Thirty-Two and a Half Complications Read online

  “Mason,” I said, flabbergasted. “That was in July.”

  He cringed. “I told you it was lame.”

  “I think it’s sweet.”

  “When did you know you loved me?”

  It was my turn to cringe. “I’ve been thinking about it for days, but I wasn’t certain until last night. I felt like I had to tell you or I’d burst.”

  He smiled. “I know exactly what you mean.” His hand covered my stomach. “When are we going to find out about this?”

  “We could just wait nine months?” I teased.

  “I’ve heard there are better ways to find out,” he said dryly, but he was still grinning. “They have these newfangled things called pregnancy tests.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t say?”

  “You seem reluctant.”

  “I’m reluctant for the same reason I was reluctant to tell you about the possibility in the first place. If the test is positive, it will become a sure thing. Right now there’s just you and me, and if we find out I am pregnant, there’ll be three of us. Let’s just give ourselves a little more time before we know…okay?”

  “Sure, but how long do you want to wait? Don’t you need to go to the doctor?”

  “As long as I don’t drink or take any medication, I’ll be fine. Neely Kate suggested I take prenatal vitamins to be on the safe side.”

  “Neely Kate? How long has she known?”

  “Since yesterday afternoon. She actually raised the possibility before I did.”

  “Of course she did.” He laughed. “But seriously, how long do you want to wait?”

  “A week or two, tops.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks for being so wonderful about all of this.”

  “I love you, Rose. I’m not doing anything extraordinary other than that.”

  “I love you too.”

  We got up and took a shower, and by the time we got out, Muffy was pacing the bathroom floor.

  I headed downstairs to let her out and started a pot of coffee. While I waited for Mason to come down, I mixed pancake batter and fried bacon. I was used to having Sunday mornings off from work, but Mason and I had started going to Jonah’s church together. This was the first morning I’d had completely free in ages.

  After Mason came down and we sat together at the kitchen table for breakfast, I watched Muffy pace the length of the kitchen.

  “Do you have any work to do this morning?” I asked him, stabbing my fork into my pancake.

  His face scrunched. “I do. I thought you’d be working at the nursery.”

  “I’m not asking to make you feel guilty, Mason. I told you that I’d never begrudge you your work. I’m only asking because I feel guilty.”

  “You? About what?”

  “It’s a beautiful day and Muffy’s been cooped up all week. I want to take her for a walk.”

  He sucked in a breath and slowly released it. “I don’t know, Rose. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with you going on a walk. In fact, if I didn’t have this bum leg, I’d ask to go with you. But the bank robbers are still on the loose. And while I may fault Joe Simmons for a lot of things, there’s no doubt he wants to keep you safe. I can’t help thinking he might be right in this.”

  “Mason. There has been no sign of them. At. All. Don’t you think they would have turned up by now if they had some issue with me? No one’s heard hide nor hair of them. They’re probably long gone.” I smiled sweetly. “Besides, it’s broad daylight.”

  He groaned. “All right. But bring your phone. And promise you’ll call me at the first sign of trouble.”

  “I will.”

  We cleaned up the kitchen together after he insisted he could stand on his leg for long enough to help. When we finished, I gave him a long kiss. “Get your work done so we can take a nap together later.”

  He grinned. “Why are we taking a nap?”

  I grabbed Muffy’s leash and walked with him to the door. “Because I plan to get you good and worn out first.” I started to walk away, but he grabbed my hand and pulled me in for a kiss. It was almost enough to make me reconsider going on a walk, but Muffy had seen the leash and was whining at my feet.

  “Duty calls,” Mason murmured against my lips. “Be careful.”

  “It’s a walk,” I said, descending the porch steps. “What could happen?”

  “You should never ask that. Just be careful, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  As soon as we got outside, Muffy started running in excited circles at my feet. I stooped to put on her leash, then stopped mid-action. For the most part, my little dog minded me well and she was happier roaming free, not that I blamed her. I figured I’d let her have her way.

  We’d been on a few walks since moving to the farm and we’d always gone north, toward the acres and acres of fields I owned. Today I wanted to go south. I knew I owned a few acres of grassland scattered with trees in that direction and a neighboring farm jutted up against my property. I wanted to check the area out.

  We found a natural path close to the woods, and I tried to ignore the unease that crawled up my back. I couldn’t avoid the woods forever. Maybe once things died down I could take Muffy on a walk through them, create some new memories.

  Muffy bounced down the path, thrilled to be roaming outside. I needed to make more time for her. I supposed I’d have the opportunity if the nursery folded.

  The knowledge slammed through me: Unless something changed, I was about to lose my business.

  White-hot fury burned in my gut when I thought about Violet destroying our business and my credit. I couldn’t sit idly by and let it all fall apart, but I didn’t see any way to pay off the loan, let alone finance our other bills. Finding the robbers and getting back my cash from the O’Leary job was starting to seem like the only solution.

  A world with me and Neely Kate playing amateur sleuths was a world turned on its head. But since the world had already gone crazy, maybe the only thing we could do was follow suit. We just needed to figure out what—or who—to investigate next.

  Still, money aside, part of me wondered if closing the doors to the nursery wouldn’t be for the best. Violet and I were definitely at odds and I couldn’t imagine us working together peacefully any time soon. But if the nursery closed, I was out hundreds of thousands of dollars. And if I was really pregnant, I couldn’t afford to lose all that money. Mason and I would have another person to take care of. The thought was sobering.

  Jonah was right—one problem at a time.

  Then it hit me. Maybe I was going the wrong direction. Perhaps we should concentrate our efforts on finding Mr. Sullivan. Then maybe he could tell Mr. Burns he’d given Violet an extension, buying us more time to get my money back. That is, after I beat him with a shovel until he told me who’d robbed the bank.

  Muffy ran up to a dilapidated wooden fence and I realized that this area had to have been a horse or cow pasture at one point. It was just missing a few sections of fence, which had most likely fallen down. A wooden gate hung on one hinge, leaving a gap big enough to walk through, which Muffy took as an invitation.

  “Muffy,” I called after her as she slipped through the opening.

  She stopped and turned to look at me, tilting her head to the side and giving me a sad look.

  “Oh, okay,” I groaned. The way that gate hung open told me that the field couldn’t possibly be in active use, so I didn’t have to worry we’d be trampled by cows. I knew there was a farmhouse on this property. Maybe I could I introduce myself to my neighbor.

  When I didn’t continue to protest her movements, Muffy took off running in the overgrown grass, finding a narrow dirt path. I traipsed through the grass after her as she bolted toward a gravel road. By the time I caught up, Muffy was waiting at the edge of the road. There was a field of miniature goats in an enclosed pen on the other side, and the animals were totally captivating her attention.

  As soon as she saw me, she ran straight across the gravel street
toward the barbed wire pen and started barking at the animals. Without warning, all but one of the ten goats fell to their sides, their legs sticking straight out from their bodies. I released a shriek. “Muffy, you killed them!” Then the last standing goat fell over.

  Muffy had already lost interest in the goats by then. She’d trotted over to the ditch between the penned area and the road and started whining at something inside it.

  I hurried over, panicked by the possibility that we’d somehow killed a field of goats. How had it happened and how in the world would I be able to reimburse the farmer who owned them? As I walked toward my little dog, one goat began to revive, thank God, and several were climbing to their feet by the time I’d made it across the road. Muffy almost immediately released a loud, smelly fart. I waved a hand in front of my face, as I peered into the ditch.

  “What are you looking at?” I moved her slightly to the side, the blood rushing from my head when I saw what had grabbed her attention.

  The good news was that finding Mr. Sullivan had been easier than expected.

  The bad news was that he wouldn’t be of much use, seeing how he was dead.

  His pale, bloated face stared up at me with vacant eyes, and I screamed even louder than I had the first time.

  The goats bleated, then fell over like they were frozen solid.

  “Again?” I shouted, my hands shaking as I dug my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed 911. “I found a body next to a field of goats that keep fallin’ over,” I said as soon as the operator answered.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m next to a field full of goats that keep tipping over on their sides and my dog just found a man in a ditch. I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

  “And where is this body located?” The bored tone in her voice suggested she wasn’t too impressed. How many dead bodies turned up in Fenton County?

  “I’m at the farm just south of 27078 County Road 24.”

  “Okay, ma’am,” she said in that same flat tone. “Now, are you sure he’s dead? Perhaps he just needs medical attention.”

  I inched closer to Mr. Sullivan, as though he might reach out and grab me. He wore black dress pants with black loafers and a black wool coat. His open, blank stare was the only confirmation I needed. Along with his pale-blue skin. “No. I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

  “I already have a deputy on the way, ma’am,”

  “Thank you,” I mumbled. To my surprise, I could already hear faint sirens.

  A sheriff’s car turned down the road and stopped several feet before reaching me. I was relieved to recognize the deputy who climbed out of the car door.

  “Deputy Miller!” I said. He’d been the officer who had watched over us the most at the farm during the Crocker mess. When Crocker’s men showed up at my property, Deputy Miller had pretended to be one of them. But it turned out that he’d been working with the state police as an informant the whole time. In fact, he’d been the one to keep Muffy safe until Mason and me were found. Muffy loved him and she was an excellent judge of character.

  “Rose!” the dark-haired man called out as he approached. Muffy ran up to him and Deputy Miller squatted down to pet her. “Hey, girl! How you doin’? Did you miss me?”

  Muffy answered by licking his hand and filling the air with a stench that would make paint peel. Deputy Miller stood, scrunching his nose and waving his hand in front of his face. “Muffy, we need to make you a police dog and send you into tense situations in lieu of tear gas.”

  I was usually offended when someone insulted my little dog, but Deputy Miller was one of only a handful of people besides me who appreciated her scrappy appearance and thought she was cute. And besides, he had a point.

  “I had a strange call reporting that someone had found a dead body here in a field full of dead goats.”

  “That’s only half right.” I grimaced.

  He stopped in his tracks. “There’s a small herd of goats eatin’ grass over there, so I’m guessing that’s the part that’s wrong.”

  I pointed to the ditch behind me. “The goats came back to life, but the guy in the ditch still looks pretty dead. I’m pretty sure it’s Mr. Sullivan from the bank.”

  He made a less-than-eager face. “Okay, let’s check this out.”

  Muffy got excited and started to bark and run circles around the deputy.

  Just then, the goats bleated and fell to the ground, the thuds filling the air.

  “Again?” I shouted, turning to Deputy Miller while pointing to the field. “They keep tipping over!”

  “They’re supposed to do that. They’re fainting goats.”

  Why in tarnation would someone want a field full of fainting goats? “Well, they certainly live up to their name.”

  He stood and inched closer to the ditch, leaning over the man’s body while I hung back on the road. “Yep, he’s dead all right. And you think it’s Mr. Sullivan? Do you know him?”

  “Only from dealing with him at the bank.”

  “How’d you find him?"

  “Muffy found him. We were on a walk.”

  He squatted next to the ditch, still examining the body. “I wonder how he got here. Do you think he knows your neighbor?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t met my neighbor yet.”

  I expected some sort of rebuke, but the deputy seemed indifferent. “I’m gonna have to call a detective and the coroner.” His gazed lifted to mine. “And the chief deputy sheriff.”

  I cringed. “Are you sure you have to call him?”

  “He gave us very strict instructions to notify him in case you were involved in any messy situations.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “You’re kidding me!”

  “He was very adamant.”

  “I’m sure he was.”

  The deputy walked back to the patrol car and squatted to rub Muffy’s head while he made his calls. I held my own phone in my hand, racked with indecision. Everything in me wanted to call Mason, but after last night’s debacle in Jasper’s, I didn’t want to risk some sort of confrontation between him and Joe. I could handle Joe on my own, and didn’t want Mason to be any more upset than he’d been last night.

  About ten minutes later, a car I didn’t recognize turned down the gravel road while I rested my backside on the hood of Deputy Miller’s cruiser talking with the officer.

  I didn’t recognize the detective who got out of the car. A middle-aged man with thinning hair parted to the side, he walked up to Deputy Miller and me with a scowl on his face that looked somewhat permanent based on the deep grooves carved into his jowls.

  “Where is it?” he barked.

  Muffy hunkered down near my feet and released a low growl.

  The detective didn’t look amused.

  Deputy Miller bent down and gave Muffy another rub on the head, then stood and pointed to the ditch. “Ms. Gardner was out walking with her dog Muffy—”

  The detective’s head jerked back to me. “Wait. Rose Gardner?”

  I hesitated. “Yeah…”

  His scowl deepened and he shook his head in disgust before returning his attention to the body.

  I raised my eyebrows at Deputy Miller in dismay and whispered, “What did I do?”

  “You helped get Chief Deputy Dimler arrested.”

  “But he was on the take from Crocker!” I protested. “And he almost got the new chief deputy killed.”

  Deputy Miller shrugged.

  The detective hovered over the body. “Miller, are you planning to chit-chat all day or are you going to tell me about this case?” His booming voice burst through the stillness.

  Most of the goats squealed and fainted, their bodies dropping like flies.

  “What the Sam Hill…?” the detective shouted as he jumped several feet backward, tripping and very nearly falling on his butt. The goats that were still upright tumbled to their sides.

  “Fainting goats, sir,” Miller said. When the detective shot him an odd look, he added, “My uncle has some
.”

  The detective scowled again and took notes as the deputy filled him in on what little information he had. Another car turned down the lane and I looked over my shoulder, my stomach dropping when I recognized it. It must have been Joe’s day off since he wasn’t driving his sheriff’s car. I was glad for the warning, but no amount of preparation would make me ready to face him after the disaster of the previous evening.

  But Joe ignored me when he got out of his car, sporting a bruised cheek, and sauntered over to the detective. Muffy wasn’t having any of it. She yipped with excitement and jumped up on his legs, eager for acknowledgment. He knelt down and grabbed her face in his hands. “Not right now, Muff. I’ll play with you in a little bit, okay? Go back to your momma.”

  Muffy’s head drooped and Joe rubbed behind her ears. “It’s okay, girl, I’ll come see you. I promise.”

  She walked back to me, her tail between her legs. I picked her up and petted her, unnerved by her reaction to Joe. Poor Muffy. She didn’t understand how much had changed in a couple months. She only knew she missed Joe.

  Damn him.

  After he spent several minutes talking about the cause of death with the officers—probably multiple gunshot wounds to the chest—he finally meandered over to me, his face expressionless. He reminded me of the Joe McAllister I’d met the night of Momma’s murder, aloof and detached. It was better this way, so why did his chilly attitude bother me?

  “Rose, why don’t we take a little walk?”

  I set Muffy down on the gravel. “Okay.”

  He led the way at least twenty feet down the road, out of earshot of the other two men. Muffy trotted along beside him, her tongue hanging out.

  “Is it all right with you if I pet your dog?” he asked dryly.

  “You know she loves you. It would hurt her if you didn’t. She doesn’t understand what’s wrong.”

  He squatted and picked Muffy up, cradling her and rubbing her head. “You mean like how Ashley and Mikey wouldn’t understand why Joe lives next door and refused to play with them any more like he used to?”

  I groaned. What a mess.

  “How is it you stumbled upon the first dead body discovered in this area in the last five years?”