Truly, Madly, Briefly: Truly, Madly, Briefly / Tried And True. Delores Fossen

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СКАЧАТЬ on the verge of telling Jasper exactly what he could do with that blasted travel itinerary when she heard the voices. Male voices.

      She peered over Jasper’s shoulder and saw something that sent her stomach plummeting to her purple kneecaps. Her uncles and Aidan were leaving the other side of the house, the uncles’ side, and they were headed for hers. Fortunately, they had their attention focused on the four-legged critters, so it gave Bobbie a couple of seconds to try to compose herself.

      “Good-bye, Jasper,” she snarled.

      His moronic grin slipped a considerable notch. “You don’t mean that.”

      “I do mean it.” To prove her point, she aimed her index finger at Aidan. “That’s my boyfriend, and he’s here to pick me up for a…uh…date.”

      The grin vanished. Jasper propped his hands on his hips. “Is this about that dumb lottery?”

      “No.” And it was the truth. This was about the preservation of what was left of her sanity.

      In the nick of time, Uncle Winston saved her from having to add some lies to that truth. “Hey, what’s that weasel doing here?” Winston called out.

      “He’s leaving,” Bobbie announced. “He thought he could show up here and talk me into going to Paris with him. I’d rather have my tonsils removed by a toddler with a rusty spoon.”

      “No, Winston meant the other weasel,” Uncle Quincy corrected.

      “Huh?” Another glance over Jasper’s shoulder, and Bobbie saw that her uncle was right. There were two weasels. Jasper and a furry one that had joined the other critters. Bobbie thought the furry one might actually be Henrietta Beekins’ missing ferret, Sugarfoot.

      As if they’d rehearsed it, her uncles walked forward, each of them latching onto one of Jasper’s arms. Winston and Quincy were in their late sixties, but both men were still in remarkable shape. Together, they lifted the wirily-built Jasper right off the flagstones.

      “You’re not welcome here,” Winston informed Jasper. “We don’t take kindly to you breaking Bobbie’s heart. Leave now, or Quincy here just might put an uncomfortable knot in that Gigolo underwear that you’re so fond of.”

      Quincy agreed with a gravelly, snarling growl. He was by far the smaller of the two, but since he’d been the state mud-wrestling champion in his prime, and since he had hands the size of SUV hubcaps, few people cared to argue with Quincy Callahan.

      In no time flat, and with seemingly no exertion, the uncles had her former fiancé and reigning cow-dung champion headed toward his car.

      “This isn’t over,” Jasper called out. “I’ll win you back, Bobbie. You’ll see.”

      Ferrets would fly first.

      When Jasper finally drove away, Bobbie stepped out on the porch again. From the doomsday look on Aidan’s face, he wasn’t so sure of this lottery stuff either. He’d probably come over to call the whole thing off.

      “I’ll take a stab at what happened to you,” Winston said coming back up the steps. He towered a good twelve inches over his fraternal twin, Quincy, and even had a few inches on Aidan. Her uncle gave his ornate feather-banded Stetson an adjustment. “That purple blotch on your skirt is from Eidelson’s Sensuous Musk Massage Oil, right?”

      Flabbergasted, Bobbie just stared at him a moment. “How’d you know that?”

      Winston cast an uneasy glance down at Quincy. Both shook their heads. Both mumbled. Quincy finally motioned for his brother to continue. “We had a meeting with Mr. Eidelson a couple of years ago, before you took over the business.”

      “And you didn’t warn me?”

      They shrugged in unison. “We figured he’d have a new product by now,” Quincy offered. He didn’t wait for her to verify that there was no product other than the staining, stinky oil. He hitched a thumb in Aidan’s direction. “The deputy was looking for you.”

      Since the cheerless look was still on his face, Aidan had probably been with her uncles longer than he wanted. Of course, there were times when five seconds was too long to spend with Quincy and Winston.

      Bobbie caught onto Aidan’s arm and pulled him inside. “Thank you for bringing him over,” she let her uncles know. She glanced around the yard. It was dark, but she figured it wasn’t so dark that she’d missed his vehicle. “Aidan, where’d you park?”

      “By the pond. I took the back way.”

      So that he wouldn’t be seen. Oh, yeah. He was definitely ready to put an end to this.

      Bobbie gave a farewell wave to her uncles, but they just stood there grinning at her. When a second wave didn’t get them moving, she issued a good-bye and shut the door. Later, she’d have to inform them that this visit from the deputy wasn’t the start of the glorious romance that they obviously thought it was.

      The full impact of the Twango-Drifter Plan hit Bobbie the moment she turned around to face Aidan.

      Oh, my. Oh, my, my, my.

      He was certainly an eyeful in those snuggy jeans and crisp white shirt. And here he was. Right in the middle of her entryway—the last place an attractive man should be, since she’d sworn off men for all of eternity.

      “I’ll save you some time here,” she started. “My second thoughts are having second thoughts. I figure you’re feeling pretty much the same.”

      “I am.” The corner of his mouth lifted. Not a toenail-dissolving grin like Jasper’s. This one made her smile and feel warm and tingly inside.

      “It sure seemed like a good idea at the time,” Bobbie continued. “Well, maybe it did. But I caught us both at a weak moment. Now that the phones aren’t ringing and people aren’t pestering us, well, the Twango-Drifter Plan doesn’t seem, um, necessary, does it?”

      Aidan no doubt would have agreed, but before he could even get out a word, one of the cats scurried across the windowsill. It clawed its way up the screen and onto the eaves.

      Bobbie shook her head. “Just for the record—I don’t expect you to do a kitty rescue.”

      He smiled again. And just stood there. Bobbie tried not to look at him. She really tried. But her eyes seemed to have a whole different notion.

      She took in everything about him that she didn’t want to notice. The way his dark hair languished against his tanned neck. The little flecks of blue and gray in his luscious green eyes. She probably would have started drooling if the rattling sound hadn’t pulled her out of her Aidan-induced trance.

      She glanced behind her. A second cat was making his way up the screen.

      Aidan motioned toward the plate-size stain on her skirt. “You might want to take care of that before you attract a bear or something.”

      “Of course.” Strange, but she’d almost forgotten about the massage oil. “I’ll just grab a quick shower and change. I won’t be long. Then, we can talk about…well, about our situations.”

      Naturally, that would mean coming up with a different СКАЧАТЬ