Page 12 of Crossing the Line
"I'll have someone come out and look at the tree."
Moira was satisfied at the answer. At least she gave him one of her Cheshire Cat grins and nodded like a mountain sage. "That will be satisfactory."
Behind the older woman, Janice clapped a hand over her mouth to stop from laughing out loud.
Bixby knew why she was doing it that way.
Moira might misunderstand and start to argue.
Neither of them wanted her to do that with them for any reason, let alone in the store.
So Janice smothered her laugh and moved away to talk to another customer while Bixby stepped back and headed for the meat counter, leaving a satisfied Moira behind him.
He really didn't mind her butting in every now and then.
Where they lived in Saint Raphael, they didn't even need a Neighborhood watch program.
They had Moira Lundin.
She somehow managed to monitor everyone's lives from the comfort of her home and succeeded in making people uncomfortable when she felt like it.
She was a force of nature.
She'd also been keeping tabs on everyone around her for decades.
That took a lot of time and effort.
The two men waiting at the counter really didn't need to talk to him, they were carrying on quite the conversation between themselves. Bixby didn't even try to interject any comments into their back and forth while he filled their orders.
He didn't mind. He certainly had his hands full with the laundry list of meats that Wallace Malone had given him to fill. As the owner of Malone's Mufflers & Meats, a unique combination of a mechanic shop on one side of the building and a completely separate cafe serving local families for decades. Bixby was happy to have Wallace as a long-time loyal customer. The man ordered a ton of meat every week for his business, and it was customers like Wallace that helped Bixby keep his business as healthy as it was.
That was the nature of small towns.
Businesses supporting each other. People supported each other, too.
He'd married into the Saint Raphael community, and it had taken him a little bit of time to get used to the oddities of life in a small town surrounded by a thriving agricultural community, but he'd done it.
He'd done it for Janice and the life he saw them building there.
The business.
And the family they'd hoped for and never quite achieved.
When he was done, cutting and grinding the meat that Wallace needed for his week ahead, Bixby quickly packed it all up and put it into the crates that Wallace brought with him.
When he brought the first one to the counter, Wallace and his son looked up.
Grayson spoke first. "Do you ever get tired of my dad coming in with a list of meat that looks more like supplies for a ravening football team than anything else?"
Bixby had to smile at that. "I'm always happy to fill any order, big or small, but big does make me happy. The more you sell the more I do it. It's a good relationship."
Wallace nodded. "I'm thinking of putting a sausage special meal on my menu now that you've got that machine back there."
Bixby grinned at him. "Just tell me what you want, and I'll put it together for you."
Wallace looked at his son who was a top-notch orthopedic doctor. "The last time I picked up your special, Grayson bought sandwiches for his office staff."
Grayson laughed softly. "Today, I'm bringing sausages home for Stella and the kids."
