Okay, I’m pretty sure Mrs. Thibodeaux heard that all the way over at her place. I try to tame my grin. “Sorry, I—”
Iris scowls. “What? You don’t think I can handle a little manual labor?” She waves a hand at the heap of branches, leaves, and debris. “Or maybe I’m too small or too girly to be of any use?”
I know she’s tough. No one hikes the AT without a serious measure of grit, but, dammit, she’s a celebrity. I wasn’t expecting her to put on work gloves and start excavating my house.
“No and no,” I say firmly. “Fair enough. You’re on branch hauling duty.”
Her scowl clears. “Good.”
“Good,” I echo. “I’ll get the chainsaw.”
We work until about six-thirty. It’s stifling, and the mosquitos are murderous. Mica took refuge in the shed hours ago after Iris used the hose beside it to fill a metal tub with clean water. The hose has also been our only source of hydration as we’ve worked.
But at least the branches have been cleared from my porch and the bigger ones cut into firewood. We also cleared at least some of the demolished porch and my rocking chair that was reduced to matchsticks, but I still can’t open my front door yet. It happens to be the only door, so I can’t get into the house for clean clothes or assess the damage from the inside.
I find a waterproof horse blanket in the barn, and Iris and I use it as a makeshift tarp until I can get to the hardware store for the real thing. It’s all we can do before we run the risk of being on the roads after curfew.
Besides, we’re exhausted. Sweaty. Dirty. Scraped. Scratched. And mosquito-bitten.
On the drive back to Iris’s, I take Pinhook all the way to University, and nearly cheer when I see working traffic lights.
“Power,” I say, pointing to the beacons of hope.
Iris gasps. “Oh my God. Is that Sonic open?”
The lights are on. Cars fill the bays. A line snakes from the drive thru.
“Want a burger?” I ask.
“I want everything on the menu.”
Chuckling, I pull in and get into the drive thru line.
“I’m buying,” Iris says.
“Um. I don’t think so.” I dig into my pocket for my wallet. Iris digs into her purse for hers.
“Why not?” she challenges, and I know immediately what I’m in for.
I don’t even bother with pretense. “Because your boyfriend is a southern gentleman.”
Iris’s smile at this is epic. Her tri-colored eyes dance. And even though I know she likes what she hears, I also know I haven’t won this argument.
She clears her throat. “Well, your girlfriend isn’t from the past—”
I bark a laugh.
“—so you’ll have to indulge her,” she finishes with a jaunty tilt of her chin and shoves her credit card in my face.
God, I love this woman.
I take it from her because I plan on indulging her as long as I can.
We place our order of cheeseburgers, tater tots, cheese sticks, iced tea—mine sweet, hers unsweet—and a plain junior burger patty for Mica, and pull up to the window.
“I know it’s wrong, but fast food smells so good,” she says, almost swooning. Mica sticks his head into the front seat, sniffing as if in agreement. “I haven’t had a cheese stick in at least five years.”
The attendant repeats the total, and I hand over Iris’s card. “When was the last time you had fast food,” I ask her. Knowing what I know about the way she eats, I can’t imagine she lets herself cut loose very often.
“At Bush International Airport in Houston when Sally and I were on our way back from the AT.” A guilty smile overtakes her face. “I knew Moira was going to impose a juice cleanse and a strict diet before we started filming, so I let myself go a little crazy.”
I grin, loving that even when she was under Moira’s thumb all the time, she still rebelled in her own way. “Where’d you go?”
“Cinnabon,” she says like it should be obvious. “Go big or go home.”
I’m laughing when the Sonic attendant hands Iris’s card back to me. “Sorry. Your card was declined,” she says.
“Wait. What?” Iris leans over me to make eye contact with the girl. “Could you try again?”
“I tried it twice—” The girl does a double-take. “Do I know you?” She narrows her eyes on Iris. This kid can’t be older than seventeen.
“Um...Maybe. Are sure about that card?” Iris asks, clearly getting rattled.