Reaper's Fire

“Wasn’t talking to you,” he said.

“Slut!” Flora hissed in the background.

And that was just about enough.

“I’m in a hurry,” I announced, reaching down to grab Gage’s arm and tug it loose. He didn’t budge. Seriously? “Let me go, Gage.”

“Take your mother and get her out of this store,” Gage said to Jamie, ignoring me. God, he sounded just like Brandon. Giving orders like he had the right. He didn’t. Nobody did.

“No,” I snapped, digging my nails into his wrist. “I can talk for myself, asshole.”

“We’ll leave just as soon as you let her go,” Jamie said, looking so tough and mature that I was starting to remember why I’d gone into that back bedroom with him.

Because you lost your fucking mind, my common sense reminded me firmly.

“This isn’t happening,” I announced. “Gage, remove your arm or I swear to God, I’ll evict your ass tonight.”

“That’s illegal,” he said, but when I dug my fingernails into his skin, he let me go. I reached for my cart, grabbing the handle to push it toward the front of the store, because fuck drama. That’s when Flora started shouting.

“You’re a whore, Tinker Garrett! Your mother was a whore, too, and you’re the kind of trash this town doesn’t need. Go back to Seattle.”

I stopped the cart.

Be smart, my common sense said. She’s just a crazy old witch who isn’t happy unless she’s hurting someone.

Fuck off, I told my common sense, embracing the rage.

“Flora Braeburn, you’re the biggest hypocrite that ever lived,” I said, my voice strangely calm. “You’ve had how many husbands?”

“Six,” Jamie said helpfully. “Dad was number five. Number six left three years ago—she hasn’t been able to find a new one since then.”

Flora gasped.

“You spend all day at that diner collecting nasty gossip,” I continued. “Well, here’s something you should know. Your son is a consenting adult. I’m a consenting adult. The only thing we did wrong was sleep together where your intrusive bitch of a niece and her friend decided to spy on us. What kind of family does that to one of their own, I’m not sure, but if you want to be pissed at someone, take it up with Maisy, not me.”

“You weren’t sleeping,” Flora snarled. “Whore.”

“You’re right,” I said, my voice rising as I threw my hands up in the air in the center of the grocery store. “We were fucking. Your unattached, adult son fucked an unattached, adult woman in a town far away from here at a party that had nothing to do with you. So far as I know that’s still legal in the United States, so maybe you should just shut the hell up before you ruin whatever relationship you happen to have with Jamie, because something tells me he doesn’t enjoy having his private business turned into entertainment for all of Gunther’s Groceries any more than I do!”

With that I turned again, grabbing my cart and stalking down the aisle toward the checkout counter. Daisy Wasserman—yet another woman I’d gone to school with, because, God knows, you wouldn’t want to have any fucking privacy—scurried behind the counter as she saw me coming. She’d obviously been taking in the show. In fact, I was pretty sure half the town was currently staring at me, waiting to be sure their afternoon entertainment was well and truly over before they scuttled off like a passel of rats to share the news with the other half.

They could all kiss my ass.

Just go home to Seattle. No sane person would put themselves through this.

Daisy started scanning my items, glancing toward the still-sputtering Flora and then back at me. She’d been a couple years behind me in school, and while we’d never been friends, she’d never been a bitch, either. I wondered if she’d seen my sex tape.

Of course she had.

Everyone had. Talia and Gage probably watched it at night together to laugh at me.

Daisy scanned the last item, pausing before she totaled out the purchase.

“You know,” she said carefully. “That may have been the best thing that’s ever happened in this store. Flora Braeburn is like a nasty abscess infecting Hallies Falls, and Jamie seems like a decent guy. Do you have any coupons?”

I blinked, startled.

“Excuse me?”

“Do you have any coupons?” she asked again, offering me a sweet smile.

“No,” I replied. “But the other thing . . . ?”

“Flora is a big zit that won’t pop. Word of this has probably spread halfway to Omak by now, and I suspect the next time you stop by the bar, everyone and their dog will be lining up to buy you a drink. Not that I’ve ever seen you there, but if I did I’d love to sit and visit for a while. Now, I have this five-dollar-off coupon, and with our double coupon code that makes it ten. That brings your total down to forty-three dollars and sixteen cents.”

She smiled at me again. I swiped my card, then hit the payment key, still off-balance.

“Thank you,” I finally said.

“You’re welcome,” Daisy replied, then she gave me a wink. “Now, get out of here before she thinks of a comeback.”

• • •

Half an hour later, I hopped out of the shower, pulled on fresh clothes, and made the executive decision that it didn’t matter how cute Joel was—for once I wouldn’t be doing my hair and makeup.

I just didn’t have the energy.

Instead I ran downstairs to get dinner started, because this long afternoon from hell still wasn’t over. We had guests coming for dinner, and come rain, sleet, or snow, nobody left the Garrett house hungry. I’d just started cubing sweet potatoes to slow roast on the grill when the kitchen door rattled.

“Tinker Garrett, if I hadn’t already married that Carrie bitch, I’d be proposing to you right now,” Darren declared, pushing into the room and carrying a midsize cardboard box. He set it on the kitchen island, and I stared at it, confused.

“What’s that?”

“That’s a case of wine,” Carrie said, following him in. I stared at her, stunned—sky blue eye shadow smeared her eyelids, and somehow she’d managed to tease her hair up into a beehive. “The girls at the Hungry Chicken diner pooled their tips to buy it for you. Asked me to deliver it. Guess they appreciated your little scene with Flora this afternoon, seeing as how she treats them like shit. Thought I’d dress up in her honor.”