Page 27 of Sweet and Salty

She grins broadly, and there is a mama-pleaser deep inside of me that glows with her approval. “Georgia. And do you have a girlfriend, boyfriend, partner in crime?”

That’s one way to put it. “No, ma’am. I’m single.” I wonder if Laura is listening and then kick myself for wondering if Laura is listening.

“Really? What are you, thirty-eight?” She directs this question at her oldest daughter, but Laura is focused on beating Davey at Battleship. Check one for a competitive nature, although Laura has nothing on her sister Frannie for that.

“Forty-two.”

“Really?” She arches an eyebrow, completely unconcerned that she’s repeating herself. “Laura’s thirty-four. And you haven’t been married before?”

“Leave him alone, Mom,” Rory admonishes, walking into the room with two margaritas in hand. He gives one to Frannie and keeps one for himself. “You don’t have to give us your life’s story, Jesse. Just the Cliff Notes version.”

I never used Cliff Notes once in my life. Yet another wasted opportunity for Goody Two-Shoes Jesse.

“There really isn’t much to tell.” I could tell them about Esme in an oblique sort of way. That won’t violate any of the promises I made to the US Marshal Service. “I was engaged once. We were together for a long time, but it didn’t work out.”

“That’s a shame.” Marie rubs my back. “You deserve better, I’m sure.”

I am not sure. Ostensibly, prior to this, I made all the “right” choices in life. I went to school, graduated with honors, went to vet school, worked, met Esme, got my dream job.

But then everything went up in a massive inferno. Or, really, it had all come down to one little syringe hidden in a pocket and one phone call.

I brought it all down on myself.

I should have listened, to the same instinct that kept me from setting a wedding date with Esme for so long.

“I’m doing all right, ma’am. Thank you for asking.”

“He’s so polite,” Frannie says, side-eyeing me. “It’s very suspicious.” She nudges Laura with her glass tumbler full of margarita. “Isn’t it suspicious, Laura? What do you think he’s hiding?”

“There are definitely bodies in that closet,” Laura replies drily, sipping her iced tea.

Little does she know. “I’d better get going.”

“Don’t go,” Davey says, not taking his eyes off his Battleship board. “I want to beat you after I beat Auntie Laura.”

“Another time. Promise.”

Davey looks at me, as though promises are a very, very important thing in his world. I get it. They used to matter in mine, too.

Marie follows me to the door. “I wish Rory could convince you to move out of that hovel while you get it repaired. It’s all right until we get hail, and then I don’t know if that roof will survive.”

“I’m sure everything will be fine. Thank you for a lovely dinner.”

“Absolutely.” Marie pulls me into an unexpected hug. That inner mama-pleaser sighs with happiness and tries to lean in, but I rein him back. Much as this house has exactly everything I’ve always wanted out of life, none of it is for Jesse Vanek. “Come back next Sunday,” she whispers into my ear. She smells like chilies and cinnamon. “Laura promised to make beef Wellington.”

My mouth waters, but the taste that fills my mouth is like acid.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Laura

Despite all thethings I would rather be doing, I stalk Lucretia Borgia around the paddock with a bright orange halter hanging over my shoulder. I’m already half a bag of carrots down, and I am absolutely no closer to catching this stubborn girl.

The sky grumbles. It’s an ominous gray-black color, and the wind is doing that peculiar spring storm mixture of being completely sticky-still and then whipping into a frenzy.

I bite down on the inside of my cheek. “Hail’s coming,” I sing in as sweet a voice as I can muster. Unfortunately, although she let my singing get a halter on her at Joel Hostetler’s, my cracked soprano has ceased to work. Now Cree thinks absolutely nothing of Ma’s favorite songs.

Still. The storm is coming and there’s no way she can weather it out in this paddock. I’ve already gotten the three pigs into the barn, and Einstein curls uselessly just inside the door, watching me with barely concealed amusement.

---