love to ladies—and Jefferson—but I’ve got a family thing to take care of. You all have a nice weekend,” Jonah said and headed up to the counter where his to-go order was waiting for him.
I bet it was egg whites and veggies. Gross. The man was a paragon of health, and it showed. Rumor had it a pork rind had never crossed his lips.
“Henrietta Van Sickle is due in for supplies,” Jefferson announced, restarting the gossiping portion of the meal.
“Think Gert will get her to talk again?”
“You mean force the poor woman to demand to be left alone?”
“I am a delightful conversationalist,” Gert sniffed.
“You blocked the woman’s exit from the grocery store with your cart until she had to ask you to move,” Louisa argued.
“Still counts. She talked to me.”
I’d grown up in Charlotte and spent the last several years in Pittsburgh. The idea of a hermit sneaking into town once a month for supplies piqued my interest.
To be fair, just about everything in Bootleg Springs did. Including Jonah Bodine, I thought, idly watching him hustle out of the restaurant. He shot me a parting look before disappearing into the spring sunshine.
“Shelby, honey. Don’t you think it’s time to come clean with that boy?” Estelle asked.
I shrugged, tucking back into my eggs Benedict.
“I agree. The Bodines are practically the heart of this town. You need them if you’re going to write your fancy paper,” Mrs. Varney piped up.
They had a point. A small one.
“Your brother cracked the door open by moving in with June Tucker,” Jefferson noted. “Use that to your advantage. Show the Bodines they were wrong about you.”
“And I know just where you need to start,” Gert said slyly.
Q. What’s the most neighborly thing you’ve done for someone in your community?
Jefferson Waverly: I rear-ended Wade Zirkel last year at a stop sign to show my support for that Scarlett Bodine girl. Told the sheriff it was an accident cause of my bifocals. But that Zirkel fella knows the truth.
3
Shelby
The sounds coming from inside the cottage suggested I’d arrived at a bad time. Someone was swearing. Something was ringing. And something else was yowling.
I rapped briskly on the cottage door and pressed the doorbell.
There was a crash followed by a lot more swearing, and then the door opened.
“Well, what in the hell do you want?”
Scarlett Bodine glared at me and puffed out a breath to blow the mahogany hair out of her face. There was a cat attached to the leg of her jeans.
I flashed her my friendliest I’m Not a Threat smile and held up the platter of donuts and breakfast pastries I’d ordered to go from The Brunch Club. “Hi,” I said chipperly.
Scarlett detached the cat from her leg and nudged him back into the house with her work boot.
I could hear her boyfriend, Devlin, on the phone somewhere behind her.
“I repeat. What in the hell do you want?” she demanded coolly.
But I noticed how her eyes tracked to the goodies which, after my horrific run this morning, were starting to weigh heavily on my weakened arms.
“Scarlett, I think we got off on the wrong foot,” I began cheerfully.
“If you mean you being a low-down, no-good, dirty, gossip-mongering, she-devil of a reporter trying to infiltrate my family and dig up dirt on us as the wrong foot, then yes. Yes, we did.”
Undaunted, I removed the plastic wrap from the tray of carbs so the scent could escape and overwhelm her brain. Olfactory function was on my side. No one could stay angry when they were sniffing sugar. “I’m not a reporter. I’m not writing about Callie Kendall. And I promise I’m not trying to infiltrate your family.”
Scarlett looked at me with suspicion. But the scent of French cruller was distracting her. It smelled like victory to me.
“You write for magazines,” she pointed out. “You showed up in town with the rest of your soulless, heartless, loafer-wearing journalistic weasel friends. I don’t care if your giant brother is dating one of my very best friends in the whole wide world. That does not require me to be nice to you.”
She snatched a pastry from the tray.
“I do freelance write,” I agreed. “For academic psychology journals. I’m writing a thesis involving field study on the bonds that exist between neighbors in small communities and how these relationships can often be as strong as and as binding as actual biological or romantic relationships.”
Scarlett bit off a corner of the cruller and blinked. “Say what now?”