“I’m at the grocery store,” he said. “We can have pasta, but what would you like with it?”
“I have no clue,” she said in surprise. “How late is it?”
“Dinnertime,” he said.
And she looked down at her laptop and gasped. “Oh my,” she said. “I had no idea.”
“I guess the question really is, do you care?”
“About dinner? No, I don’t. If you’ll do something with pasta, you know I’ll love it.”
“Good enough.”
She hung up, then quickly packed up everything that she had out because Mack would be here in minutes. He was really good at getting his nose into things she didn’t want him to know about. But, if he wouldn’t share anything about the little old ladies, then Doreen wouldn’t share anything either. As soon as she finished packing up, she heard Mugs whining and jumping at the door.
She figured Mack was already here. She frowned at that and wondered how he always made it so fast. She walked to the door, opened it up, and let Mugs out. But saw no sign of Mack. Frowning, she walked down to the front yard and looked around, but nothing was there. She turned back to Mugs; he was heading to the far side, where all the decking supplies were. Worried that somebody had come and was helping themselves, she raced over to see him sniffing along the boards.
“What’s up, buddy?” She didn’t understand his sudden interest in the materials. But it could be as simple as a squirrel or a stray cat had walked on them. Just then, Richard stepped out of his front door and looked at her. Immediately a glare formed. She smiled sunnily and said, “Afternoon.”
“It’s almost evening,” he growled.
“It’s not that dark yet,” she said, with an airy wave of her hand.
“What kind of trouble are you up to now?” he asked.
She snorted. “I was hoping for no trouble.”
“No media,” he said suspiciously, glancing around.
She smiled. “I’m not sure they know about the latest case,” she said.
“Case?”
She nodded. “Jewels in the Juniper,” she said with a smile. And she guessed that the media had likely collected around Heidi’s house, where Aretha lived, but not here at Doreen’s house. She laughed. “They’ll be back. I’m sure.”
“Well, if you’d stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” he said, “we wouldn’t have the media here.” With that, he stormed inside his house and slammed the door shut.
She groaned. “I didn’t do it on purpose,” she called out. But, of course, he wouldn’t listen to her. She followed Mugs, who was still sniffing along but heading toward the back of the house. She walked around and then did a complete loop around her yard, but nobody was here. “Mugs, come on,” she said. “Let’s go in.”
He dropped his butt on the ground and looked at her.
“Mack’s coming,” she said. She knew his ears wouldn’t lift, but it almost looked like he was paying more attention. In the background, she did hear a vehicle. She smiled and said, “Let’s go see if that’s Mack.” And she sped to the corner on a run, knowing that Mugs would keep up behind her.
As she got to the front yard, Goliath had snuck out with them, and he sat on the driveway. She groaned at him. “I don’t like it when you are out here on your own and never in the front where there is traffic,” she said.
He stared at her with those big marble eyes, his tail swishing behind him. She reached down and scooped him up into her arms. And then Mack drove into the cul-de-sac and came up the driveway. Mugs was so excited that it was all Doreen could do with Goliath in her arms to keep Mugs off the driveway too, so Mack could drive in. Mack shut off the engine, then hopped out and bent down to scratch Mugs. “Glad to see you like it when I come by, little guy.”
“Little guy,” she retorted. “He’s getting fat.”
“No,” Mack said. “He isn’t. He’s just perfect.”
She groaned. “So says you. He may be perfect, but, at the same time,” she said, “he’s not getting any smaller.”
“Maybe not,” he said, “but he’s doing just fine. And so is this guy.” And he walked over to Goliath in her arms and gave him a scratch. Goliath immediately reached out and tried to grab his hand as he withdrew it. He chuckled, slipped a hand under the cat, and took him from her arms. “Now this guy,” he said, “he’s an armful.”
He cuddled the cat for a long moment, and it was pretty hard to get mad at anybody who would pay that kind of attention to her animals.
She smiled and said, “Obviously work wasn’t too bad if you got off early.”
“Didn’t get off early,” he said. “I went in early, and that made all the difference.”
“And always you have lots more work to do, I know,” she said. “What did you bring for dinner?” She could see the bags inside the front seat of his vehicle. He dropped Goliath gently onto the ground, then walked back to the truck and grabbed a couple bags of groceries. “This is getting to be a habit.”
“I know,” she said. “I was thinking of that. I wonder if I should be paying you money for the food that you keep bringing.”
He chuckled and said, “Since I eat at the same time, it’s not an issue.”
“Yes, but I get the benefit of the leftovers.”
He brought everything into the kitchen, while she shooed the animals back inside. It was one thing to leave them outside with the kitchen door open, and it was another to worry about them wandering around the front yard and too near the street. As she walked in, she said, “Should I show you the wood that we got delivered?”
“I’ll take a look in a bit,” he said. He pulled out something that she didn’t recognize.
She picked
