Season of Change(18)

                Slade disconnected and tried not to smile at the girls. “If you want to come help me this morning, you’ll need to eat up. There aren’t any fast-food restaurants or convenience stores in town. What you eat needs to last through jail cells, koi ponds, and large-dog damage.”

                They exchanged looks. He couldn’t interpret what they meant. He was just happy he’d found something that might break their silence.

                Slade finished his breakfast and rinsed out his dishes before they’d even started theirs. Whatever was going on with the girls, it was intimidating as hell. No wonder Evangeline had dumped them on him. He bet husband number three was spooked.

                Slade liked to think he was made of sterner stuff.

                * * *

                “HAVE A GOOD DAY at work.” Christine’s grandmother waved to her from behind the screen door.

                “Thanks.” Christine reached the sidewalk in time to see Slade’s truck take the turns in the town square, his daughters in the backseat.

                He honked and raised a hand, presumably to Christine, a house away from the corner, but it might have been for the small old man sitting on the bench below the oak tree with a cane. He waved, as well.

                “What was that?” Nana asked, still in her violet chenille housecoat.

                “Slade. Headed toward the winery.” Drat. With the size of her to-do list and Slade’s objectives, she’d need to stay one step ahead of him. She’d wanted to get to work before he did.

                “Down Main?” her grandmother asked.

                “Yes.” Christine hefted her laptop bag higher on her shoulder and hurried off.

                “He’s going to jail.”

                Christine spun around. “What?”

                “We have a new sheriff—well, not officially until the population tops eighty—but he arrived last night and found all kinds of water damage in the jail and the apartment above it.”

                It was a relief to know her boss wasn’t being arrested or turning himself in for some heinous crime. “What’s he going to do there? And how did you know about it?”

                “Slade’s partnership does minor repairs around town. I suppose they’re going to see what they can do.” Nana cinched her housecoat, looking slightly embarrassed. “As for how I heard, Rose called me this morning. Her granddaughter is engaged to Will, you know.”

                Oh, Christine knew, all right. It was one of the consistently repeated mantras in her grandmother’s house: Rose’s granddaughter is marrying a millionaire. As if Christine needed to realize a similar catch was at her fingertips.

                She waved as she left, determined not to fish in that pond. Someone tall, dark, with the power to sign her paycheck had showed up in an early-morning dream. Sometimes you just had to let the big fish go, especially when you had plans to be a big fish someday.

                The jail was on her way to the winery and was housed in a converted store, with the front office visible through a large plate-glass window. Behind the counter in the back of the space was the jail cell. Daylight came through a large hole in the ceiling. Next to it a large water stain bulged the drywall, threatening to burst. The wall near the stairs was in similar disrepair.

                Slade’s twins were sitting on a bench in the jail cell, looking SoHo cute and grinning like normal kids, while a smaller boy with ginger hair locked the door and said, “You’re not getting out until you tell me where the bad guys are hiding.”