Page 326 of Love Bites

“Congratulations!” Jane squeezed me with a big hug, enveloping me with the scent of vanilla and flowers. I hoped she couldn’t smell sex on me. “When you get Mona’s client’s signature, I’ll take you out to celebrate.”

I waved playfully at Ray over Jane’s shoulder. “Can Ray come, too?”

He growled and kicked his desk with his bare foot.

Mona laughed as he howled and hopped around on his shod foot.

Aunt Zoe’s cell phone trilled from my purse. I ran over and dug it out. “Hello?”

“Mom, where are you?” Layne, my other knight in shining armor, asked, his voice a tad breathless.

“At work.” I could hear a loud, squawking noise in the background. A cloud covered my sun. “What’s that sound?”

“Elvis. Harvey just came back from the mine with him. Our chicken trap worked.”

My heart started beating again. “Oh, that’s good.” Except for the fact that I had finally cleaned the last of the chicken feathers from my velvet comforter. “What do you need, Honey?

“You have to come home now!” he whispered.

“Why?” I whispered back, playing along.

“I found a foot.”

Duh, his horse again. “They’re called hooves, Kiddo.”

“I know that, Mother. I’m not talking about my horse skeleton.”

I plugged my other ear to block out Ray’s cursing. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s a human foot.”

“Human?” I dropped into my chair. I must have heard that wrong.

“Yeah, hanging in a tree. It’s missing two toes.”

I laughed. It came out as more of a queasy cough. First Harvey’s ear, now a foot? Were body parts falling from the sky? “You’re kidding me, right?”

Silence issued from Layne’s end of the line.

“Right? Layne?”

THE END … for now

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