Page 2 of The Fiance Dilemma

I rolled my eyes. “What?” I asked, even though I’d caught some of that. I spoke toothless–Grandpa Moe.

“There’s a woman in the yard,” he repeated, his speech now clearer, indicating he’d put his dentures back in.

I sighed as I glanced down at my desperate attempt at getting that thing off my finger. I should have gone for butter. Or oil. And I needed him distracted and away from the kitchen. “How can you be sure she’s not just passing by?”

“She’s coming up the stairs of the porch. I don’t like her.”

Well, crap. There was someone coming? “What did I tell you about being a jeeper-creeper, huh?” I said, sticking my hand out and pulling at my finger with my other hand. “They can see you watching them like some”—I exerted a little more force—“weirdo in suspenders.” The thing didn’t move an inch. I went at it again. “I know you think you’re on neighborhood watch or something, but—”

My fingers slipped, my hands sliding away from each other and knocking my elbow into the jar, sending it crashing to the floor with a loud, strawberry-red splash.

“But what?” Grandpa Moe asked. “And what was that?”

I silently cursed at the complete and absolute mess I’d made of the counter and floor and, well, me. Hands, robe, feet, all of it covered in jam while I stood surrounded by glass shards. “I just dropped something. It’s all under control.”

The doorbell rang.

Maybe not all.“Grandpa Moe?”

I heard the creaking his chair made when he plopped down.

“Moe Poe?” I called in my sweetest voice, wiping my hands on… Where were my kitchen towels? I used my robe. “Would you be a doll and get the door for me?”

“She ain’t here for me,” he said. “And I don’t like strangers. Or how she looks. And,” he added with a pause, “I’m old.”

“Being old is not an excuse for everything, you know?” I picked up several pieces of glass before carefully padding to the sink and depositing them there. “You can’t use it to get the last chocolate muffin and not the door.”

A trail of angry mumbled words traveled from the living roomas I collected more glass shards and waited for a sign that the man was on the move. None followed, pushing me closer and closer to the edge of… losing it.

“Moe Poe, are you—” The doorbell rang again, startling me. A sharp pang of pain in the middle of my palm made me wince.“Shoot,”I gasped. “Stupid silly glass and stupid silly—”

The sound of the doorbell came a third time. And a fourth. And a fifth.

I closed my eyes and let out a frustrated puff of air.“Maurice Antonne Brown,”I gritted between my teeth. “If you don’t get that door, I swear I’m going to whoop your stubborn, stinkin’ butt—”

“All right, all right,” he croaked. His chair creaked. Slow and heavy steps followed. Then the sound of the front door opening, followed by a,“Mhat can I help you wifh?”

Son of a monkey.He made me want to scream sometimes.

A female voice answered, “I’m sorry?”

“Mhat can I help you wifh?” Grandpa Moe repeated like the absolutely insufferable man he could be. A part of me couldn’t believe he’d popped those teeth out again, but why was I surprised? Grandpa was a certified grump, and ever since he’d had a mild stroke that had me immediately packing his things and moving him in with me, his grouchiness had been at max, even now that he’d recovered almost to a hundred.

“I…” the woman started again. “I’m looking for Josephine Moore. I’m certain this is the right address. Everyone in town I talked to confirmed it.”

“And?”the old man had the nerve to say.

There was a beat of silence, then the woman said, “And I’m never wrong. And I’d hate to waste any more time, so if you don’t mind getting Miss Moore for me, I would appreciate it. I’ve been standing here for a long time, watching you eye me from the window. I don’t know if that was meant to intimidate me, but it didn’t work.”A new pause. “I’ve dealt with a lot scarier than a toothless old man in suspenders.”

I groaned. Last time someone had called him “old man,” Grandpa Moe got us on the cover of the county gazette. The black-and-white shot of him fighting Otto Higgings over a pair of oversize shears—with me standing in the middle, arms outstretched and panicked expression on my face—still haunted my dreams some nights. I’d always wanted to make it to the front page of the gazette, I just wished it wasn’t under the headline:Pruning Warfare in Green Oak. Mayor Struggles to Keep Peace.

As if on cue, Grandpa’s chuckle drifted from the hallway. It wasn’t a cute sound. It was hisI’m up to no goodchuckle, and jam and mess and robe—and yes, algae-extract face mask too—be damned, that chuckle kicked me right into action. I rubbed my hands as clean as I could on my already ruined robe and sprinted to the door.

Two pairs of eyes blinked at me. Grandpa’s lips started to move around a question I didn’t want to answer, so I smiled and—gently—pushed the old man aside. Only to realize that there was a darker shade of red covering my hand. Blood, definitely not jam.

I shoved both hands in the pockets of my robe and whirled to face the woman. “Hi,” I greeted her, widening my smile. “I’m Josie. Josephine Moore. That’s me. I’d shake your hand, but… germs. How about an elbow bump instead?” I stuck my elbow out. “I hear it’s all the rage these days. With the kids and… young adults. Of the internet. Everywhere.”

The woman blinked, her eyes traveling up and down my body a few times until a strange grimace formed. “Absolutely not. Nope.” Her expression turned appalled. “What’s…” She seemed to look for the right way to formulate the question. “Why do you look like you jumped out of a Pop-Tart?”

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