LITMIR.BIZ

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it, then,” he replied, shrugging. “Whatever.”

      “Delete what?” Jessie Kay strolled into the kitchen, looking as fresh as a daisy. No sign of a hangover, which hardly seemed fair. She patted Jase’s behind as she passed him, saying, “Hey, handsome. You sure are looking good this morning.”

      His lips almost—almost—deepened into a scowl as he backed away from her. Did he ever feel anything? Really feel?

      “What?” Jessie Kay asked with an unrepentant grin. “Just appreciating the machinery. Nothing wrong with that.”

      Brook Lynn battled an intense surge of jealousy at the thought—

      Jealousy? No, no. Indigestion. Almost definitely for sure there was a chance indigestion was all it was. “There’s food for you on the table,” she said, and her sister immediately changed directions. “After you eat, Jase will drive you home.” The indigestion grew worse. “Stay there. Please. After my shift at Edna’s, we need to talk.”

       You were supposed to go see your doctor and ask out Brad today.

      Well, crap. Forget the doctor and Brad. Forget the fun list. Opening lines of communication with Jessie Kay was far more important. How would her sister react to Jase’s job offer? Happy for her? Envious?

      “Dude,” Jessie Kay said. “Don’t we have a shift at the restaurant tonight?”

      As if she cared. Heck, as if she really would have shown up.

      “News flash. We got fired.”

      “What?”

      “Mr. Calbert fired us. He said he couldn’t rely on us anymore.”

      “Us? Or me?”

      “Both of us. I got looped in because I couldn’t hack double shifts all the time.”

      “Well, he did us a favor. I did us a favor.” Her sister shrugged. Actually shrugged. “That job sucked donkey balls.”

      “Maybe, but we needed it.” Brook Lynn sighed. “Just...make sure you’re home when I get back from Edna’s. We need to talk about things. I mean it.”

      “Sure, sure.” One slice of bacon vanished, then another, and her sister moaned with delight.

      “I don’t think you heard me. You go home, you stay.”

      Jessie Kay rolled her eyes. “I’m not a total slag. I said I’ll be there, so I’ll be there.”

      “Like yesterday at work?”

      “Extenuating circumstances.”

      “Such as?”

      “I’d lost most of my stomach lining and probably a lung.”

      That was fair. “All right.” Brook Lynn allowed herself a final glance at Jase—those dark eyes were still locked on her. She shivered, cursed herself and her apparent weakness for the forbidden and left the house.

      * * *

      BROOK LYNN PARKED her car in a lot a few blocks from Rhinestone Cowgirl. Edna claimed the spaces in front of the shop needed to remain free for customers, but the truth was she considered Rusty an abomination.

      She wasn’t wrong.

      As the sun glared, Brook Lynn raced down the sidewalk. People she’d known her entire life waved and hollered out greetings.

      “Running late?” Virgil Porter asked from his rocker. Though he owned Swat Team 8—we assassinate fleas, ticks, silverfish, cockroaches, bees, ants, mice and rats—he often sat with the owner of Style Me Tender Salon across the street from the jewelry store, playing checkers.

      “Unfortunately,” she replied. In a town this small, everyone knew everyone else’s schedule.

      “Explains why Edna was pacing the sidewalk, telling everyone who passed you’d broken her heart,” Mr. Rodriguez said. He gave the best buzz cut in a twenty-mile radius. His only competition, Rhett Walker, gave what Mr. Rodriguez referred to as “bootleg butchers” in his mother’s garage.

      “Edna’s going with a broken heart?” Peachy. Usually, whenever Brook Lynn messed up, she went with betrayed trust.

      Brook Lynn flew through the shop doors so late she’d missed more time than she would actually work, a horror of horrors for a perpetual early bird.

      “I’m so sorry, Edna.”

      The owner of the RC leaned against the counter and crossed her arms.

      Brook Lynn expected to be scolded, wanted to be—deserved it—but in the ensuing minutes Edna somehow made her feel as if she’d dropped an H-bomb on the town.

      Oh, the guilt trip.

      “Do you know how many frantic calls I had to deal with this morning, people wondering if I was going out of business?” Edna asked.

      “No, ma’am.”

      “Two!”

      Wow. That many?

      “It ruined my entire morning, Brook Lynn—you ruined it. And after everything I’ve done for you.”

      “I’m sorry, Edna,” she said again. “I promise to bring you a Swiss enchilada casserole tomorrow. Your favorite.”

      Edna dabbed at eyes that weren’t even close to watery. “You were once my favorite, too. I loved you like the daughter I never had.” Edna had always been one of those people who craved the sympathy hardship bought her and milked every situation to her advantage. “It’s like my heart is breaking right inside my chest.”

      “You actually have a daughter,” Brook Lynn pointed out.

      “Yes, but she’s such a disappointment. You never were...until today.”

      Ouch.

      Edna puttered around the shop, dusting display cases that didn’t need to be dusted. She was a short, round woman with miraculously unlined skin and a pretty crop of silver hair. Her cheeks were always rosy, and to be honest, she could have passed for Mrs. Santa Claus...until she opened her mouth.

      “Caroline moved to the city to attend massage school, you know,” Edna continued, stuck on the topic of her daughter. “Never mind the fact that I have back pain and could use a healing touch every now and then.”

      Brook Lynn faded in and out of the ensuing lecture about giving being better than taking, offering the occasional “Mmm-hmm” and “You’re so right.” Heard this a thousand times before. But at least they were back on familiar territory.

      Then the words “If you’re serious about buying this shop one day...” caught her attention.

      “I am,” she rushed to reply.

      “Yes, but if you’re truly serious—”

      “I truly am.”

      “I mean truly, truly serious, then you’ll show up on time,” Edna said with a sharp stare. “Every. Single. Day.”

      “Absolutely.” Brook Lynn would offer no excuses for today’s tardiness. She’d heard too many over the years and had learned to hate them.

      They had it coming, baby girl. Always courtesy of Uncle Kurt.

      Dude. I had to. That beer was calling my name. Always courtesy of Jessie Kay.

      So, even though this was one of Brook Lynn’s first official offenses at the RC, she made no effort to defend herself. “I promise you it won’t happen again.”

      Edna released a long-suffering sigh. “We’ll see.”

      “I’d be happy to stay super late to make up for it.”

      “That might be a start.”

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