afternoon. Now get busy, both of you.”
A mulish little chin went up, and above it a wide, girlishly pink mouth set in a stubborn line. “You can’t make us do anything.”
The speaker was Rex—if Rex was the one with the scar in his eyebrow. She brought her hands to her hips and glared down at him.
“Oh, no? Let’s just ask your father about that, shall we?”
The mutinous gleam in ice blue eyes died down a bit. “The judge said you couldn’t export us.”
“Exploit. The judge said I couldn’t exploit you. That means I cannot profit by your labor without suitable compensation, force you to do anything dangerous or work you more than fifteen hours a week or three hours a day. One, you haven’t been here even one hour yet. Two, I don’t think picking up litter can be deemed dangerous. Three, you’re here because you’ve already cost me plenty, not to mention the business I’m losing because I couldn’t open when I planned. In other words, you owe me, buster. Now get busy.”
Defeat turned down the corners of his mouth. He grumbled something about “the hag” but bent and scooped up a smashed paper cup, dumping it into the bag. His brother joined him, but without the grumbling. Satisfied, Traci went back inside and tackled the broken window again.
She finally removed the corner piece by carefully working her screwdriver around the edge of the glass buried in the casing, loosening it. With the treacherous piece safely deposited in the bucket, she took a moment to check on the boys. She walked to the door that opened out onto the side deck and looked around. Nothing. Suspicious, she paused to listen. Again, nothing. “Boys?” she called. “Rex? Max?”
Shaking her head, she walked out onto the deck, careful to avoid the broken and missing slats. She reached the edge before she heard the stifled giggles. So that was their game. Calmly she walked down the shallow steps, around the corner of the building and across the grass to the tiny shed resting upon skids at the back of the shop. The snickering was clearly audible at this point. She listened a moment, decided, then bent at the waist, bringing her head within inches of the ground. They were lying on their stomachs between the skids beneath the shed.
“Hey, have you guys found that snake I saw go under there?”
They practically choked her with the dust they raised getting out. She could not keep a straight face, and that gave her away.
“Very funny!” Rex cried—provided that was Rex.
“Did you really see a snake go under there?” asked the other.
“Yes, I really saw a snake go under there,” she answered, “once when I was a teenager.”
“That’s crummy!” insisted the one with the scar.
“Crummier than hiding to avoid doing what you’re supposed to?”
He made no answer to that, just challenged her with a belligerent glare. The other one had the grace to look vaguely ashamed.
“Look,” she said, laying it on the line, “I didn’t ask you two to vandalize my place. I didn’t even ask for your help in putting it to rights. You got here all on your own, but now that you are here, it’s up to me to teach you a very valuable lesson. So get with it. I want this whole place cleaned up by the time your father gets back here. No more fooling around. Understand?”
One of them nodded. Max, she assumed.
“I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” she warned, turning away. She could hear them softly arguing as she went inside, but a quick check moments later told her that they were at least making an effort to appear to be working. She went back to her own work with a smile. Firmness and honesty. Chalk up another one for the Reverend Bolton Charles, not that it was going to be easy by any means. She wouldn’t fool herself about that. She expected to be tested and tried at every turn, but it was a small price to pay for getting the shop open at last, and if she could help those two scamps in the process…Well, she couldn’t ask for much more. Now if only she didn’t have the disturbing Wyatt Gilley to thank for it. But, no, she wouldn’t think of him. She simply wouldn’t.
“Miss Temple?”
With carefully concealed exasperation, Traci removed her head from the interior of the display case motor compartment. The ominous clanking continued. Nothing she had done had made the least difference, and now she was covered in grease. Most frustrating, however, was the knowledge that the whole exercise in failure might have been accomplished in mere minutes if not for the many interruptions caused by those two Gilley scamps, and the worst of it was that they seemed to be actually trying to help today. She sighed and pushed a wayward strand of hair out of her face with the back of her forearm, her fingers too grimy to be of any use. Whether they were trying to help or not, the result was the same. They were singularly successful distractions apart. Together they were nothing short of disaster. She sat back on her heels, her toes and knees taking her weight, and resisted the urge to straighten the sleeveless, scooped-neck, pale pink T-shirt she wore atop her faded, old jean cutoffs.
“What is it, Max?”
“This!” shrieked Rex, popping up over the glass hood of the display case.
Squirts of water hit her squarely in the eye and splattered over her face. She gasped and sputtered while more water drenched her blouse and shorts, and the twins giggled delightedly. Anger flashed through her. She made a grab for the water guns, got a hand on Max’s and took a squirt in the palm from the other, while Rex beat a fast retreat.
“Blast you, Rex Gilley!”
“Only if you catch mel” came the taunt.
All right, if that was the way he wanted it. A tug delivered Max’s gun into her possession. Quick as a flash, she was up and around him, sprinting after his brother. Rex’s laughter trailed after him as he tore out the door, along the front deck, up the steps and across the big deck at the side of the store. Traci was closing on him by the time he reached the edge of the big deck. He leaped to the ground, and she followed, landing practically on top of him, so that their legs tangled and they went down. Before he could struggle up again, she grabbed the wrist of the hand that held his gun, pointed her own and squeezed the trigger in rapid succession, splashing his freckled face with streams of water. He twisted and writhed, trying to push her off with his free hand.
“Stop! Stop it! Stop!”
“Ho! Not so funny when you’re on the receiving end, Rex?”
“Cut it out!”
“Not til you apologize!” She kept on squeezing. He opened his mouth, but whether in protest or apology, she couldn’t know, for the instant he opened it, water poured in, and the words he would have spoken came out as comical gurgles. Traci started to laugh. Rex spluttered and joined her, bubbles dribbling over his chin. That, too, was a comical sight, and Traci laughed all the harder, releasing him. When Rex pointed his own gun at his chin and washed away the bubbles by shooting water at himself, she laughed so hard, she collapsed. Then he turned the gun on her again, and the battle was joined once more, but this time it was all in fun.
They were both out of water,
