“Morning, boss.”
“Hi Evelyn. Everything okay?”
“Yeah, had a good weekend. With the weather picking up, I’m expecting even more in the next couple weeks.” She paused. “Heard you had a nice weekend.”
“Evelyn, really?”
“Lot of fishermen keeping an eye on your place, you know, for your own well-being. And some of them are bird watchers with binoculars.”
“That’s why I don’t skinny dip at the cabin.”
“It’s possible someone saw you sitting around a fire last night with a cowboy and someone else might have seen you this morning having coffee with him.”
Molly chuckled. She didn’t care. She was a single woman with a history of moving cowboy to cowboy. No secrets there. This was just another reminder she lived in a fishbowl with a lot of nosy neighbors.
“No worries, Evelyn, that wasn’t a real person.”
“No?
“No, it was just a battery operated inflatable cowboy doll I picked up to give people something to talk about.”
“Congratulations, it worked.” Evelyn chuckled. “I’ll spread the word you have an inflatable cowboy doll.”
“Gee, thanks, Evelyn.”
“Rumor is that it was that mysterious mountain man who passes through with the mule and German Shepard.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“He comes in here, you know?”
Molly was surprised, but she knew she didn’t need to ask about that. Evelyn didn’t have it in her tonotshare whatever she had.
“Yeah, he comes in alone, sits in the back corner, drinks Scotch, has a rare rib-eye, a baked potato with the works, and reads one of those electric books.”
“He has a tablet?”
“Yeah, the kind that’s the size of a book but with a lighted screen.”
Molly shook her head like that was the strangest thing she’d ever heard: a mountain man with a Kindle. Really?
Molly and Shadow walked next door to the Summer Lake General Store. Originally a tackle shop for fishermen, Molly’s dad had doubled its size and converted it to a general purpose country store that served the local population with beer and groceries. Shadow waited on the porch as Molly went in to check with Betsy, her store manager.
She braced herself as she walked in the door. Betsy and Evelyn were tight and would have thoroughly vetted all available information about Molly’s sex-fueled weekend. Betsy grew up at the resort. Her father had been the right hand man for Molly’s grandfather, managing the tackle shop and fishing boats. Betsy had been the tomboy running all over the place. The same age, Molly and Betsy hung out together as kids when Molly was visiting her grandparents. The outdoor girls grew up fishing, hiking, and riding horses at Summer Lake.
After high school, they went separate ways, Molly to college and the rodeo circuit. Betsy stayed at the resortworking for her father and eventually taking over the store and fishing operations when her dad retired. Although not close friends, Molly and Betsy shared a lifelong friendship and still occasionally rode and fished together. A world class fisherwoman, Betsy liked lake fishing but lived to fly fish the local rivers. Having fished them all her life, she was the premier local resource on where the fish were biting. As a hobby, she made and sold custom flies and could talk fish all day with the best of them.
“Hey Moll.”
Molly recognized the sing song in her voice. She’d obviously been talking with Evelyn.
“Morning, Bets. How’s business?”
“Good. April is up five percent over last year, so that’s good. The nice weather is good for beer.” Beer was the store’s money maker.
She paused and gave Molly a knowing grin, and said in a sing song voice, “Heard you had a nice weekend.”
“Jesus, Bets, I feel like I’m in in a soap opera.” Betsy loved the soaps and cheap romance novels. “I can’t even shack up with a cowboy now and then without the world knowing.”
