“I couldn’t agree more.” Tinsley turned to look behind her to find her best friend, Edie Greene Wecker, standing there. “I just came from the gallery where I chatted with Paxton for a moment. I never thought you should be with a pushover. You dated too many artists and collectors over the years who were all wrong for you. They either treat you like you’ll break or they get jealous of your success. Paxton’s too much of a confident man for that. I think he gushes over your ability as an artist more than we do. He thinks you’re amazing. He thinks you’re incredibly smart, and I think we all know after last night’s Main Street porno that he finds you sexy. Sounds like a home run to me.”
Tinsley choked on the iced tea.
“The only way he’d be better is if he had a motorcycle,” Harper told the table as talk turned to gossip about their own men.
Tinsley left her girls’ lunch feeling invigorated. She knew she liked Paxton and wanted to think it didn’t matter what anyone else thought, but that was a lie. She was thrilled her friends and family liked him and encouraged her to go after a relationship with him. The men were a different story. In Ridge’s mind, no one had ever been good enough for his little sister. That influenced the others, especially Ryker who also thought it was his place to be her protector after that night so long ago. Others had helped, but it had been Tinsley who had pulled him back from the edge.
She knew she and Paxton didn’t have a defined relationship. However, there was a promise of one. Not just a casual one either. Once they’d opened themselves up, a deeper connection was made than she’d ever felt before.
Tinsley hurried into the gallery and was surprised to find it empty. “Paxton?” she asked as she moved into her office only to find it also empty. The sound of the door opening had her smiling. She couldn’t wait to tell him about her lunch. Well, some of it. Girl code prevented full disclosure.
“Paxton! You wouldn’t believe lunch,” Tinsley called out as she walked quickly into the gallery only to stop short.
“Who’s Paxton?” Maurice asked.
“He’s my delivery man and he also helps out around the gallery.” Tinsley smiled at him and tried to calm her nerves. She’d been amped up because of lunch and now she needed to calm down and think straight. “Speak of the devil, though, I was just going to call you.”
“Did it have anything to do with your lunch?” Maurice asked as he flashed what was supposed to be a flirtatious smile. Only it came across as predatory.
“Yes, it does. My buyer wants to purchase your painting. We just need to settle on a price. Congratulations, Maurice.”
Maurice nodded and his smile widened. “That’s very good news, Tinsley. I’d like to meet with the buyer for the negotiation. I’d like to see you work the sale in person.”
Tinsley kept her smile in place only with the grace of Southern manners. “My buyer usually prefers to negotiate over the phone. Don’t worry, I can put it on speaker and as soon as we reach a deal, I can email them the contract. The money will be wired as soon as they send the contract back.”
“Maybe for future sales, but I need to see how this works. It’ll make me feel better to know it’s on the up and up. The best way to do that is face to face.”
Tinsley’s smile almost slipped. Was the criminal really questioning her ethics?
“Of course, Maurice. I’ll make it happen.”
“Tomorrow, here, two o’clock. This is a very promising start to what I hope is a long relationship, Tinsley. As I’ve said, my grandmother has a very large collection with some paintings by history’s best artists. You seal this deal and we could make our own history together.”
“I’d rather make money,” Tinsley giggled. Where the hell was Paxton?
“That’s why we make a good team. I’ll see you and the buyer tomorrow.”
Tinsley smiled and waved goodbye as Maurice left. The second he was out the door, she had her phone out and was calling Paxton. She heard the ring over the phone and then she heard it echo through the gallery.
“Paxton?” No answer, but the ringing continued. She walked past her office calling out his name, as the sound of ringing grew closer. In the small kitchen in the back she saw a half-eaten fried chicken sandwich from Stomping Grounds.
“Paxton!”
“Tinsley? Call for help!” Tinsley heard Paxton’s muffled voice coming from outside. The back door to the small courtyard was closed, but she was sure that’s where his voice had come from.
Tinsley ran to the door and yanked it open. Paxton’s back was up against the twelve-foot brick wall. There were two ways out of the courtyard. One, the door Tinsley had just opened. And two, a decorative metal gate directly to her right that led to a small parking area and beyond that, down to the river. The only trouble was Bubba the alligator had parked himself right between both doors. The large gator’s mouth was open as he hissed every time Paxton moved.
“What did you do to get Bubba mad at you?” Tinsley asked.
“He has a name?”
“Yeah. Everyone knows Big Bubba. You’re lucky it wasn’t Mean Abe or Bitchy Bertha,” Tinsley told him.
“Will he bite me? I haven’t moved in over an hour,” Paxton asked while he eyed the massive gator.
“Um, maybe.”
“Maybe?” Paxton was freaking out and Tinsley was highly amused.
“How did you become stuck with Bubba back here anyway?” Tinsley asked as she pulled out her phone and sent a text to Gator to help with a Bubba removal.
“I grabbed a chicken sandwich from the diner up the street. I was sitting in the back eating it when I heard a knock on the door. I went to open it, but no one was there so I took a step outside and bam! Bubba went after me. He was pressed up against the wall and cut off my escape back inside the second I stepped out. He almost bit me and I’ve been using this little statue to keep him back.” Paxton held out the two-foot tall cement fairy Tinsley had painted when she was twelve years old.
“He probably smelled the fried chicken. It’s his favorite. Gator’s on his way. He’ll remove him,” Tinsley said before turning back inside.
“Where are you going?” Paxton shouted.
“To get him the rest of the sandwich. Maybe he’ll leave if he’s eaten.”
Tinsley grabbed the sandwich and stood in the doorway looking out at Bubba. Bubba’s nostrils flared and Tinsley tossed the sandwich. Bubba snapped the sandwich out of the air with a chomp so loud it echoed.
“Damn,” Paxton muttered before looking up at Tinsley. “Maybe? Maybe he’d bite me? The damn thing would snap me in half!”
“Don’t be so dramatic. It’s just an alligator.” Tinsley paused as Bubba made a low throaty growl. “Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh? What does that mean?” Paxton was near frantic as he pulled out his gun.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Tinsley warned. “Bubba doesn’t like guns.”
Sure enough, Bubba turned into a raging T-Rex as he growled.
“Okay, okay, I’m putting it away.” Paxton slid the gun back under his shirt, but the damage had been done.
Bubba charged, Paxton shrieked like a soprano and just as he hit High C, Tinsley pounced. She landed with a thud on Bubba’s back. The boney, spiky scutes running down his back jabbed her bare legs and poked into her stomach and arms as she wrestled with him. Tinsley heard Paxton yelling, but she was too focused on not getting hit by Bubba’s tail to pay attention to what he was yelling.
Tinsley squeezed her legs as she crawled up Bubba’s back until she could cover his eyes with her hands. Bubba gave a couple of shakes, and began to settle down.
Letting out a deep breath, Tinsley finally looked up. Bubba had gotten within a foot of Paxton. Bubba’s mouth was still open on a hiss, but Tinsley wasn’t strong enough to close it.
“Step around here and lie on his tail,” she instructed Paxton calmly.
Paxton hugged the wall as she scooted away from Bubba. He finally took a breath when he was beside Bubba. “You want me to d
o what?”
“A gator’s tail can do a tremendous amount of damage. In case you haven’t noticed, Bubba is over twelve feet long and probably a good eight hundred pounds. I’m not that tall and not that heavy. If he hits me with his tail, I’ll go flying and end up with more than a few broken bones. So I want you to lie on his tail and hug it. Got it?”
“This is insane,” Paxton muttered as he got into position. In one move, he had Bubba’s tail wrapped in a tight hug. Paxton’s head was pressed at the base of the huge tail while his legs wrapped around the tip. “Um, Tins?”
“What?” Tinsley asked as she kept a tight grip on Bubba.
“My head is really close . . . I mean, do alligators fart?”
“They’ve been known to let ’er rip a time or two,” a deep country voice called out in amusement. “Miss Tinsley, you got a nice hold on ol’ Bubba there.”
“Just like you taught me, Gator,” Tinsley called out.
“Why did you answer the alligator?” Paxton asked.
“Not Bubba, me. I’m Gator,” Gator explained to Paxton. “Was that you screamin’ like a girl a second ago? We thought it might be Miss Tinsley, but she’s no wimp when it comes to Bubba.”
Tinsley pressed her face onto Bubba’s back and tried to smother her laugh in his scales.
Paxton cleared his throat. “We?”
“Yeah, if you open up your eyes you’ll see everyone’s here,” Gator told him.
“I can feel you laughing through the alligator, Tinsley,” Paxton said through clenched teeth. Tinsley lost it then. Tears—alligator tears at that—ran down her cheeks as she laughed and laughed.
“That ain’t right, Miss Tinsley,” she heard Skeeter’s deep country twang saying from beside her. “It ain’t his fault he screams like a girl. Some men are delicate. You’ll hurt his feelings if you keep on laughin’ like that.”
Of course, that only made Tinsley laugh harder. She even heard Paxton smother a laugh from Bubba’s tail. She bet no one had ever called Paxton delicate before.
“Skeeter’s right, Miss T.” A small face appeared in front of her as Turtle pushed Bubba’s mouth closed and Skeeter wrapped it up so Bubba couldn’t bite them. “It hurt my feelin’s something fierce when people laughed at my pecker being bitten by a snapping turtle. But your cousin did a right good job sewing it up. I think he even gave me an extra inch. Wanna see?”
A snort from Paxton drew their attention as Tinsley tried to hide the tears of laughter rolling down her cheeks. “Don’t you worry none, sir,” Turtle said to Paxton. “I won’t laugh at you for screaming like a girl. I mean, I didn’t scream like a girl when I had a snapping turtle latched onto my pecker. But some men just ain’t as tough, ya know?”
Tinsley couldn’t see him but she could imagine what Paxton looked like as she heard him choking on his laughter right now. A lesser man would defend his scream and tease Turtle, but Paxton didn’t. Instead he cleared his throat, literally pushing down his laughter.
“That’s very brave of you. I believe I would have reached teen-girl-at-a-boy-band-concert-level scream if a snapping turtle latched onto my, um, pecker.”
“Well, let’s get this done so he don’t have Bubba snapping off his pecker,” Gator said in his booming voice. “Turtle, you got his mouth wrapped up?”
“I sure do.”
“Skeeter, you get the rag over his eyes so Miss T can get up.”
Tinsley waited until the rag was secure and then Gator reached down and literally plucked her off Bubba as Skeeter and Turtle knelt down on each side and pressed down on the creature to keep him still.
Gator placed Tinsley on the ground and she got her first look at the scene. The whole town was crowded into her small courtyard. Miss Ruby and Miss Winnie had their cell phones out and were taking pictures. Harper and Karri were hanging onto each other and doubled over with laughter. Then there was Paxton. Bless his heart, he had a death grip on Bubba’s tail and his face was dangerously close to Bubba’s butt.
“Gator, this is Paxton. Paxton, this is Gator. Just do what he says, okay?” Tinsley told him.
“You do this often?” Paxton asked as Gator stepped up next to him.
“Yup. Now I want you to sit up and straddle the lower end of Bubba’s tail. Can you do that?” Gator asked.
“Yeah, I can do that.” Paxton shimmied down the tail and then sat up. Gator was instantly down on the ground with the thick base of Bubba’s tail wrapped in his arms.
“We could use some help liftin’ him,” Gator called out. Granger and Kord instantly stepped forward to help.
“We got a call about a girl screaming like she was being stabbed,” Granger said with a smirk.
Granger and Kord moved to Bubba’s middle. Then Paxton shifted off the tail and all together they lifted. Tinsley and the crowd moved out of the way as Bubba was carried to Gator’s pickup truck.
“I’ll just take him back home. Don’t hesitate to scream if you need me,” Gator said with a little snicker before driving off with Turtle and Skeeter holding Bubba down.
“I take it you haven’t been around alligators much,” Granger said to Paxton as Harper and Karri gave up their fight and burst out laughing.
“Not too many gators on Peachtree Street unless the University of Florida is in town. That was wild, though. Do you all know how to do that? Just jump on an alligator?” Paxton asked.
“Yeah, but we try to leave it up to the experts,” Kord answered. “I’m too fine to lose a finger. Or pecker.”
Tinsley took one look at Karri and Harper and the peals of laughter started again. “I hate to break this up because this was the most fun I’ve had in years, but Maurice stopped in to see me and we have a problem,” Tinsley announced.
11
Granger and Kord joined Tinsley and Paxton inside the gallery as she filled them in on her meeting with Maurice. Tinsley saw her same worry reflected on the lawmen’s faces. None of them looked pleased with this development.
“Peter could pose as the client,” Paxton finally said into the silence that lingered in the aftermath of her announcement that Maurice wanted to meet the buyer.
“I thought about that,” Tinsley told them. “But I worry. This is a big test. I would say just bust them, but Maurice keeps mentioning that his grandma has a huge collection and even said it could be historical. I wonder how many stolen paintings he has and how he came about them. We’ll never know if you arrest him now.”
“We can have Peter pose as the buyer and we can trace the money,” Paxton said again. “Then we follow the money and that will, hopefully, lead us to the rest of the paintings.”
Tinsley shook her head. “I don’t think that’s the right play here. I think we need to do something he’ll never see coming.”
“What are you thinking, Tins?” Granger asked.
“Mrs. Elijah F. Cummings,” Tinsley said as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Who?” Paxton asked.
Granger ignored the question as Kord shook his head. “You want to use Miss Tibbie in a sting operation with a dangerous criminal?” Granger repeated for clarification.
“I do. No one can question her knowledge of art in case this is a test. Plus, she’d be way above suspicion as an undercover agent. I need to prove I can bring in a quality buyer. Miss Tibbie is a quality buyer,” Tinsley explained.
“Who is this Miss Tibbie?” Paxton asked again, this time a little more forcefully in hopes someone would answer him.
“She is the grand dame of Charleston society. Her husband, Elijah, is a very powerful man even though he retired decades ago. Miss Tibbie is your little old grandmother with pearls and an iron fist tucked inside her white gloves. She can ruin you with one word,” Granger explained.
“Won’t she be recognizable then?” Paxton asked.
“Her name will be,” Tinsley admitted, “But I also know Miss Tibbie isn’t a fan of her picture being in newspapers. Most photos of her on the Internet are of when she was much younger.
So, you change her name, come up with a little disguise, and say we know each other through a fake charity and we’ll be good to go. If it makes you feel better, have Peter act as her grandson. Let’s see, her spoiled, bored grandson. Trust me, society matrons are always trying to make their grandsons act properly and give them culture while dangling access to their trust fund over their heads.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Granger said. “You think Miss Tibbie will do it?”
“Miss Tibbie is always up for a little fun. Call Peter and see what he thinks. If it’s a go, I’ll call Miss Tibbie and get it all set up.” Tinsley hoped Peter would agree. She worried that Maurice was testing her, and it wouldn’t just be the art on the line if she failed. It would be her life.
Paxton endured five minutes of laughter on the other end of the line when he called Peter. Karri had already called to tell Peter about Gatorgate, and before Paxton could even tell his boss about the investigation, the jokes were flying.
Finally, when Peter gasped for breath after laughing at everyone thinking a teenage girl was in trouble, Paxton was able to squeeze in Maurice’s visit. That stopped the laughter and the joking.
“Mrs. Elijah F. Cummings? Tinsley wants to bring in an eighty-something-year-old society matron to deal with an art thief?” Peter paused for a second. “Hmm. Actually, that’s genius. He’d never suspect her working with us and I like the idea about being the bored, spoiled grandson of a very, very rich old lady.”
“Is he in?” Tinsley called out from across the gallery as she hung a new piece of art.
“Tell her I’m in. Have her call Mrs. Cummings and see if I can meet with her,” Peter instructed.
So it was on. Paxton would at least have Peter in the room to help keep both civilians safe. Within minutes, Tinsley bounded back into the room with a large smile on her face. “Miss Tibbie is in, but she has one request. She wants her alias to be named Bunny.”
Paxton shook his head as he smiled. “What is it with people around here being named after animals?”
Tinsley shrugged. “I don’t know. But she said she likes Bunny because people think they’re all cute and cuddly but they actually have a sharp bite.”
Framed Shadows: Shadows Landing #6 Page 9
