But right now, the idea of kissing takes my mind straight to the man who showed up unannounced and rocked my little world today. The last thing my world needs is to be rocked any more than it already is. Right now, my only focus needs to be Jo.
Lynn Louise bangs the gavel again. It was a recent gift from Judge Judie, and the pounding in my head would prefer for Lynn Louise to be less enthusiastic about it.
“Let us take another sip—”
“Or swig!” someone calls. A few people laugh.
“Or swig,” Lynn Louise says with a smile, “then get to serious business.”
Val and Winnie switch to water. None of us are big drinkers. Me, because of Rachel. Winnie, because she’s a lightweight. And Val because she says it’s no fun drinking alone. We start with talk of the Sheet Cake Festival. This year, Maddie Nguyen, the town veterinarian, is the mistress of ceremonies, which basically means she’ll be working a second job without getting paid for the coming months. She only moved here a year ago just after old doc Butts (yep, his real name) passed away. I’m not sure Maddie realized what she was getting into, but the overwhelm on her face tells me it’s starting to sink in.
“Let’s move on with the business of the feral hogs,” Lynn Louise says, reading from a yellow legal pad.
I stifle a yawn. Destructive and potentially dangerous as the hogs might be, I don’t have enough brain function to devote to porcine problems at the moment. I’ve got a very large human problem occupying my thoughts. Plus, just the presence of Amber and Beast keeps the hogs from tearing up my fields.
“Kitty, can you and Clark do some hog hunting this week?” Lynn Louise asks.
“Yes ma’am.”
Anyone looking into this room might expect Big Mo to be the one you’d ask about hog hunting, not the mom who has three of the most well-mannered girls in the county. But Kitty and her husband, Tim, both hunt, and the girls all had rifles before they had driving permits. Big Mo is the one asked to do things like take in stray kittens who need to be bottle-fed. Which has happened a surprising number of times. The feral cats are almost as big a problem as the feral hogs.
“Next order of business.” Lynn raises her eyebrows then holds the legal pad a little closer to her face. “Some non-Sheeters were spotted in town today.”
Mari catches my eye and purses her lips. And THIS is why I should have talked to Winnie and Val before the meeting.
Lynn Louise trades out her legal pad for her phone, squinting at the screen. “According to this post on Neighborly, they wandered around town square and ate at Mari’s.”
Stupid Neighborly! When it comes to keeping secrets, the app is worse than a California grapevine during harvest season.
Val nudges me, ducking her head to whisper. “Weren’t you at Mari’s earlier to pick up Jo?”
I silently bargain with my face. If you don’t blush, I promise, I’ll start actually moisturizing and, okay, fine, washing you on the daily.
I’m not sure if it fully works, but Val doesn’t say anything about me blushing. I make a mental note to stop on the way home tonight to grab some face wash and moisturizer to thank my skin for complying. Make that tomorrow, as nothing will still be open in Sheet Cake when we’re done besides Backwoods Bar. Wolf sells about anything there, but I’m pretty sure he draws the line at beauty products.
“Yep.”
“Did you see these guys?” Val presses.
Not a thing. Just a ghost of the future I once dreamed of. A man so handsome, so winsome, and so troublesome that I’ve struggled to catch my breath and slow my heart rate the rest of the day.
“They are apparently investors,” Judge Judie says with a sniff. Despite the fact that our town could use some investors, the LLLS—and most of the population of Old Sheet Cake—are firmly against non-Sheeters meddling in our affairs.
Wait—investors?
My heart tears off like a dog at a hunt as Pat’s appearance in Sheet Cake suddenly clicks into place. Hopefully, Pat and Tank realized with a brief look down Main Street how useless it is. It would probably be easier to sell tickets to the town proper as a ghost town than revive the crumbling buildings. Mari’s is the only thing open down here that’s not publicly funded.
“We’ve scared off investors before,” Eula Martin says. She’s scary enough to do the job on her own. With her tight white bun, intense makeup, and pointy red nails, she channels a storybook witch to a T. Her Victorian-style cottage near town, with its scrollwork and detailed trim, even looks like a gingerbread house. To complete the terrifying persona, she has a whole room full of realistic dolls with unblinking eyes. According to gossip, they have real human hair.
As kids, we used to hold our breath when we rode our bikes past her house.
“I’m sure it won’t be a problem,” Lynn Louise says. “We’ll keep an eye out. If anyone hears anything, let us know.”
Big Mo won’t look my way, but Mari sure is. Now I’m not just bargaining with my cheeks not to blush but my armpits not to sweat. I silently wish for some topic—any topic—to get us off the subject of the mysterious non-Sheeters.
More wild boars, please! Or a traffic cycle that’s too short—that one caused a thirty-minute debate at our last meeting. I’m even happy to talk about whether or not the Daylight Donuts Shop is slowly poisoning the town. Eula Martin swears up and down they’ve been using cleaning spray on the inside of the glass case while the donuts are still inside.
But no, apparently the one topic I want to avoid is not so easy to escape.
Lynn Louise squints down at her phone again. “Oh! Looks like there’s a new post on Neighborly, identifying them.”
I consider bolting for the door but decide to sit here and accept my fate. Which is going to be the ire and wrath of my two best friends.