Page 11 of Wrong Number, Right Unicorn

I know you willwas a little presumptuous and could sound threatening.

Thankswas too offhand.

Ahhh! Mobile phones, rather than being a convenience, just added to the confusion of life.

I blocked out the squishy noises of my beast chomping on cherries and mulberries. There were some peaches that had ripened according to the orchard website, but my beast wasn’t a fan.

Two hours passed because my unicorn wasn’t a fast eater, preferring to relish his food. When he was done, he raced up and down the rows, the trees proving cover from any humans who were near the orchard.

This was the second day in a row my beast had shifted, but when I was in the middle of a project, I worked and slept, so I owed him plenty of hooves-and-horn time.

Can we do that again tomorrow?

The cherries were at their peak, and the bears would be hankering to break down the huge fence surrounding the orchard. The cherries would be gone soon, and my beast would be forced to eat other fruit and wild berries, that were not so wild. The orchard owner cultivated them for me and other herbivorous beasts.

I’ll try.

A shower was the first thing I did on returning from a shift, but I made it a quick one. My unicorn may have eaten, but I was starving, so while the pasta was cooking, I wrote out messages to Errol and deleted each one.

I should ask about his grandmother, but I had to acknowledge his message first.

Thanks. I’m not worried about the money. How is Grams?I studied what I’d typed and wavered about whether to send it. Gods, when I was at work, I responded to tens of messages and rarely gave as much thought to my responses as I did to this one.

Before I could third, fourth, or fifth-guess myself, I hit send. Shit, the pasta had boiled over. Ewww. Now I had to clean up the mess. It gave me something to do for five minutes instead of thinking about the message.

The phone was quiet as I ate dinner, turned on the dishwasher, and sat down to watch TV with tea and cookies. But just as I was about to find out who the bad guy was, the phone beeped.

Grams is doing well. There’s not much wrong with her other than being bored. She was in a bit of a mood. But thanks for asking.

I responded withGreat!

What else could I say? Grams being in a mood and bored didn’t correspond to what the cop was yelling at Errol last night. I suspected Errol was covering for Grams and she needed looking after, something he couldn’t give her if he were short of both money and time. Working didn’t allow anyone to be a full-time caregiver.

So he either couldn’t work and that was why he couldn’t come up with the bail money, or he left his grandmother alone for nine hours or more, and she wandered away, causing chaos.

What a dilemma. I might be way off base and Grams was acting like a petulant child who wanted attention.

Instinct told me that wasn’t it, and I counted the days until the end of the month when Errol said he’d pay me back. I almosttold him to forget it and consider it a gift, but his reaction last night suggested he’d be offended. And on a selfish note, that would be the end of our communication, and I didn’t want that.

Besides, I had to meet Grams, the infamous grandmother whose life was entwined with Errol’s, and get some alone time with my mate-to-be.

Damn, my tea was cold, and the program had finished and I didn’t find out who did it.

Errol and his Grams were occupying my every thought.

Chapter 6

Errol

Things are doing better.

I was able to go back to my house, with Grams assuring me she had just been in a bit of a mood, which I wasn’t sure I believed. It was the same thing I told the social worker, and I’d been lying to her. Maybe Grams was lying to me? Nothing indicated I had to be at her house, and she wanted me not to hover, so at least for now, I was going to choose to believe her.

When I drove her to her doctor later that week, I did tell them that she had been acting not quite herself. It hadn’t been her normal doctor, but they seemed nice enough and like they were listening. They said it was probably a missed medication, and that made sense given how she had been organizing them. The fancy pill box I bought her should take care of that, I hoped.

Only time would tell, but for now, being back home was great. I got to sleep in my own bed, listen to my own music, and talk freely with Davien without worrying that I was being rude to Grams and without her listening and commenting, which was a bad habit of hers that she always had.

My communication with my knight in shining armor had started with texts. He always seemed so concerned about Grams, like he really wanted to know. I appreciated that. He had no reason to have a vested interest in her. Heck, he still hadn’t met her. But no conversation ended before he inquired about her.

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