Hang Tough(16)
“I choked after hearing you mention Tony the Stoner! How on earth do you know someone like that? Did these Mud Lilies friends of yours introduce you to him?” she demanded. “Because I think they’re a bad influence on you.”
She’d done it now.
But Miz G just blinked. “What in heaven’s name are you talkin’ about? The Mud Lilies have nothin’ to do with this. I’ve known Tony for years. I’ve been buying pot—”
“Omigod, GG! I do not want to hear this. You know I have to tell my dad about the stuff you’re doing that might be wrong or illegal!”
“Take it down a notch, Jade, and listen up,” Tobin interjected. Then he addressed Garnet. “Where does Tony work and what does he do there?”
“He works at the building center in Rawlins. He usually runs the masonry department. In the summer months he’s in charge of the home and garden section.” Miz G looked baffled. “Sonny, have you been drinking? You know all of this. Tony the Stoner did the stonework up at the Split Rock.”
“And you call him Tony the Stoner . . . because he installs stone.”
“What else would I call him?” She huffed out a breath. “Although, now that you mention it, when he changed departments to the garden center he did ask me to stop calling him Tony the Pot Pusher.”
Tobin busted out laughing because Jade looked totally poleaxed.
Welcome to daily life with Garnet Evans.
Miz G flapped her hand at him. “I don’t see why that’s so funny.”
“I’ll let Jade explain it to you while I unload some more dirt.”
Tobin had dropped two bags around the side of the house, when he saw Jade lumbering toward him with a bag of soil clutched to her chest.
“Dammit, Jade, let me do that.” He snatched the bag out of her arms and tossed it on the pile. “I do the heavy lifting around here.”
“I wanted to help.”
“I don’t need it.” He leaned against the side of the shed. “But I will take an apology for you blaming the broken shelf and cookbook rearranging on me.”
She shoved her hands in her pockets. “I’m sorry. I panicked, okay? My brain got stuck on the fact I’d screwed up and I’d disappointed GG on my second day here.”
Disappointed was an interesting word choice. “So it was better to have her mad at me?”
“I said I was sorry. I didn’t know GG would be so adverse to one small change.”
“Wrong answer, darlin’.” Tobin pointed at her. “I warned you—several times—that she hates change of any kind. Ain’t my fault you chose not to believe me.”
He saw that moment when the lightbulb clicked for her.
“This is your way of proving that if she freaked out about her cookbook collection being relocated, she’ll be near hysteria if she’s moved out of her house.”
“Bingo.” Tobin stared at her hard. “But maybe if you keep rearranging her personal belongings when she’s not at home, that’ll ease her into seeing them boxed up? That is your plan?”
“I don’t have a plan.”
“That’s right. You’re here following Daddy’s plan, aren’t you, tiger?”
“You calling me tiger isn’t some shot at my Chinese heritage, is it?”
His gaze locked onto hers. “Not a shot at your ethnicity. I call you tiger because your eyes remind me of a tiger’s eyes. Especially when you’re pissed off and backed into a corner.”
“Oh.” She blushed and that seemed to annoy her. “At least mine are real.”
Do not check out her chest. “What’s real?”
“My eye color. Obviously you wear contacts.”
“What?”
“You wear contacts because no one has eyes that color.”
His nostrils flared. “Poke your damn finger in my eye if you need proof, darlin’, but this eye color? All mine. And what the hell does it matter anyway?”
“I was trying to pay you a compliment.” She jammed her hands in the back pockets of her shorts. “The color of your eyes . . . it’s . . . extraordinary.”
Tobin didn’t buy it. Why would she be nice now?
Because she wants something.
“Stick with insults. You’re much better at them.” He walked away.
Chapter Five
The following day at GG’s house, Jade had reorganized her closet, rearranged her room and had gone for a run—all before noon. She had that itchy feeling between her shoulder blades that she should be doing something.
But after yesterday’s cookbook fiasco, she wouldn’t actually move or change anything.
So after lunch, she’d familiarized herself with the kitchen, she’d checked out the barn and the machine shed—that place needed to be organized in the worst way. Then she’d cleaned out the inside of her car and scrubbed the windows in the garage door.