Thirty-Two and a Half Complications

by Denise Grover Swank

  “Nothing,” Neely Kate answered, glaring up at him. “It’s none of your business, Joe Simmons.”

  Joe’s face hardened with determination; he was obviously not about to be deterred by my bulldog friend. “You’re wrong there, Neely Kate. I care about Rose, so whatever concerns her is my business.”

  She hopped off the bench faster than I would have thought possible for a pregnant woman with grievous morning sickness. She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Don’t you dare try to tell me you care about her, you boll weevil!”

  His eyes flew open in surprise. “Neely Kate. I thought we were friends.”

  “We were friends until you told Rose she had to dump all the people closest to her because they weren’t good enough for you and your family.”

  He groaned. “That wasn’t me, Neely Kate. That was my father. You have to know I didn’t agree with him.”

  She shook her head. “Be that as it may, I know you’d prefer for Bruce Wayne to be out of her life, and I won’t even get started on Jonah.”

  Joe had the good sense to blush a little.

  “And you can blame your daddy all you want, but we all know he didn’t do a darn thing to force you to play slip-and-slide in the sheets with that red-headed witch.”

  His face turned a dark shade of scarlet.

  “And it sure was you lettin’ your family treat Rose like she was a leper.” When his eyes widened, she jabbed a sharp-nailed finger into his chest. “Oh, yeah. She told me all about it, you two-timing, hypocritical, high-falutin’ snob.”

  He held his hands up in surrender. “You’re right.”

  Her finger stopped mid-jab and the anger fell off her face. “What?”

  His hands lowered to his sides. “I said that you’re right. About all of it. Rose and I may have been broken up, but I still betrayed her by sleeping with Hilary, and I will regret that until the day I die. You have to believe that.”

  Neely Kate snapped back to attention. “Don’t you dare think you can get off that easy by batting those puppy-dog eyes at me and telling me I’m right.”

  Joe chuckled. “Do you want me to tell you that you’re wrong?”

  She squinted at him, anger rolling off her like heat off pavement in August. “Don’t you play those games with me, you fast-talkin’ scumbag. You hurt Rose, one of the sweetest, most loving women I’ve ever met. You do not get to do that, and then expect everything will be okay because you’ve had the sense to apologize.”

  His smile fell, replaced by a more serious expression. “At the risk of aggravating you more, I have to say you’re right again. I love her, despite what you think, despite how I’ve behaved. I love her.”

  “If you love her, you’ll leave her alone and let her be happy.”

  “Is she really happy?” He waved to me. “She’s sitting on this bench crying.”

  “Did you ever stop and think that she might be crying over you screwin’ up her life, you moron?”

  I finally stood. “Both of you stop.” I took a deep breath. “Is there something you need, Joe?” I was aggravated with myself for having waited so long to intervene, but I’d been too shocked by their show to do a plum thing about it.

  He scowled. “Yeah, I need to know that you’re okay, and before you tell me it’s none of my business, let me remind you that we’re friends, per your new rules.”

  “I’m fine and I’ve got to get back to work,” I said gruffly. I grabbed my best friend into a hug and whispered in her ear, “Thank you.”

  She pulled back and looked into my eyes. “Call me later. I mean it.”

  “Okay.”

  I was about to start walking across the street, but Joe called after me, “Rose!”

  I turned around to face him. “What do you want?”

  He took several steps closer until we were no more than a few feet apart. “I wanted to tell you that I might have a way around the sketch artist situation.”

  I blinked. “Oh. What is it?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable saying yet, but I wanted to let you know I’m working on it.”

  I smelled a trumped-up excuse to talk to me, but I was too eager to get away from him to call him on it. “Great,” I said, turning around. “Let me know when you have something you can share.”

  I hurried across the street, thankful that Joe didn’t follow. I picked up Mason’s salad and hurried up to his office on the second floor of the courthouse, hoping he wouldn’t notice I’d been crying. And hoping I didn’t run into Joe again.

  Mason was on the phone, shouting at someone about following the proper procedure, when I walked into the office. He glanced up at me, surprise washing over his face, followed by just about the brightest smile I’d ever seen. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “No, I’ll think about it over the weekend, and we’ll discuss it on Monday.” There was no mistaking the command in his voice. He hung up and grinned at me. “Rose. I thought you were eating with Neely Kate today.”

  “I did, but I was worried you wouldn’t eat,” I said, walking behind his desk.

  Gratitude flooded his eyes as he stood and grabbed my arms, tugging me to him for a gentle kiss. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Thank you.”

  I gave him a saucy look. “If that’s the response a salad gets, I wonder what a piece of lemon crème pie would get me?”

  He laughed, a rich, pure sound that filled the room. “Maybe you should bring me one and find out.”

  Something warm and overwhelming bubbled up inside me. Was this love? It was hard to compare it to what I’d had with Joe. But while that relationship had been built on a stack of lies and half-truths, I knew I’d loved him. And if Mason and I were possibly going to have a baby together, I needed to be sure I loved him. Did I? I was sure Mason loved me even if he hadn’t told me yet. In fact, I suspected he had loved me before we even started dating. Back when I was with Joe.

  “Rose?” Mason asked, his eyes narrowed. “You look tired. In fact, you’ve been more tired than usual lately. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

  I realized I’d spent several moments staring at him. “I’m fine. I just love lookin’ at you.”

  He smiled again, warming my insides like a sunny summer day. “And I love looking at you too. Let’s spend the entire weekend just looking at each other.”

  “While that sounds wonderful, I have to work at the store tomorrow.”

  He groaned, but I knew he wasn’t upset. He knew my work schedule and respected it just like I respected his.

  “But only in the morning. You know that I don’t spend much time at the store. Bad for business and all.” I winked. “Have you ever stopped to consider that associatin’ with me could potentially tarnish your sterling reputation?”

  A playful look filled his eyes. “I’m counting on it, sweetheart.” Then he kissed me senseless right in front of the open door of his office.

  “Mason,” I sighed when he finally lifted his head. “That’s a good way to mess up that reputation.”

  “Go out to dinner with me tonight.”

  “We eat dinner together every night you can get out on time.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “A date. At a restaurant with us dressed up.”

  “You’re always dressed up.” I tugged on his tie.

  “Well, then with you dressed up too. We can go to Jasper’s.” His face froze. “If you want to, that is. Maybe you’d rather stay home.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. I’d rather go out with you. I’ll even wear a dress.” I used to wear them all the time before I started my landscaping business, and I realized I missed it.

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” he murmured in my ear, his hand resting on my hip and sliding down to cup my bottom. “I love looking at your bare legs.” His voice was husky and it sent flutters through my chest, warming my lower parts.

  “Then I really need to wear dresses more often.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  I gave him anoth
er kiss and realized I was still carrying the bag with his salad in my hand. “You’ve been complaining about not getting to exercise with your broken leg and worrying about that nonexistent pouch on your belly,” I teased, putting the bag on his desk. “So do not take the salad in this bag as a criticism of your physique because I definitely have no complaints.”

  He kissed me again. “Maybe we should skip dinner,” he murmured, moving his mouth to my ear and gently biting my earlobe.

  Shivers ran down my spine and I wished we were at home. But we were in his office and anyone could walk in through the door. Mason might claim he didn’t care about his reputation, but I knew better. I broke free of his hold. “Nope. We’re goin’ out. You want to see me in a dress and I aim to please.”

  His eyes were hooded with desire. “I hope you continue aiming to please when we get home.”

  My face burned and I was amazed he could still make me blush after everything we’d done together. “I better go. I’m hoping Bruce Wayne and I can finish that wall before my appointment with Jonah.”

  “Okay, but if you see a truck parked in front of the house when you get home, don’t get worried. I hired a guy to replace the window in the backdoor.”

  “Mason!”

  He grinned. “I knew you’d tell me no, so I hired him this morning, hoping to have it done before you got home, but he called and said he’s running late.”

  I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. “Well, thank you.”

  His smiled brightened. “You’re welcome.”

  When I got back to the job site, Bruce Wayne was laying out the landscaping stones for the low wall we were putting on the side of the house.

  “Did you even take your thirty minutes for lunch, Bruce Wayne?” I asked as I surveyed the progress he’d made. “You know you can even take a little longer than that if you’d like. We both know that I do.”

  “I eat my lunch in my car, Miss Rose. You know that.” He shrugged as he leaned over and picked up a landscaping stone. “Plus, you also know I love doin’ this work.”

  It still didn’t feel right. I’d have to invite him to lunch with me and Neely Kate one day next week.

  We worked in a comfortable silence for several minutes before I decided to blurt out my question. No use skirting around it. “Bruce Wayne, do you still have any connections to Weston’s Garage that you can use? Or did you give it all up after Crocker tried to use you to find me? I know you said half the guys have it out for you, but what about the other half?”

  His jaw stretched and his mouth worked before he answered. “Why are you askin’?”

  “I’m curious.”

  His eyes lifted to mine. “What are you really up to?”

  I gasped. “Who says I’m up to something?”

  He chuckled and set a stone on the wall.

  I sat back on my heels. “If I tell you the truth, will you be more likely to answer?”

  He continued to study me, making me squirm. “Yes,” he finally said.

  I turned my gaze on the stones. “I didn’t tell you that I saw the face of one of the robbers.”

  “I thought they were wearing ski masks.” For a one-time stoner who usually missed a lot of social cues, Bruce Wayne wasn’t letting anything get by him today.

  “They were.” I hedged. “It was an inadvertent sighting.”

  “So what does that have to do with you asking if I still have anything to do with the garage?”

  “As you know, Joe’s working for the sheriff’s department. He finagled his way into showing me some mug shots, but I couldn’t find the guy and the robbers still have all my money.” I looked up at him. “I figured if I could find them—”

  “No.”

  “You don’t even know what I’m asking!”

  “You’re not messing with those people, Miss Rose.”

  “Which ones?”

  His eyes widened in exasperation. “Any of them.” He turned away from me. “Daniel Crocker wanted to kill you, and there’s still guys at that garage who are ticked about what happened.”

  “So I’m supposed to let those robbers take my money?”

  “I thought insurance was gonna pay for it.”

  “Violet’s working on it, but Mason’s insurance company is still giving him fits about his condo burning down and his claim is indisputable. We need the money by next Wednesday for that big Christmas tree delivery.” Not to mention his paycheck, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

  “What does Mr. Deveraux say?”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  His mouth dropped open. “Why haven’t you told him?”

  I grimaced. “Because he’ll want to help me financially, and he doesn’t have any money right now. You know Mason, it will kill him. The less he knows about the direness of the situation, the better.”

  “He’s a pretty smart guy. He might be able to figure something out. You should tell him.”

  The world was spinning on its head if Bruce Wayne was giving me advice…not to mention advice that made so much sense. But I still couldn’t bring myself to follow it. Not yet anyway.

  We wrapped things up at three-thirty and I was on my way to Jonah’s church for our weekly counseling session when Violet called.

  “Thanks for helping with the kids,” she said, sounding nervous. I wondered if she was about to ask me to pick them up again today.

  “You know I love them.” I suspected it wasn’t the response she was looking for, but it was all I could give. “Joe was on your front porch yesterday when I brought them home. It was like he was expecting me.”

  “He probably was. He called to ask if you were at the store. I told him no, but that you were picking up the kids and taking them to my house. What’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is that he’s my ex-boyfriend, Violet. We broke up. You should have at least warned me.”

  “He said it was official business, Rose. About the robbery. It never occurred to me to tell him no. He’s the chief deputy sheriff now.”

  “And is the fact that he’s been spending so much time with the kids lately due to official business?” I knew my tone was hateful, but I didn’t care.

  “No! It’s called being neighborly. It seems to me that you got pretty neighborly when he lived next door to you.”

  I gasped, then demanded, “Just how neighborly are you two getting?”

  “That is none of your business. Besides, like you said, you two broke up. He asked you to come back and you turned him down. Why would you care if he’s seeing someone else?”

  “Not someone else, Violet. You. My own sister!”

  “Since when did you care about my personal life?” she asked, her words dripping with contempt. “The minute Momma died, you became totally absorbed in your own little adventures and stopped caring about what was going on with my life. You don’t give a flipping wink about my feelings or what makes me happy.”

  “That is not true!” I was parked at a stop sign and I shouted so loudly, the woman standing at the street corner walking her dog stared at me. “I started this nursery with you! It was all your idea! I couldn’t stand how unhappy you were when you separated from Mike, so I took my trust money from Dora and sank it into our business. All because you wanted to start the nursery.”

  Deadly silence was her only answer for several long moments. “You said you wanted to be part of this too, Rose.”

  “I did…but some days I don’t think we’re going to work out.”

  “You and I aren’t going to work out?” she asked, her voice under tight control. “Or you and I working in the nursery together aren’t going to work out?”

  “Honestly, Vi. Some days both.”

  She released a short, bitter laugh. “Well, you just might get your wish.”

  An oily feeling coated my gut. “What does that mean?”

  “It means both insurance companies—our business’s and the bank’s—claim they aren’t required to pay the claim. Which means we’re out nine
thousand dollars.”

  “What?”

  “Not that they’d cut a check in time to cover our losses anyway. They wouldn’t pay until Christmas at the earliest. Do you have any more jobs lined up after you wrap up at the Timberland’s place next week?”

  I pulled into the church parking lot, my stomach tumbling like a washer at the Suds for Duds. “None of that will make up the difference after we pay for materials and Bruce Wayne’s labor.”

  She was silent for a moment, and when she spoke, her words were soaked with guilt. “There’s something else you need to know.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been doing a little…creative bookkeeping.”

  My breath caught in my throat. “What does that mean?”

  “It means we’ve been strapped for cash, and with all our plans for the expansion and the open house… I haven’t been making all the loans payments to the bank.”

  I parked in the nearly empty church lot and shoved the gear shift into park. “What?” I asked in a daze.

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds…or at least it wasn’t until a few days ago. I talked to Mr. Sullivan about it, and he told me not to worry. He said the Gardner Sisters Nursery was a great addition to the town and I could make a balloon payment after the open house.”

  “The loan was in my name, Violet. How could you do something like that? Did you forge my signature?”

  “No.” She cleared her throat. “It wasn’t anything official. Mr. Sullivan said my word was good enough.”

  Comprehension washed through me. “But now Mr. Sullivan has disappeared.”

  “That’s the problem.” Her voice sounded thin. “A little while back, I received notice that we had thirty days to pay or else, but when I talked to Mr. Sullivan, he told me it was a formality and not to worry about it. But yesterday, Mr. Burns, the bank manager, told me that we have to pay all the missed payments by next Friday or he’ll lock us out of the building.”

  “Can he do that?”

  “The bank owns the property and has the loan. And we received official notice.” Her voice broke. “I don’t know. Maybe.”