“Come on, Cletus. Stick around. I’ll gaze longingly into your eyes. Us single guys need to stick together,” Beau called after me.
“Cletus won’t be single for long,” Jethro said, likely hoping to get a rise out of me. It didn’t work. I didn’t want to be late for my first lesson with Jennifer Sylvester. We had a lot of work to do.
“What do you mean? Cletus got himself a girlfriend we don’t know about?” Beau sounded positively elated.
I was almost to the door when I heard Jethro say, “It’s not my place to tell.”
“That’s not nice, Jethro. You know Beau won’t rest until he figures out who it is,” Drew counseled, his tone half-serious.
“Who is she?” Duane asked, sounding interested, and I was surprised; typically he stayed out of the gossip.
“I bid you good evening, charlatans.” I waved over my shoulder and let the door shut behind me, blocking out their voices and strolling purposefully to my car.
I hadn’t been thinking on Shelly Sullivan’s suitability as a life partner recently, not since I’d met her a few weeks ago. I had no reason to rush things, no cause to instigate additional changes at present. We, as a family, were already dealing with enough disruption, no reason to add to it.
When the time was right, when things settled down to a routine, I’d ask her out for steak. We would discuss the future, draft a pro-con list, and then come to a mutually advantageous agreement. Once I’d dismantled the Iron Wraiths, finished teaching Jackson James a lesson, and helped Jennifer Sylvester find her backbone, then I’d get around to things with Shelly.
I was glad for Jennifer Sylvester. Helping her would be a good project; a nice, easy, manageable distraction.
***
“Jennifer, you can stop being afraid of me now.”
“Okay.” She nodded, not looking at me.
I stood facing her, on the other side of an immense counter in the Donner Bakery kitchen. Donner was Jennifer’s momma’s maiden name. The bakery and adjoining lodge had been in her family for three generations.
I’d received confirmation from my friend in Chicago that both Jenn’s computer and cell phone were video free. If she had any idea that I’d deleted the video from her devices, she hadn’t said a thing. More likely, she had no idea I’d had a professional hacker break into her laptop and mobile phone.
Her knowing or not knowing didn’t really matter in the long run, but—for now—I decided it would be best to keep this information to myself. She was already jumpy enough.
Jenn was currently spooning cookie dough onto a tray and not making eye contact. She hadn’t looked directly at me since letting me in the kitchen back door some minutes ago, and she’d been silent in a way that resembled anxiety and impatience. If she discovered her leverage was gone, I prophesied she would faint from distress.
“I meant what I said, I have no plans for revenge.” I was using my most harmless and innocent of voices.
“Okay.”
I examined her and waited. She was still in one of her costumes—a yellow housedress—but she’d scrubbed all the makeup from her face, was barefoot, and had her hair in a ponytail. A baseball hat sat on her head and a Smash-Girl superhero apron was tied around her waist. I’d never seen her look so normal before, so much like a real person. I could work with this.
And I could wait her out. I could be patient if I wanted to be and the situation warranted patience. Or I could try disarming and distracting her into submission.
“I won’t send any Navy SEAL strippergrams to the workplace, or file any health code complaints against the bakery.”
Her movements stilled and she stared at the cookie sheet. “Is that what you were going to do to me? Was that your revenge? For me blackmailing you?”
“Yes,” I lied. “One or the other. I was leaning toward the stripper, though. I have an acquaintance in Nashville that would’ve put on a good show for your Sunday morning customers. I imagine the after-church crowd would rile up nicely post sugar and coffee. Plus, bonus, he’s an actual Navy SEAL, retired in 1975.”
The side of her mouth tugged to one side, but her eyes remained studiously focused on the bowl of raw cookie dough.
I watched her carefully, adding, “I still might do it, for your birthday instead, but only if you’re really nice to me between now and then.”
Her hand trembled slightly where it held the spoon. She was still uneasy.
“Moral of the story, Jenn: you’re getting a free pass, so try to loosen up.”
“Okay.” She nodded, still didn’t glance my way, and dug the spoon into the cookie dough, moving it around to no purpose.
She’d mellowed, just not enough.
Curious, I asked, “Why do I scare you so much?”
“You don’t scare me,” she responded immediately, sounding defensive.
“Then why are your hands shaking?”
Jennifer let the spoon fall into the batter bowl and leaned against the counter, her eyes lifting for the briefest of seconds. “You don’t scare me, I’m just . . . I’m just nervous.”