Page 71 of Delicate Escape

She just shook her head and handed me the package in her hand. “I won’t even punish you for being a buzzkill. This is for you.”

“Me?”

Lolli nodded. “A thank-you for letting Shep stay with you for a couple of months. I know he didn’t want to stay with us because Nora hovers. Or maybe”—she waggled her eyebrows—“he was hoping this living arrangement might have other perks.”

Sutton put her arm around Lolli’s shoulders. “My thoughts exactly.”

My face flamed.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, dear. Sex is a very natural thing,” Lolli said.

Dear God, someone kill me now.

“Did someone say sex?” Walter asked as he made his way out of the kitchen, a gleam in his eye.

I was going to crawl under the table.

“Not to you, you old coot,” Lolli shot back.

“You say that now,” Walter challenged, “but you don’t know my moves.”

“Walter!” Sutton chastised, laughter filling her voice.

“Let me take you out,” Walter pressed.

Lolli just shook her head, her countless necklaces jangling. “You can’t pin a woman like me down.”

“I don’t know, you might like the kind of pinning I do.”

“Jesus,” a new voice muttered. One I’d memorized. Shep made a face as he looked between Lolli and Walter. “Someone find one of thoseMen in Blackmind wipe things and erase the last sixty seconds from my memory.”

“Now, Shep,” Lolli warned. “Like I told Thea, sex is perfectly natural?—”

“Please, make it stop,” I muttered.

Sutton just burst out laughing.

“You are not helping,” I growled at her.

Walter clapped Shep on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. My intentions are good. I’d marry your grandma tomorrow if she’d let me.”

“Never going to happen,” Lolli snapped.

“Why don’t I open this,” I said, cutting in before anyone could start talking about moves and pinning or anything else.

Lolli clapped her hands like a little kid. “Yes. Please.”

I started ripping the brown butcher paper.

Shep strode forward. “Lolli, tell me you didn’t.”

My hands stilled as Lolli waved Shep off. “Oh, hush. Don’t ruin the surprise.”

“Surprise?” I was suddenlyverywary.

“Don’t listen to my stick-in-the-mud grandson. I came up with this one just for you. I know how partial you are to your greenhouse goodies,” Lolli said.

That had a little of the tension easing out of me. How bad could it be if it had to do with my greenhouse?

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