Page 11 of Boats, Moats, & Root Beer Floats

“Me? No. I can barely work a phone.”

“You’re not that old, Lindy.”

“But I am entering my cottagecore stage.”

“We’re talking separate languages.” I shook my head. “I want to send it to a…friend. He’s interested in sculptures.”

“A friend who helps you with your work in dusty books?” Her vague gaze laser focused on my bullshit belated statement in an instant.

Shit, I should have come up with a better lie than that yesterday.

I knew on the spot I should have just told her the truth. In fact…

“I’m a professor at SoCal. History department.” Okay, so not the entire truth, but also not too far off it.

She stared down at me. “You live in California?”

Both of my eyebrows went up as I stretched, standing. “Is that a crime?”

“No.” She nibbled her bottom lip while eggs burned on the gas stovetop. “Just…”

The tins chose that moment to rattle. One by one, like a shiver worked its way along the row. And then, just as fast, they toppled.

Lindy screeched like a barn owl. Witnot’s resident artist grabbed the front of my shirt and yanked. We both stumbled back into the kitchen, tumbling out of the butler’s pantry and landed butt first—hers, not mine—on the black slate flooring.

“Are you okay?” I asked, or tried to ask, as the eggs his critical and smoke poured over us in a billowing wave that should have been reserved for an alchemist’s shop.

“Fucking brilliant!” Lindy shouted in my ear.

One hand covered her eyes from the oily black smoke that seemed to pour from nowhere at all as she tackled the frying pan, dumping it under the sink and turning the water on.

I groaned and pulled her back as steam added to the smoke.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

“Burn yourself?” I yelled over the incessant smoke alarm that would Not. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

“Oddin—ieeeeorsss,” Lindy yelled at me, nodding as she gave me a double thumbs up.

“What?” I muttered.

She rolled her eyes and disappeared into the pantry, reappearing a second later kicking salmon cans about and holding a broomstick. One hand pointed to her mouth.“Get it,”she mouthed clearly.

I nodded and did as she commanded, hefting the stick and aiming for the button on the base of the smoke alarm. Two swings, a few misses and?—

Silence. So blessed.

“That was so fucking loud!” screamed Lindy in my ear.

“Yeah,” I muttered, blinking to push my eyeballs back in where I swore they had burst out of my face when she shrieked in my face.

When the ringing stopped I threw the nearest window up, letting in a gust of icy air.

“You think we’ll get snow?” she asked hopefully, her teeth chattering a moment later.

“Who knows. The rain is making it slushy out there. And we have to deal with the cow again.”

A plaintivemoocalled from the barn/stable area.

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