She stared at him in joy. “I really like your brother. That would be a good idea.”
He looked over at her from the corner of his eye.
“I like him as your brother.” She grinned. “I don’t like him instead of you.”
“Good,” he replied, “because otherwise I’d kick his body back to Vancouver again.”
She burst out laughing, and he just smiled at her. She nodded. “We’re very comfortable together.”
“Yep, like an old shoe.” When she stared at him, frowning, he chuckled. “And that’s just another old saying.”
“I don’t get all these old sayings,” she said, with an eye roll. “What could possibly be comfortable about an old shoe? There’s no support anymore. They’re broken. Probably really smelly too.”
He looked at her, shook his head. “Let’s move on from this one. Obviously we’ll be at odds over it.”
“And how can you be at odds over it?” she muttered. “It’s a stupid saying.”
He groaned. “So can we move on from it?”
“Sure, we can go right back to the Poison in the Pansies case.”
“Nope, we can’t. Next.”
She sighed. “Fine, I’ll start in on the Bob Small stuff.”
He stopped chewing and looked over at her.
She shrugged. “I need something to look at, and I know that’s a really big case, and it’s probably more than I can really handle, and, if I do ever solve anything to do with it,” she explained, “I was hoping you guys would get the backlog of these cases caught up so I could give a hand with it.”
He slowly put down his knife and fork. “That one could be very ugly. Bob Small is considered a serial killer. We’ve discussed this.”
“We have, and I know you’re worried about it,” she noted. “I can tell you right now that, so far, I haven’t a clue where to go with it and what to do on it. All I can tell you is that I got started at some earlier time, and then everything came to a dead stop.”
“Un-huh,” he muttered. “And that dead stop, is it about to stay stopped or …”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’d have to find all my notes and get back into it again. And that file was big. So I’m not exactly sure.”
“Right,” he agreed, “it was suspected to be a big serial killer case, wasn’t it?”
“Lots and lots of connected cases.”
“Suspected cases.” He nodded. “I don’t even remember the details.”
“No, I don’t either. So, I mean, an easier one would be poison cases.”
“I don’t think I have any cold case files with poisons in them,” he noted.
“Well, how about from the city of Vernon or from, I don’t know, Merritt? It’s not that far away. Penticton, Summerland? How about any of those places? I mean, surely somebody in Okanagan Falls might have killed somebody with poison, right?” She looked at him hopefully. He stared at her. “Okay, fine. Too gruesome?”
“Too ghoulish,” he corrected.
She raised both hands, then sighed. “And speaking of things not happening yet, I still haven’t got that catalog from Scott that he promised me.”
“The one with all your repaired furniture?” She nodded. “Yeah. Maybe tomorrow. And that should bring you a ton of money, right?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. Then she thought about it. “Nan seems to think it will, but I’m not so sure. And I can’t count on anything, not until it’s actually in hand.”
“Good, that’s wise.” He nodded. “Because then you won’t be disappointed if it ends up being much less.”
“Exactly,” she agreed. “That’s what I was trying to explain to Nan, but she didn’t see it from my point of view.”
“But she’s got a different vested interest in this, doesn’t she?” he asked. “I mean, after all, she bought the antiques as an investment for you. So, in theory, she wants to make sure that you get the highest amount of compensation for them.”
“Of course, and yet what she thinks it’s worth doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what it is worth at present,” she added, with a smile. “She more or less told me that today.”
“Exactly. I’m glad you went down to see her,” he noted. “I thought you would have yesterday.”
“Well, we were spending the day together, and then, when you got up and left so quickly like that,” she added, “I got into a bit of a funk. Just stayed around home and cleaned some. Thought about what else I want to do in the yard, attacked some of the weeds, you know? I just puttered. Maybe that was good. Maybe that was bad. I don’t know. Just doesn’t feel like I’m accomplishing much. But then when you said you would be late today, we went down and had a cup of tea with Nan.”
“Good. Nan’s a special person.”
“She is, indeed.” Doreen laughed. “And what about your mom?”
“She’s doing pretty well,” he replied. “And, yes, she does want you to continue in her garden.”
“Yeah, but you’re paying the bills,” she noted quietly. “How do you feel about it?”
He looked over at her, smiled. “I got my brother to help pay now too, so we’re doing good.”
“He’s okay that it’s me?”
Mack nodded. “He’s absolutely okay that it’s you.”
“Okay, good. Maybe I’ll take a walk over there one day soon and take a look and see what needs to be done again. I’ve been doing the regular maintenance, but it could use a bit more,” she admitted.
“Like how much more?” he asked warily.
She burst out laughing. “I don’t know. How big is your bank account?”
He rolled his eyes at that. “Not very big. And it doesn’t lend itself to steak dinners all the time.”
“I know,” she noted, “and this is fabulous.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” He put down his knife and fork and finished the last bite in his mouth. He looked around. “You know that we’ll have to start doing something about desserts.”
“Desserts?” she asked doubtfully. “When I was married, I was never even allowed to have desserts.”
“Wow, what a total control freak he was, but you’re not with that loser anymore,” he stated. “And you could use a few extra pounds.”
She protested. “Hey, I already gained a few extra pounds,” she replied. “Now I have to watch that I don’t gain too many more pounds.”
He snorted at that. “A little bit of fresh fruit or something nice to end the day wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
At the mention of fruit, she stared at him. “You know what? I might have a little bit of fruit.” She got up and walked into the kitchen and pulled out two peaches. “I was hoarding these.”
He shook his head. “You can’t hoard fresh fruit. It’ll go bad pretty fast.”
She stared at him, looked down at the fruit, and then asked in a worried tone, “Are they bad?”