“Nothing relevant,” she responded.
Despite my tendency to keep a sharp rein on all outward expression, I smiled. I liked her use of the word relevant. It meant she considered relevancy before volunteering information. You can’t teach people how to do that.
Jethro cut in, “Do you remember Quinn Sullivan? Ashley’s friend Janie’s husband? The real pretty redhead?”
“Quinn isn’t a pretty redhead. As I recall he has a real pretty brown head.”
“No, dummy,” Jethro grumbled. “Janie was the pretty redhead, not Quinn. Shelly here is his sister.”
“Ah.” I nodded, my eyes still downcast. I didn’t mind nepotism as long as it was deeply entrenched in meritocracy. Quinn was a practical sort, short on words, big on actions. I liked him just fine. If he’d lived nearby, I might have gone to his birthday party.
Now was the time to shake her hand, so I extended mine and she slid her palm against it. Her hand was big—for a woman—long fingers roughened with callouses. Her grip was firm, succinct, and self-assured. But I only noticed these details peripherally because an enigmatic shock of something passed up my arm as our skin made contact.
I broke my sacred scientific rules because I was startled.
I looked up.
I looked at Miss Shelly Sullivan.
And, by Tesla’s steam oscillator! The woman was beautiful.
***
“Why is your face like that?” Jethro waved his index finger in front of my eyes.
I didn’t like it. I grabbed the finger and twisted it away.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re constipated and angry. I know you’re not constipated. You drink that gross coffee every morning with apple cider vinegar and maple syrup.”
“It’s not maple syrup.”
“Honey then.” He shrugged.
“It’s blackstrap molasses. Nothing similar about honey and blackstrap molasses other than their viscosity.”
“Whatever.” He shrugged again. “Why’re you making that face?”
“Because I’m irritated, obviously,” I grumbled. I didn’t grumble in public if I could help it, only in front of my family because I trusted my family . . . mostly.
“Why’re you irritated?” Jethro continued his poking and I heard the grin in his words. “Don’t you like Ms. Sullivan?”
Against my will, my eyes moved to where the tall woman and my younger brother Duane were bent over the hood of a Ford Focus. I studied her. Her expression was thoughtful as she listened to him, her demeanor confident and unaffected. She was all business.
Yep. Still perfect.
“Course I like Miss. Sullivan.”
“How much do you like her?”
“A lot.” I grimaced. I didn’t grimace in public either.
I’d been grumbling and grimacing since she’d arrived. Now was not a convenient time to have met my life partner. I had too much to do, too many irons in the fire. Some examples:
I had a shuffle board rematch with Judge Payton on Saturday.
I had a talent show in Nashville in October, and I hadn’t yet rehearsed.
I had Jethro and Sienna’s wedding in November.
I had a trip to Texas coming up around Thanksgiving; my wild boar sausage reserves were running precariously low.
I had a criminal organization to dismantle and annihilate by Christmas with the help of the King brothers . . . they just didn’t know they were helping.
I had to make spaghetti sauce on Sunday.
Jethro chuckled and placed an obnoxious hand on my shoulder. “Well, I’ll be.”
“You’ll be a baboon with dysentery.”
He laughed harder. “I never thought I’d see the day. You’re smitten.”
“Yep,” I admitted easily, because it was the truth. I was as smitten as I was capable of being. No use denying it. If one considered the facts, Shelly Sullivan and I were perfectly suited. It was a matter of science.
She was an auto mechanic. She was straightforward. She was smart. She was capable. She didn’t seem to have any feelings to hurt. She was clearly discerning about with whom she associated.
Plus, bonus, when I’d prematurely glanced up earlier upon our first meeting and met her eyes, the next words—so prosaically spoken—out of her mouth were, “This is weird. How can all you Winstons be so good-looking?”
See? Straightforward.
I liked the look of her and she liked the look of me. It was only a matter of time. We would be perfectly pragmatic together.
“If you’re smitten, why’re you irritated?”
“Because I’m never wrong. And that means Shelly Sullivan is the one. And now ain’t a good time for me to be meeting the one.”
Jethro’s smile flattened and he almost rolled his eyes. Almost. But he stopped himself, likely because he knew I didn’t tolerate eye-rolling.
“Oh brother. Can’t you just have a healthy interest in a woman without her being the one?”
“Nope.”