should spend the night in jail, myself. Ten dollars! She cheated us of ten dollars! I never …”
Then it was Sally, striding right behind her. “Peter said there was a man who knocked you down—”
“It was a complete accident. No biggie. What’s wrong?”
Sally had dark caramel skin, hair done in dreads and a perpetual frown that did a great job of concealing a gorgeous face. She had two kids and a no-good husband. She worked like a fiend, loved the plants as much as Garnet did and could stand up for herself anywhere she needed to—except at home.
Garnet could tell when her jerk-water husband had done something because Sally’s hands would start jittering; she couldn’t stand still.
“I got a rash on the lavender.”
“Which one?”
“The French blue. They’re just speckles on the leaves, but they weren’t there yesterday. I’ve been trying to look it up. We don’t want it spreading. But you know me and reading those stupid manuals—”
“I know. It’s okay. We’ll go check it out.”
And that was how it went, one crisis after another all afternoon. Early on, she hustled home to talk to Pete—and to make sure he’d had lunch. But of course, being Petie, he’d made himself a sandwich, cleaned up and naturally parked in front of his computer … a water-cooled system that he’d put together himself last Christmas.
She ruffled his mop of brown hair—hair so luxuriously thick she was jealous of it. He was scrunched up in his computer chair, imitating a human pretzel. “Hey. I didn’t get a chance to tell you what Mrs. Riddle had to say.”
“Not now, Mom. I’m at level four.”
“Okay. We can talk about it later, I guess.” She hesitated. “Mr. MacKinnon’s coming over for a little while after dinner.”
“You mean Will’s dad? That Mr. MacKinnon?”
“Yes.”
“Is Will coming over, too?”
“I don’t know. He might.”
Okay. Whatever.”
No “why” or “what for?” He didn’t care. He pushed his glasses higher on his nose, then bent his head to the game again. She couldn’t resist giving him a fast smooch on his forehead. Now that he was ten, she had to steal kisses, kidnap hugs.
“Mom. I’m creating an alternate universe right now. It’s really hard.”
“Okay, okay.” She smiled … but the smile faded in seconds. This was exactly what Mrs. Riddle had implied. Petie was all too happy alone. Everything he loved had always been inside. He’d just never been the kind of kid to play outside, getting into scrapes and mud with playmates.
So, she told herself there was no reason to get nervous about Tucker stopping by. It was a good idea. Single parents had problems that two-parent families just didn’t have. As different as their sons were, it’d be nice to talk to someone else who lived with a ten-year-old. It wasn’t like a personal meeting. Or a date. Or anything remotely like that.
She couldn’t imagine Tucker looking at her that way.
The women in her family were bred to be hothouse Southern belles, Charleston style, women who could do the debutante thing and have dinner for forty—with fresh flowers and crystal—prepared in an hour’s notice. Garnet wasn’t adopted, although when she was eleven, she’d checked to make sure. Something had gone wrong, anyway. Her sisters and mom—even her grandmother—had gracious beauty and poise without even trying.
She’d been born plain vanilla. Always had been, always would be.
The point, though, was that she never got back in the house until nearly six. She’d wanted a shower and clean clothes and a major spiff-up before Tucker got there. Instead, life just kept interfering. Sally needed help with updating Plain Vanilla’s website and Facebook page, which Garnet loved on a par with triple taxes and bee stings. And then Mary Lou cornered her in the backroom, where new herb and spice recipes needed a taste test and review.
By the time Garnet finally charged back home, Petie had made dinner—peanut butter and banana sandwiches, one of his specialties, followed by fresh brownies. Brownies were one of Petie’s favorite creations. This time he’d added raspberries, blueberries and marshmallows. She never knew what he was going to put in next.
“Hey, I’d have made you dinner,” she told him.
“Yeah, well, you were busy and I was starving for peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Mom …”
“What?”
“You know that crazy-looking cat that’s been around for the last week or so?”
“The black-and-orange-and-white one?”
“Yeah. I think she’s pregnant, because I saw her on the window sill about an hour ago, and her stomach was, like, huge.”
“No,” Garnet said.
“I never asked you anything.”
“You were going to.”
Petie shot her a look, one of his most endearing. “I understand why you said no. You have to feel like you’re the one in charge. We’ll talk about it later.”
She chased after him with a dish towel. “Sometimes you sound older than Methuselah.”
“Just because I’m smarter than you?”
“Petie. We can’t adopt every single animal who wanders on our porch!”
“Yes, Mom.”
“I’m still recovering from the ferret you took in.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“And the raccoon babies.”
“Yes, Mom.” He said consolingly, “It’s okay for you to say no. Really. I won’t feel neglected or deprived or anything like that.”
She couldn’t shoot the kid. He was the best thing in her world. She loved him more than life. But he was getting a mouth, and their teasing took another twenty minutes off the clock. She charged into the bathroom, took one look in the mirror and knew she didn’t remotely have enough time. She needed a shower, a hair wash, her foot rebandaged, a haircut, a hair style, a wardrobe refurbishing, shaved legs, time to buy some makeup in town, maybe some jewelry and new sandals.
She also needed to clean her bedroom—not because anyone was going to see it, but because so many things were strewn all over the place that she couldn’t find anything.
A few minutes after seven, Petie yelled from the living room, “Hey, Mom, Mr. MacKinnon is here!”
Well, at least she’d progressed from being naked. The cream linen shirt was ancient, but it was softer than silk and had a band collar. It was her lucky shirt. Her feel-safe
