Page 7 of Crossing the Line
As soon as Samantha had mentioned that she was expecting more chicks than she needed in the next few batches from her incubator, Facebook showed her chicken videos. Chicken memes. Even advertisements for chicken accessories. Wait. Was that the right word? Chicken gifts?
Could you really gift things to chickens?
Janice had giggled over that thought, completing her change into a woman with a mild, she'd snorted with laughter over that, chicken obsession.
While she hadn't actually bought any of the crazy things she'd seen, like the little motorcycle helmets, because really, they didn't offer chicken sized motorcycles or even ATVs, she had many of them bookmarked for evaluation after she had her chicks.
After all, how would she know what color chicken dress to get unless she had the chicks in front of her.
Right?
"You know..."
She startled and looked up and saw the contractor pointing to one of the coop images on the screen of her iPad.
"Any of these will work. It's just a matter of what you want."
Janice frowned at that. She wanted all kinds of coops. There was one that looked like a farmhouse. Another one that looked more than a jungle gym than a chicken coop. There was even one that was painted with the KFC logo on it. Oh, she'd instantly nixed the KFC logo idea. She didn't want to torment the poor things, but the shape of the coop had been neat.
She was really hoping for some kind of direction on what to build, but this man seemed more interested in building her whatever she wanted.
The trouble was, there were just too many options available.
The back door of the market opened up and Heidi, one of her part-time clerks, leaned out with a harried look on her face. "Sorry, Janice. I need a little help in here."
With a smile, Janice got up to excuse herself. "I'm sorry, Mister..."
"Atkins. I'm fine. I can see you have a business to run. Do you want me to wait-"
"Actually," Janice let out the breath she'd been unknowingly holding, "I don't know how long I'll be inside. Sometimes it's a moment and sometimes-"
"Your work is a little more people-y than mine is. I'll head out." He handed her the iPad he'd been studying. "Give me a call if you have any questions or if you'd like to start working on the coop."
He took a step back and moved away from the little break table that Janice had set up on her side of the back patio.
"Thanks for calling me in."
She nodded her head. "Sure."
As soon as he made it around the corner toward the little strip of parking they had along the side of the building, she let out an audible sigh and turned to head in, stopping short when she saw Bixby looking over at her from his side of the patio.
He didn't ask her a question, but he had that look in his eyes that said he would have plenty to say if he did start talking, so she hustled inside and was greeted by Heidi's smile of relief.
"Sorry to bother, boss." Janice smiled at that.
It said that Heidi was feeling more uncomfortable than she had a few moments before.
There was a slightly panicked look on her face, too.
"Oh, thank goodness you're here, Janice."
"It's always nice to see you, Moira. What can I help you with?"
Moira, better known as the town busybody, held up a jar of preserves. "How accurate are the ingredients in his jar?"
Ah, it's going to be one of those days.
Janice smiled and found that her expression wasn't brittle at all. Some days it was a chore to deal with Moira, but others, it was just Moira's normal level of... nosiness.
