by JB Lynn
“To report back my every move?”
“To keep an eye on you.” He sipped his coffee. “And to hopefully keep you out of trouble.”
“What kind of trouble could I possibly get in here?” I asked, waving my hand at the store full of frills.
“The best kind,” he said suggestively, waggling his eyebrows.
“Save us from human hormones,” God groaned.
Zeke’s eyes widened a little, but it didn’t look as though he considered my squeaking chest to be a turn-off. Can’t say I would have had the same reaction if it had been his body parts squeaking.
I must admit that I considered his sexy suggestion for a moment.
It was almost as tempting as a doughnut.
Zeke’s hot, I know from personal experience that he’s a great kisser, and quite frankly my ego had taken a bruising from spotting Patrick with the blonde.
But I’m a responsible adult now, or at least I’m trying to be, so I shook my head and said with a rueful smile, “You know what they say about mixing business and pleasure.”
“What’s that?”
“That we shouldn’t do it.”
“But sometimes the things we shouldn’t do, are the most enjoyable,” he quipped lightly. There was no pressure behind his words, just gentle joking.
“Banal banter,” God groused.
Zeke ignored the sound. “Tell me the truth, do you and the manny I’ve heard so much about have something going on?”
I shook my head.
Zeke cocked his head to the side, clearly not convinced. “You do know he’s the nephew of the Delveccio mob bosses, don’t you?”
“And my dad’s a con man who went to prison for murder and your parents are convicted drug dealers,” I reminded him.
He winced. “But I’ve never been convicted of a crime.”
“Yet,” I teased, but we both knew that it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
He sighed dramatically. “So does that mean you’ll help me out with something while I’m still a free man?”
“If it’s helping you pick something out here, you’re on your own.”
He chuckled. “The errand I have in mind would actually take you out of the store. I don’t have a car.”
“Let’s do it!” I practically shouted. Any chance to shirk my Corset duties sounded like an opportunity I didn’t want to pass up. Then remembering he was without transportation I asked, “How’d you get here?”
“Leslie gave me a ride. She was on the way to her Narcotics Anonymous meeting.”
“And you lived to tell the tale.” None of my aunts are particularly good drivers, but Aunt Leslie is the worst of the bunch, whether or not she’s intoxicated.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“And now you need me to take you somewhere?”
“I need to make an airport run,” he warned.
“Okay.”
“Actually,” he said slyly. “We’ll be picking up someone you know.”
“Who?” I asked suspiciously.
“Gypsy.”
I frowned. It didn’t seem like a coincidence that the ghost-whispering woman who’d told me that my sister was still alive would be returning when I’d finally found said sister. “She can’t stay at the B&B. There’s no room,” I warned.
“So I’ve been told. Not to worry, it’s under control. Ready to go?” He walked toward the door.
I didn’t follow immediately. The last time I’d seen Gypsy she’d turned my world upside down. Things were crazy enough as it was, did I really want to face whatever else it was she had to say? What if she told me that Teresa disapproved of my attempt at parenting?
Zeke shook the bag of donuts, like Pavlov ringing his damn bell. “Coming?”
Salivating, I grabbed my coffee and headed to the airport.
Chapter Twenty-six
Later that afternoon, sitting in a waiting room filled with year-old magazines, I wondered what the shrink, Dr. Oatman, would think once he got a whiff of me.
I was pretty sure I reeked of the patchouli that clung to Gypsy and seemed to seep out of her pores like some kind of toxic mold that could wipe all life off the face of the planet.
Both God and I had worried we were going to suffocate in the car ride from the airport to the B&B, where Zeke had insisted on dropping her, despite my repeated protestations that there was “no room at the inn”. My eyes were still watering from the patchouli fumes.
“Stop fidgeting,” Zeke urged on a whisper.
He wasn’t the one about to be psychoanalyzed or whatever was going to happen. I couldn’t help it that I was nervous. Just as I had when we were pre-teens, I stuck my tongue out at him.
That was the first impression Dr. Oatman had of me when he stepped out of his office and found my tongue pointed at one of my oldest friends.
I may have groaned aloud.
“Miss Lee?” the short man with a receding hairline asked.
Amusement danced in Zeke’s gaze as I grudgingly got to my feet.
“That’s me.”
“Come in. Come in.”
He ushered me into another, slightly smaller room. “Take a seat anywhere.”
“There’s no couch,” I blurted out, looking around.
He smiled slightly. “I find the idea of a psychotherapist having a couch to be a bit cliché, don’t you?”
I nodded, wondering if I’d just failed some first test.
He waved at the four chairs in the room. “Take a seat.”
The chairs, black leather, appeared identical. I chose one that faced the door.
He sat opposite me, crossed his legs, and laced his fingers together in his lap. “Tell me what brings you to my doorstep, Miss Lee.”
“Said the spider to the fly.” I slapped my hand over my mouth. “Did I say that out loud?”
“Brilliant,” God drawled sarcastically.
Dr. Oatman nodded. “This isn’t a life-and-death meeting, Miss Lee. It’s not even an antagonistic one. I’m just here to help.”
“Of course you are.” I smiled weakly, glad he hadn’t heard the lizard’s squeaking.
“If it will help put you at ease, you should know that Doctor Donna speaks very highly of your love for your niece and all you’ve taken on with her care.”
“It does help,” I admitted, relaxing a bit.
“Do you think he calls her Doctor Donna to her face?” God wondered. “I’d find that condescending.”
The shrink squinted at me. “Are you squeaking?”
“A little,” I admitted sheepishly.
“I don’t squeak!” God bellowed.
Oatman’s gaze zeroed in on my chest.
“I left my oil can at home,” I joked weakly.
“Oil can?”
“So my tin parts squeak,” I explained.
Understanding dawned in his gaze. “Oh, like the Tin Man.”
I nodded.
He pursed his lips. “So you feel like you don’t have a heart?”
My stomach flip-flopped nervously. It could not be good for the therapist to think that I believed that I didn’t have a heart. Not that I believed that, but I did know that my heart wasn’t always brimming with sugar and spice and everything nice.
I would have cursed the damn lizard, but that would have made me look nutty too. So instead I just stayed silent.
Oatman picked up a pad of paper and a pen and jotted something down.
I winced, wondering what kind of terrible notes he was making about me.
“What do you prefer to be called?” he asked.
“Maggie.”
He nodded. “Maggie it is.”
“And you, Doc? What do you like to be called?”
“Doctor Oatman,” he said without a trace of humor.
We stared at each other for a long uncomfortable moment.
“Why don’t you tell me in your own words why you’re here,” he finally suggested.
“My niece hates me
.”
“Succinct,” he murmured.
“The problem in a nutshell.”
“Probably overly simplistic,” he countered.
“No doubt,” I agreed.
“And how do you feel about that?”
I shrugged. “How would anyone feel if they were told they were overly simplistic? I mean, I guess if you were one of those minimalist freaks who take pride in hanging their entire wardrobe on one hanger and cooking all their meals on a mug warmer in the name of simple living, I guess you could take it as a compliment, but frankly it makes me feel dumb.”
He stared at me.
“I don’t think—“ God began.
I pretended to cough, while I pressed my arm against my chest, signaling the lizard that I intended to smother him if he said anything else.
Oatman cleared his throat. “I meant, how does having your niece hate you make you feel?”
Tears burned my eyes, a painful lump in my throat threatened to choke me, and I couldn’t take a breath as my chest tightened. “It sucks,” I finally gasped out, unable to stop the stream of tears from running down my face.
At least I was consistent with my succinct answers.
Oatman pointed to a box of tissues to my right. I grabbed a couple and tried to dab away my tears but they wouldn’t stop. “Sorry. I’m not usually such a blubbering mess.”
“Sadly,” he sighed, “most of the people I encounter in my line of work are.”
I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to comfort me, or if it was just him feeling sorry for himself.
All in all, I didn’t think our session was going very well. So far I felt worse rather than better. The shrink thought I squeaked and had no heart, and all we’d established was that people call me Maggie and my niece hates me.
He waited until my tears had abated, before trying again. “Does it upset you that your niece hates you?”
“Is this guy for real?” God drawled snootily.
Plucking my collar away from my neck, I looked down my shirt and hissed, “Will you shut the hell up, pleassssse.”
When I raised my gaze, Dr. Oatman was looking at me like he was ready to rubber stamp the commitment papers for me to take over my mom’s empty bed at the nuthouse.
“It’s a lizard,” I tried to explain.
I’m pretty sure from the horrified look on his face, that the revelation made things worse.
“No, really.” I reached down my shirt to scoop out Godzilla. “It’s my niece’s lizard that’s squeaking.” I pulled out the little guy to prove it.
I held out my palm so he could get a good look at God giving him the side eye.
“Aaaaah!” Dr. Oatman screamed, jumping out of his chair. “Aaaaah!” He stumbled backward before grabbing his pad and swatting the air in front of him with it like a madman. “Keep away! Keep away!”
“Great,” God sighed. “A herpetophobic.”
“What?” I asked, barely able to hear him over the screams of the man who’d backed himself into a corner.
“Herpetophobia, an irrational and totally unwarranted fear of reptiles and often amphibians.” Annoyance dripped from every syllable God spoke.
“Aaaaaah!” the shrink screamed once more before starting to hyperventilate.
The door to the waiting room burst open, bouncing on its hinges. Zeke jumped into the room, a rolled up magazine raised overhead like some really well-read caveman. He looked around wildly. “What happened?”
Oatman, at this point too terrified to speak, pointed at me and then slowly slid down the wall until he landed on his quivering butt with a soft thud that could barely be heard over his labored breathing.
Zeke looked at me. “What now?”
I shrugged. “I think he’s afraid of Godzilla.” I held up the lizard for Zeke to see.
Oatman let out a gasping wheeze that no doubt was supposed to be a scream, but sounded a lot more like a death rattle.
Lowering the magazine, Zeke speared his fingers through his hair, signaling his frustration. “Wait outside,” he ordered. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Gladly,” I muttered, heading for the door.
“And don’t come back,” Oatman rasped.
The lizard stuck his tongue out at him and the man curled into the fetal position, whimpering.
Chapter Twenty-seven
I waited in the car for almost half an hour while he’d wheedled the poor shrink back to some semblance of sanity. I was in danger of losing my own mind from the way God bitched about the cold. Finally I’d resorted to turning on the car and cranking up the heat to get him to stop complaining.
“You’re not driving,” Zeke said through gritted teeth when he finally reached the car.
“It’s my car,” I reminded him.
“I don’t care. You’re not driving.”
I glared up at him as he leaned against the window.
“Now, Maggie,” he ordered. “Out of the car. I don’t have the time or the energy for your stubborn independent streak. This is bigger than you.”
Something in his tired, almost desperate, tone had me grudgingly climbing out of the car, walking around it and flinging myself into the passenger seat like a petulant teenager who’d been wronged by the world.
“I can’t believe you reduced your therapist to a quivering mess during your first session,” Zeke joked lightly as he settled himself behind the steering wheel.
“How was I supposed to know he’s herpetophobic?” I snapped back.
“Good girl!” God crowed from my bra. “You listened and you learned something.”
Zeke winced at the sound of the lizard’s squeaking. He folded his hands in his lap and pitched his voice low, as though by doing those two things he was somehow magically able to disguise his annoyance. “Why were you carrying the lizard around in the first place?”
I couldn’t tell him that I relied on God’s counsel, so I just kept my mouth shut.
Zeke shook his head.
“Where are we going?”
“To see Darlene.”
“I don’t suppose I have any say in the matter,” I pouted.
Zeke turned to look at me, his blue eyes searching mine. “Nobody’s forcing you to do anything, Maggie. If you don’t want to see your sister, just say the word.”
He watched me carefully, waiting for my answer.
“Of course I want to see her,” I muttered. “I just don’t like being bossed around.”
He sighed. “I’m just trying to help.”
“I thought you were doing your job,” I countered.
“Why can’t they be one and the same?”
“No one in their right mind would want to do that.”
He smirked. “Has it ever occurred to you that the reason I do well with your crazy family is that I’ve got my own home-grown insanity going?”
I couldn’t help but smile at that. Zeke was a lot of things, charming, loyal, a handsome con man, brave and empathetic, but I’d never thought of him as crazy.
“That’s better,” he approved, putting the car into gear. “Frowning causes wrinkles. You wouldn’t want to have lines on your face just because you failed to see the error of my way of thinking.”
“What makes you think I’ll live long enough to even get wrinkles?” I asked.
He looked at me sharply. “Not funny, Maggie.”
“Sorry,” I murmured, but the truth was I led a somewhat dangerous life, as evidenced by the fact that the last time I’d been with my sister, there’d been a chase, an explosion, and I’d killed someone.
“Things will work out,” Zeke promised.
“If you say so.”
He chuckled. “You don’t make it easy on a guy.”
“Easy to what?”
He didn’t answer. Instead he fell silent and remained that way as he drove us out of town, toward wherever Darlene waited.
I didn’t mind the silence. It gave me a little time to think about all the questions I had for Darlene.
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