Season of Change(17)
The girls exchanged glances.
He’d read about twin speak, but he’d never seen his girls employ it before this visit.
It was as if Faith blinked and said, Dad’s such a loser.
And Grace twitched her nose and said, Tell me about it.
Slade’s cell phone rang. He answered, putting it on speaker while he ate. “What’s up, Flynn?”
“Our new sheriff rolled into town last night.” Slade could hear the smile in Flynn’s voice. “I guess the mayor handed him the keys to the jail without checking it out first. A pipe must have busted during a winter freeze. The floors are ruined upstairs. The walls and ceiling are ruined downstairs. And the jail-cell bars are rusted.”
“Sounds like the sheriff’s in need of a plumber.” Slade buttered his toast, feeling the stirrings of interest.
A few months back, Flynn had started doing small repairs for some of the elderly town residents. After the requests morphed into a regular weekly to-do list, Flynn had recruited Slade and Will, and sometimes Flynn’s father, who was a skilled construction worker, to help. As much as Slade wanted to leave town, fixing it up made it easier to stay.
“I put a call in, but the walls, floor, and ceiling need to be demolished so the plumber can see the damage.” Flynn paused, then joked, “I’ll lock you in the jail cell if you like, Slade, and we’ll see just how rusted those bars are.”
The twins blinked at Slade’s phone.
“I’d rather lock up the mayor. Isn’t that his building?” It was just like Mayor Larry to pinch pennies and lease the building to the county sheriff’s office without checking its condition. Slade spooned some egg and a slice of bacon onto his toast and folded it over like a sandwich. “Where did our new sheriff sleep?”
“Nate was lucky. He spent the night at Mayor Larry’s.” Flynn’s delivery was pitch-perfect deadpan. “Nate sent out his SOS this morning. If it was just Larry’s building, I wouldn’t jump in to help. I can’t help feeling responsible for Nate. Before my grandfather passed away, he recruited him.”
“Someday Mayor Larry will find out payback is indeed a cruel and itchy fleabag.” Slade chuckled. “What else is on the list today?”
The girls ignored their food and looked at each other, as if to say, There’s more?
In Harmony Valley, there was always more to do. The elderly population couldn’t keep up on the maintenance of their older homes.
“That wind storm last week blew down a section of Sam’s fence in the back. He said something fell into his Koi pond—”
“Sam has a koi pond? Snarky Sam? Sam who owns the pawnshop?” Slade couldn’t believe it.
“It’s an antiques shop, but business has been slow,” Flynn corrected him, reciting what Sam himself had told them several times. “And Geraldine Durand’s Saint Bernard saw a cat in her backyard and barreled through her screen door.”
The girls’ mouths hung open.
“It was one of Felix’s cats, wasn’t it?” Felix was a retired fireman who rescued felines.
“Yep. Those cats don’t always stay where they’re supposed to.” Flynn yawned. “I’ll meet you in jail in fifteen minutes.”