Mind Games

“Surely you’re not driving all the way back tonight.”

“No, we’re staying the night at the…” He glanced at his partner.

“Welcome Inn,” Musk provided.

“The innkeeper’s my third cousin. She serves a fine breakfast.”

“We’ll take advantage of that before we head home in the morning.”

“Well, tonight, you’re staying for supper.”

“We don’t want to put you out.”

“You came all this way, on your own time. You’re staying for supper. Now, since you’re off duty, can I get you a beer, or can I offer you some Kentucky lemonade?”

“Isn’t that what we’re drinking?”

Lucy shook her head at Musk. “It ain’t Kentucky lemonade till you add the bourbon.”

Howard looked at Thea before he answered, and when she smiled, let out a long sigh. “Lucy, I could sure use a glass of that.”

Chapter Ten

Lucy kept the kids out of the attic during the finish work of what she thought of as the Foxes’ Den. Because it drove Rem crazy, Thea decided to embrace the restriction.

It made her feel superior and more adult.

Over the last few days of it, Rem asked a million questions.

“Just say what color they’re painting the walls. Is it my interesting orange, or Thea’s stupid blue?”

“Maybe, since the two of you squabbled so much over those paint samples, I told them to paint it an ugly old brown. Now, if you can’t pick tomatoes and talk at the same time, stick with the picking.”

“But when are they going to be finished? It’s taking forever.”

“That’d be up to Knobby. You want it fast, or you want it good?”

“Why can’t it be fast and good?”

Straightening, Lucy stretched her back, adjusted her wide-brimmed hat.

“The same reason these tomatoes didn’t grow and ripen fast so we could pick them and can them for good soups and stews we’ll eat over the fall and winter.”

“What’s the reason?”

“Because it’s the way of things.”

He did an eye roll as he picked another tomato. “Why do you say ‘can them’ when you’re going to put them in glass jars?”

“I guess that’s just the way of things, too.”

But now, damn it, she wondered the same herself.

Breathing in the scents of late summer harvest, she looked around the garden.

“We’ll take those leather breeches in tonight—and I expect they’re called that, Mister Question, because when the snap beans dry out right like that, they sort of look like leather breeches.”

“Did you plant all this yourself, Grammie?”