“I have experience related to your problem,” Ryan announced.
“What kind of experience?” Rainbow asked as if she had zero interest in the conversation.
“Ever hear of the town Red Rock Bay in Washington state?” he asked.
“Nope.” Rainbow sounded bored.
“I could Google it,” Bruce offered, patting his pockets for his phone. “Do you want me to Google it?”
“You’ve never heard of Red Rock Bay because I stepped in at the eleventh hour and saved the town from a very public bankruptcy.”
“Bruce, why don’t you go get Amethyst some water,” Rainbow suggested, leaning back in her chair.
“Yes. Good idea! Don’t say anything important until I get back. Amethyst, my pearl! I’m coming,” Bruce said, charging into the crowd.
“Let’s step outside,” Rainbow suggested, pulling on her coat.
Ryan followed her out the exit door. The alley was dark and frigid. He dragged on his hat while Rainbow lit another one of her clove cigarettes.
“Let’s get down to brass tacks,” she said.
“I came across some interesting information regarding my uncle’s loan today,” Ryan said.
“You did?” For a moment, she looked perplexed. “I mean. Oh, you did. What do you want?”
“I want a sit-down with you tomorrow to hash this out once and for all.”
“In exchange for?”
“I can make this state auditor problem go away. At least long enough for you to come up with the proper documentation.”
He had her interest now, he thought as she eyed him shrewdly.
“How do I know you’re not full of shit?” she asked, blowing out a contemplative cloud of smoke.
Ryan flipped his ear flaps down. “Guess you’ll just have to trust me.”
“So I meet with you tomorrow, and you solve this auditor problem before Christmas Eve?”
“Yes.” He held out a hand. “I’ll see you at eight a.m.”
“Four p.m.,” she countered.
“Noon.”
“Deal,” she said, shaking his hand, her grip firm enough to rearrange several of the smaller finger bones.
“Rainbow?” Evan the kid appeared in the doorway. He was shoveling popcorn into his face. “Pond Birkbeck wants to know if clipping coupons counts as accounting experience.”
“I’ll see you at noon, Ryan,” she said menacingly.
“Looking forward to it,” Ryan said.
The Monthly Moon:
Contrary to recent rumors, Mayor Beckett Pierce confirms there have been no official steps taken to shun Bruce and Amethyst Oakleigh. Mayor Pierce also confirms that as far as he knows “alien life forms have not been living among us.”
The mayor refused to weigh in on whether or not the school district’s More Fiber for Better Poops movement would be on the next town meeting’s agenda. He suggested the Monthly Moon’s journalist schedule an appointment and not just show up on his doorstep at 11 p.m. on a weeknight.
22
Sammy was in the middle of wiring a glittery jingle bell in place when there was a knock on her door. It was after nine on a cold-ass winter night. If it was some Mooner wanting to place a custom wreath order in person, there was a distinct possibility that she was going to lose her shit.
Tripping over a naked wreath, she stomped to her front door. “Ryan?” Sammy nearly dropped her glue gun onto a cat when she opened her front door and found him standing there looking handsome and broody. “What are you doing here?”
Was this a booty call? Please be a booty call!
“I’m amped up on battling it out with Rainbow Berkowicz,” he announced from his place on her Merry Everything welcome mat. There was indeed an unpredictable sort of energy crackling off him.
If this was a booty call, he was going to have to deal with the fact that she’d only remembered to shave one armpit and had eaten six garlic-stuffed olives in place of an actual supper.
“Plus, I thought you might need food,” he said, holding up two John Pierce Brews to-go bags. “Goat Guy hooked me up with soups, sandwiches, and a six-pack of something called Apocalypse Ale.”
He’d brought her food she didn’t have to cook after she’d worked straight through dinner. Booty call on.
“Wow. Okay,” she said, standing aside so he could come in. “Thanks. Did you seriously get into a fight with Rainbow after the town meeting?”
He crossed the threshold and she felt his gaze as it traveled over her from the ratty hooded sweatshirt, over her Naughty or Nice pajama shorts, down to her candy cane knee socks.
Dammit. Well, at least her hair still looked good.
“Holy shit!” she yelped when a gigantic cotton ball appeared next to him in the doorway.
“Oh. You don’t mind that I brought Stan, do you? He was bored and I’m pretty sure he’s housebroken.” The sheep wandered past her into the house.
“Uh. That’s fine,” she said, watching Stan trot into the living room. Holly, the almost-glue-gunned cat, skulked behind him, eyeing the sheep with suspicion.
“He’s pretty good company,” Ryan told her.
The man had developed a friendship with a sheep he let in the house. Booty call off.
“How did you find my place?” she asked, following him as he headed for her kitchen.
The man looked out of place in the tight space with its ancient apple wallpaper and dingy pine cabinets. She wished she would have gotten around to doing the dishes and vacuuming.
“I asked the bartender at the brewery. She knew. The llama lady from yesterday with the bad biscotti was there for dinner and gave me turn-by-turn directions. Jax said you’re usually in bed by nine, but I knew you’d be up late making wreaths.”
Sammy blinked. “Hang on. You told how many Mooners that you were coming over to my house tonight?”
“Just three,” he said, clearly not understanding the ramifications.
She preferred not having to field well-meaning but inappropriate questions about her sex life in the produce aisle at the grocery store or under a cow’s udder.
On cue, her phone alerted her to a new text message. She picked it up and silenced it. Before she had the chance to put it back down, three more texts buzzed in. In desperation, she stashed the phone inside a stack of wreaths on her table.
Great. The gossip group had been activated. Everyone would be speculating that she and Carson’s nephew were getting it on when—depressingly enough—they were not.
“Interesting place,” he said, eyeing her living space as he dumped the bags on the kitchen counter.
He wasn’t catching her or her home on their best days.
“It’s usually much cleaner than this,” she told him. “I’ve been busy.”
She’d bought the two-story farmhouse and its ten acres that summer. With the help of local contractor Calvin Finestra, Sammy had worked her way down a prioritized punch list to make the house—mostly—livable.
They’d upgraded both bathrooms, opened up the living and dining areas, and stripped the dizzying pink heart wallpaper out of her bedroom. But the cramped kitchen with its pine plank cabinets and faded candy apple red counter tops was one step up from eyesore. And then there was the upstairs. The second floor needed more TLC. But it would have to wait until later like everything else since the barn and pastures were next on her list. Then there was the adjoining parcel of land she had her eye on. But that was far, far into the nebulous future.