LITMIR.BIZ

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Jasper greeted when she stepped from her car. “I’m glad you’re finally home. I’ve been waiting for you.” He lifted his nose in the air and sniffed. “Say, what’s that smell? A new perfume, huh? Guess the animals like it. It’s a little strong, but I could get used to it.”

      She ignored his idiotic observation and turned to see if the other critters were still there. They were, and they were gaining now that she’d stopped. Bobbie rolled up the travel magazine in case she had to ward them off. Not that she planned to hit them, but waving the glossy pages around and shouting might work.

      Jasper walked down the flagstone steps to join her. “Say, that really is a great perfume. You oughta wear that more often.” He sniffed her again. “By the way, something must be wrong with your phone. I’ve been trying to call you for a couple of hours.”

      “I had your number blocked.” Bobbie kept her attention on the animals. One of the cats and the raccoon didn’t look especially pleased when they realized she wasn’t a potential girlfriend.

      “I know you’re angry about what happened,” Jasper said as if his latest jilting were only a mild inconvenience instead of the life-altering, humiliating experience that it had been. “But I can explain everything.”

      “I don’t want an explanation.”

      She grabbed her purse and headed for the house, taking the steps two at a time. The critters didn’t come any closer, but Bobbie didn’t plan to take any chances. Besides, she wanted to get away from Jasper more than she did the animals.

      Unfortunately, Jasper followed her. Bobbie barely managed to get inside the house and slam the glass storm door between them.

      “I got scared,” Jasper prattled on. He pressed his face right against the glass, making himself look a little like a severely mashed Mr. Potato Head. “I guess I wasn’t ready to settle down.”

      “Too bad you didn’t let me in on that little revelation before I showed up at the church.”

      He shrugged. “Hey, what can I say—I’m human. I make mistakes.”

      She wanted to throttle him. Eight months earlier, the man had left her high and dry to face 179 guests, a food-laden reception and an unpaid limo driver. Worse, Bobbie had learned later that he’d actually gone on their honeymoon trip to London—a place she desperately wanted to visit. Then, rather than return to Liffey and try to grovel his way back into her good graces, Jasper had been working in his father’s travel agency in San Antonio.

      “You’re leaving,” she insisted. “And I don’t want you to come back. Our relationship is over, and we’ll never get back together again, understand?”

      Jasper nodded but then reached inside the pocket of his perfectly tailored jacket and brought out a thick envelope. “It’s an itinerary,” he announced. “For our trip to Paris. I’ve already paid for everything, including a stay at a five-star hotel. Dad says I can have as much time off from the agency as I need so we can leave as early as next week. All you have to do is say yes.”

      He flashed that dimple-enhanced smile that had once done a fairly decent job of melting her toenail polish. Today, her nail polish frosted over.

      Bobbie was on the verge of telling Jasper exactly what he could do with that blasted travel itinerary when she heard the voices. Male voices.

      She peered over Jasper’s shoulder and saw something that sent her stomach plummeting to her purple kneecaps. Her uncles and Aidan were leaving the other side of the house, the uncles’ side, and they were headed for hers. Fortunately, they had their attention focused on the four-legged critters, so it gave Bobbie a couple of seconds to try to compose herself.

      “Good-bye, Jasper,” she snarled.

      His moronic grin slipped a considerable notch. “You don’t mean that.”

      “I do mean it.” To prove her point, she aimed her index finger at Aidan. “That’s my boyfriend, and he’s here to pick me up for a…uh…date.”

      The grin vanished. Jasper propped his hands on his hips. “Is this about that dumb lottery?”

      “No.” And it was the truth. This was about the preservation of what was left of her sanity.

      In the nick of time, Uncle Winston saved her from having to add some lies to that truth. “Hey, what’s that weasel doing here?” Winston called out.

      “He’s leaving,” Bobbie announced. “He thought he could show up here and talk me into going to Paris with him. I’d rather have my tonsils removed by a toddler with a rusty spoon.”

      “No, Winston meant the other weasel,” Uncle Quincy corrected.

      “Huh?” Another glance over Jasper’s shoulder, and Bobbie saw that her uncle was right. There were two weasels. Jasper and a furry one that had joined the other critters. Bobbie thought the furry one might actually be Henrietta Beekins’ missing ferret, Sugarfoot.

      As if they’d rehearsed it, her uncles walked forward, each of them latching onto one of Jasper’s arms. Winston and Quincy were in their late sixties, but both men were still in remarkable shape. Together, they lifted the wirily-built Jasper right off the flagstones.

      “You’re not welcome here,” Winston informed Jasper. “We don’t take kindly to you breaking Bobbie’s heart. Leave now, or Quincy here just might put an uncomfortable knot in that Gigolo underwear that you’re so fond of.”

      Quincy agreed with a gravelly, snarling growl. He was by far the smaller of the two, but since he’d been the state mud-wrestling champion in his prime, and since he had hands the size of SUV hubcaps, few people cared to argue with Quincy Callahan.

      In no time flat, and with seemingly no exertion, the uncles had her former fiancé and reigning cow-dung champion headed toward his car.

      “This isn’t over,” Jasper called out. “I’ll win you back, Bobbie. You’ll see.”

      Ferrets would fly first.

      When Jasper finally drove away, Bobbie stepped out on the porch again. From the doomsday look on Aidan’s face, he wasn’t so sure of this lottery stuff either. He’d probably come over to call the whole thing off.

      “I’ll take a stab at what happened to you,” Winston said coming back up the steps. He towered a good twelve inches over his fraternal twin, Quincy, and even had a few inches on Aidan. Her uncle gave his ornate feather-banded Stetson an adjustment. “That purple blotch on your skirt is from Eidelson’s Sensuous Musk Massage Oil, right?”

      Flabbergasted, Bobbie just stared at him a moment. “How’d you know that?”

      Winston cast an uneasy glance down at Quincy. Both shook their heads. Both mumbled. Quincy finally motioned for his brother to continue. “We had a meeting with Mr. Eidelson a couple of years ago, before you took over the business.”

      “And you didn’t warn me?”

      They shrugged in unison. “We figured he’d have a new product by now,” Quincy offered. He didn’t wait for her to verify that there was no product other than the staining, stinky oil. He hitched a thumb in Aidan’s direction. “The deputy was looking for you.”

      Since the cheerless look was still on his face, Aidan had probably been with her uncles longer than he wanted. Of course, there were times when five seconds was too long to spend with Quincy and Winston.

      Bobbie caught onto Aidan’s arm and pulled him inside. “Thank you for bringing him over,” she let her uncles know. She glanced around the yard. It was dark, but she figured it wasn’t so dark that she’d missed his vehicle. “Aidan, where’d you park?”

      “By the pond. I took the back way.”

      So that he wouldn’t be seen. Oh, yeah. He was definitely ready to put an end to this.

      Bobbie gave a farewell wave to her uncles, but they just stood

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