortunes? Was she playing him for a fool and only pretending interest in what he had to say?

  Or was the danger from the man a couple of tables over? He couldn’t remember what, but there was something about that man…

  The man stood and threw his napkin upon his empty plate. As an afterthought, he dropped a couple of dollar bills on the table before turning toward the register. Tom watched as he approached, feeling increasingly uncomfortable as the man drew nearer to his table.

  His breath caught in his throat when the man jostled into their table. It looked like a natural mistake. Clumsy, but natural. But Pruett knew better. It was a warning from the other man. A subtle reminder for Pruett to stay alert, to stay on guard of what he said and who he trusted.

  “Pardon me,” the man murmured, glancing down for only a moment as his lean thigh clipped the corner of the table. “My bad.”

  With the casual apology, Lamont Andrews continued on his way to the register.

  Cutter swept into the café, his hazel eyes searching for his favorite blonde.

  “She’s in her office,” someone offered.

  “Thanks, Merle,” he murmured, brushing past the two men seated near the door.

  He bit back an uncharacteristic flash of irritation at the number of eyes following his progress through the artfully restored old space. When Genesis Baker came back to her hometown two years ago, she had bought and remodeled the old building in downtown Naomi. She had transformed the century-old structure, turning it into something fresh and trendy without compromising the landmark’s spirit and integrity. She opened her café and bakery before the paint was even dry, and it had been an instant success. Cutter suspected he had fallen for the woman eight years his senior the moment he laid eyes on her dimpled smile and beautiful blue eyes. If that hadn’t been the exact time, it was the moment he tasted her apple turnovers. He had been hopelessly in love with her ever since.

  He knew he should be grateful for the devoted customers and thriving business she had grown and cultivated. And he was. He couldn’t be prouder of her accomplishments, and her talents continued to amaze him. He wasn’t one of those men who pounded his chest and insisted he be the breadwinner for the family; he was the first to admit, when and if his welding business hit a slow time, the income from the restaurant would be a godsend.

  But sometimes, he regretted that they had so little privacy. The patrons of New Beginnings Café and Bakery were so devoted and so enthusiastic, they felt territorial about the business. He knew such dedication was hard to find in today’s landscape, and he couldn’t be prouder of the loyalty the townspeople showed to his wife. And to himself, as well. But often, the community thought of the café as theirs. They felt as if they had a stake in the business, and in the hours and days it should be open. If the public had a choice, those leaded glass doors would never close. Genny needed time off, however, and the two of them needed some time to themselves. They were still newlyweds!

  Cutter knew the public felt vested in their relationship. They had watched it develop on national television, under the sharp and talented eye of Home Again producer Amanda Hooper. Somehow, the astute businesswoman was the first to notice their attraction to one another and she had turned it into reality television gold. She even gave them a celebrity couple hashtag. Gennecut.

  It had taken weeks for Cutter to convince Genny to give him a chance. Yes, he was younger than she was. No, it didn’t matter to him. No, he wasn’t too young to know what true love was. He had only known it with her. Yes, he wanted to marry her.

  In the end, it was Genny who proposed to him. Right here, in this very café. In a room full of diners and onlookers.

  Intellectually, Cutter knew that was part of the reason the public felt like they were included in the romance. They had watched it from the beginning. From all the times he lingered there at the counter like a schoolboy with his first crush, from that dance on Valentine’s Day when time stood still during their first slow dance, from the many hours of filming Amanda curated to tell their story, right up until the moment Genny went down on her knee and asked if she could marry him, they had had an audience.

  But, sometimes, like now, that audience bothered him. As much as he appreciated their loyalty, there were times he couldn’t help but resent their interference. Their watchful eyes.

  He felt them on him now, as his cowboy boots thumped out a steady beat against the tiles. He wanted to jog the distance to the back. Wanted to run to his wife and fold her in his arms and forget the fact there were dozens of people in the dining room, speculating about the eager light in his eyes. He wanted privacy for this moment.

  Instead, he nodded politely to those in his path, greeted the employee who scurried out of his way, and smiled as if this wasn’t a huge moment in their lives.

  “Genny darlin’?” he asked, rapping on the office door with his knuckles.

  “Come in!”

  He kissed his wife before asking anxiously, “Did it come in?”

  “Yes.” She nodded her head to the box behind her. “I opened it. It’s all in one piece.”

  From the grave expressions on their faces, an onlooker might think it was a nuclear bomb. A precious vial of a rare and life-saving serum. Not a single stick of white plastic.

  That plastic, however, had the power to proclaim their fondest dreams a reality.

  “Have you… done it?”

  She shook her head with regret. “It says I need to wait until morning.”

  “I’m not sure I can wait that long!” he confessed.

  “If it comes out pink,” Genny reminded him, “you’ll have to wait eight months before we meet our creation.” She giggled at the mere possibility of such magic.

  Cutter cupped her face in both her hands. “I want you to know, darlin’, that no matter the outcome, I’m dedicated to turning that test pink. I’ll try every single day, if that’s what it takes.”

  She allowed him to kiss her soundly before she came up for air and murmured, “You do know there are only a few days a month a woman can get pregnant.”

  He nibbled the side of her neck. “Practice,” he whispered in a husky voice. “We’ll consider the other days practice.” He gently nudged her backward, pressing her legs against the edge of her desk. “I’m willing to practice right this very minute.”

  “Cutter! Not… Not now,” she said, but her voice was already losing its conviction.

  “Give me five good reasons I shouldn’t clear this desk and make love to my gorgeous wife, right this very minute.”

  “I can give you about thirty, and they all watched you come back here. Out of nothing but nosiness, they’ll wait for you to come out, too.”

  Cutter growled in frustration. “Tonight, then,” he told her. “You can let someone else close up, and we can spend another nice, quiet evening alone. A repeat of last night, Mrs. Gennecut.”

  “As tempting as that sounds…” She allowed him to kiss her neck as she spoke. “I can’t. Tonight is Trey Hadley’s birthday party, remember? You promised to wear your bunker gear and hand out plastic helmets and candy.”

  He frowned as he pulled away. “Is that tonight?”

  “Yes. And next week is Virgie Adams’ party, and right after that is Brash’s.”

  Cutter threw up his hands in frustration. “How many birthdays can a town of two thousand residents have?”

  Genny gave him a look. “Really? Surely, you’re more than just a pretty face. You do the math.”

  “Okay, okay,” he relented. “But I’m telling you right now. If Trey’s great-grandmother pinches my butt again, I’m out of here.”

  “The senior Mrs. Hadley?” Genny gasped. “When was this?”

  “The most current pinch was about three weeks ago. She called in a report about smelli
ng gas. I took the call and when I bent over to check the pilots on her stove, the old broad pinched me!” Cutter’s face revealed his indignation.

  “This has happened before?”

  “Only when I make the mistake of getting within two feet of her,” the man with the dark-blond hair sulked.

  Instead of being sympathetic, Genny laughed with glee.

  “Oh, handsome husband of mine. You shouldn’t be so irresistible!”

  Twenty-One

  Madison was pleased with herself for finishing the job at Marvin Gardens by early afternoon Tuesday. Once she got the swing of it, refiling every single customer folder wasn’t so difficult, after all. Just time consuming. It didn’t require an elaborate organizational overhaul, simply an understanding and application of the alphabet.

  Brash hadn’t found the black car in town that night, nor had they seen it again. Not recognizing the car as local, he suggested it could have been someone from out of town, but Madison thought it looked like the one Lamont Andrews was driving when he roared out of the parking lot.

  While her son and husband may have known details about every vehicle ever made and could easily identify one upon sight, Madison wasn’t nearly as astute. To her, a car was a necessary tool to get from point A to point B. She was more interested in safety features and good gas mileage than she was classical style and RPMs. She only noticed vehicles when she needed to, but it was something she was trying to get better about. Times like these proved the need.

  To her disappointment, Lamont didn’t come to work on Monday. He arrived on Tuesday in a white little number that sat low to the ground and had a bold racing stripe down its side. It was only fitting that the stripe was deep, bright red, the same color as rage.

  And blood, an inner voice whispered in her mind.

  Her phone rang as she left the landscaping business.

  “Maddy? Can you run by here on your way home this afternoon?” Genny asked.

  “I’m headed home now. Is this a good time?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Are you okay, Gen? Is something wrong?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here.”

  Madison walked into New Beginnings less than two minutes later. Winking when she saw her friend, she said, “How’s that for jumping? You said frog not two minutes ago.”

  “Can’t get much faster than that,” Genny agreed with a smile. The sparkle in her eyes, however, was lackluster.

  “So? What’s up?”

  “Let’s go to my office.”

  Not liking the sound of her voice, Madison followed with a solemn expression.

  Genny shut the door behind them and motioned for Madison to have a seat. “I wanted to talk to you about two things.”

  “Okay.” She waited for her to continue in her own time.

  “I’m not pregnant.”

  “Oh, Gen. I’m sorry. I know how much you wanted to be.”

  “We were both very disappointed, but we know it’s early still. We can keep trying.”

  “Absolutely. Sometimes it takes months.”

  Genny managed a wry smile. “Dedicated man that he is, my husband vows to try every single day.”

  Madison’s smile matched hers. “He knows there’s a specific window of opportunity, right?”

  “He considers the rest of the time practice. Like training for a marathon, he claimed. Pray for me that I survive.”

  They laughed, even though both their hearts smarted. Madison looked forward to being an aunt, almost as much as Genny looked forward to being a mother.

  “And the other thing?” she asked her friend.

  “It’s Mr. Pruett.”

  “Oh, dear. Did he go off on another one of his tangents?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since Saturday.”

  “This is only Tuesday. I’m sure there’s nothing to be concerned about.”

  “You don’t understand. That man comes in here every Monday without fail. We’re closed on Sunday, so he says he can hardly wait to get a decent meal by the time we open back up on Monday. Something is wrong. I can feel it.”

  “Have you tried calling him?”

  “No answer.”

  She could see her friend was genuinely concerned. “What can I do to help?”

  “I want you to go with me to his house and check on him.”

  “We could call Brash,” Madison suggested. “He could do a welfare check. That way, if he needed to go inside, he would have a legitimate reason.”

  “We have a legitimate reason.”

  “Do you have a key?”

  “No,” Genny admitted.

  “Then let me call Brash. It’s not breaking and entering if you have a badge.”

  “What if you have an ax?” Genny asked in a sweet voice.

  It was an effective argument. With a heavy sigh, Madison said, “Point taken. When do you want to go?”

  “There’s no time like the present.”

  “Do you even know where the man lives?”

  “I have a general idea. You can google it on the way. I’ll drive.”

  “Our leader is back,” Madison mumbled, but she wore a smile as she followed her friend out.

  Tom Pruett lived in a modest house on one of Naomi’s back streets. Like everything else about the man, the house was nondescript. Beige shutters against beige siding. A brown composition roof and a carport with beige railings. No window boxes or colorful flowerbeds. The lawn was neatly trimmed but without ornamentation. The few trees in the yard didn’t bear fruit and were trimmed to have a slim silhouette.

  “His car is in the carport,” Genny said. Her voice reflected the sudden bout of nerves assuaging her.

  “It’s not too late, Gen,” Madison reminded her softly. “We can still call Brash.”

  “He’s my friend,” she said stubbornly. “I should be the one to find him. Look for him,” she corrected hastily.

  “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  They went to the front door and rang the bell, not expecting an answer. They weren’t disappointed when no one answered. The same could be said for the side door off the carport.

  “I wonder if he keeps a key hidden somewhere,” Madison said, looking around for an obvious hiding spot.

  “The man is obsessed with conspiracy theories. If he does have one, it won’t be anywhere we would expect. Think unexpected,” Genny advised.

  “Maybe his car is unlocked. Maybe there’s an extra set of keys inside.”

  It wasn’t unlocked. They searched for several minutes, running their hands along uneven grooves, looking under railings and eaves, shaking and rattling to see if anything was loose and hid a spare key. Each time, they came up empty handed.

  “Let’s go around back. Maybe he left a window open.”

  “Tom Pruett? The man who sees a ‘scandal of grave magnitude and an investigation that will rock this town’ at every turn?” She imitated his voice. “Not likely.”

  “And yet, just look at that,” Madison said with a smug smile.

  Genny followed her gaze, a deep scowl tugging at her mouth. “That looks like a bathroom window. I seem to recall us having trouble with one of those in the past.”

  “In all fairness, the house was on fire, and our lungs were filling with smoke. We weren’t at our best.”

  “In all fairness,” Genny said, “my hips are just as wide now as they were then. They’re not going to fit in such a narrow space.”

  “They fit that night, didn’t they?”

  “We were desperate.”

  “Okay, then call Brash.”

  Genny wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I’ll see if I can find something to crawl on.”

  Their search turned up two five-gallon buckets with lids.

  Even with her long legs, Madison couldn’t scale the two stacked together. “I’ll stand on this one, and you can balance the other one to the side, just enough for me to get a foothold,” she suggested. “I should be able to boost up and
over. I’ll go in and open the door for you to come in.”

  “No.” Genny shook her head adamantly, sending her blonde hair into a dance. “He’s my friend. If he should be… dead… I should be the one to find him,” she insisted again. “I won’t have you in there alone with a dead body.”

  Madison gulped, having not thought through that aspect of her plan. “What if—what if he’s in the bathtub and the window is above the tub?” she worried. The thought of landing on a dead body made her stomach roil.

  “Can you see inside?”

  If she put her face against the window and squinted just right, she could make out the shadowy interior of the bathroom. The lights were off, and the room was vacant.

  “No tub at all,” she reported. “It’s a half bath. And this is a fairly large window.” She removed the screen and pushed the pane open to its full extension. “I’ll need the other bucket.”

  After considerable effort, they had the buckets in place and Madison atop the taller one.

  “Here goes nothing.”

  It took a lot of grunting and groaning, pushing and pulling, but she finally managed to crawl through the window. Once on the inside, she caught her breath and peered out at her friend. “Are you sure you don’t want me to open the door?” she offered again.

  “I’m doing this, one way or another,” Genny said with determination. “I may not be able to walk tomorrow, but I’m doing this.”

  After a few false starts, Genny hoisted herself up and over the window ledge. She wasn’t as agile as her friend and her legs weren’t long enough to offer a final boost from the bucket. When she floundered on the windowsill, half in, and half out, Madison tugged her through. She came in headfirst, like a big fish hauled into a boat. Momentum carried her forward. Despite Madison’s efforts to catch her, they both crashed to the floor, narrowly missing the sink and commode.

  They lay on the floor for a long moment, laughing, panting, and catching their breath.

  “This—This has to rate pretty high up on our list of cr—crazy stunts!” Genny hooted, holding her stomach while she laughed.