“Tobin? Are you listening?” Pearl demanded.
Feeling guilty for tuning her out, he said, “Sorry. You lost me there for a moment. Could you please repeat that?”
“Her son finally has enough ‘just cause’—in his mind anyway—after the last couple of Garnet incidents to question her mental stability and her ability to take care of herself. He’s sending a moving van to pack up her house and he’s put a deposit down at one of those assisted living places”—she sniffled and wailed—“in Cheyenne!”
That garnered his full attention. “What? He can’t do that.”
“Yes, he can. He’s a big-time New York City lawyer. He can do whatever he wants. And ever since Garnet found out, she’s been completely nonsensical, which just plays perfectly into his evil and greedy hands.”
“Where are all of you right now?”
“Me and Garnet are at her house. She’s been making strawberry preserves like she’s putting up food for a Russian winter. For an army. Why she’d think them tough military guys would even want fancy fruit spread on their toast rations doesn’t make a lick of sense to me, but she keeps insisting that no man is too manly—”
“Pearl. Focus,” Tobin said sharply.
“Oh. Sorry, Tobin. I don’t have a contingency plan for this.”
Things were messed up if organized drill sergeant Pearl was scatterbrained.
“Stay put.” Tobin’s boots hit the floor. “I’m on my way over.”
Garnet’s place was only fifteen minutes from the Split Rock Ranch and Resort. Sometimes when Tobin worked in the back forty of the ranch, it was closer to drive to Garnet’s for lunch than head back to the office.
A tree-lined driveway led to the two-story house. The style wasn’t Victorian, but a few years before he’d come to work at the Split Rock, Garnet had redone the exterior of the house in that “gingerbread style,” which she’d taken literally. The house resembled something out of Hansel and Gretel’s nightmares—each corner had a pastel theme with what looked like icing dripping down. But the décor fit Garnet’s unique and quirky personality.
She had kept the big yard natural grasses, rather than a manicured lawn. At one time there’d been cattle on the nearly one hundred acres, but not since she’d owned it.
He parked next to Pearl’s Range Rover, taking the steps two at a time. He knocked briefly on the screen door before he stepped inside.
Immediately the sweet scent of strawberries hit him. “Garnet?” he called out.
No response.
But Pearl poked her head over the swinging “saloon” doors that separated the kitchen from the dining room. “In here.”
Tobin pushed through the doors and stopped in his tracks. Chaos wasn’t unusual around Garnet. But this? This was insanity.
Garnet had two pails of strawberries on the floor. Across the room on the counter were pint jars of preserves. Stacked three high. In rows of ten.
Four rows of ten.
“Garnet?”
She whirled around. “Tobin! No time to talk, sonny. As you can see I’m busy, busy.” She pointed to the opposite counter. “But help yourself to some champagne. It’s the good stuff.”
“Why don’t you take a load off for a few minutes and have a glass with me.” Tobin glanced over at Pearl. “You too.”
Garnet squinted at Tobin and sighed. “Try harder to convince me, boy. You didn’t even whip out them dimples. Go on, give me that charming smile.”
Tobin laughed. “You are such a bossy Bessie.”
“Only in my own kitchen. Everywhere else I’m as docile as a baby lamb.”
Pearl snorted.
“We’re breaking out my mother-in-law’s hoity-toity crystal for this.” Garnet sported a lemon yellow rhinestone-bedazzled do-rag. Her apron, pants and arms were coated in strawberry juice and pulp. She had sugar around her nose and across her upper lip as if she’d been sniffing cocaine.
“I’ll get the glasses,” Pearl said. “Tobin, you snag a bottle of the cold champagne from the fridge. We’re not drinking the warm crap.”
In a stage whisper after Pearl left the kitchen, Garnet said, “She’s the bossy Bessie.”
“I heard that.”
The next moment Garnet was right in his face. “I’m really mad at you, Tobin Hale. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were giving Renner notice and leaving your job.”
“But I did mention it last month. Don’t you remember me saying I’d been considering it?”
“Oh pooh. I’m old. I can’t remember everything. Anyway, I hope you’ve applied to places in Cheyenne. I guess that’s where I’m moving. At least we’ll still see each other sometimes.”