Rabbit tosses me a sideways look. “I’ll see it when I get back!” Then she’s off, heading across the parking lot and pausing to check under cars.
Murr touches my shoulders and pulls me in for a kiss on the cheek. “Murr hunt food. Yes? Big meal for all.”
“Yeah, sure.” I manage a small smile for him and take the loin wrap he hands me. He flies off and I watch him, feeling disgruntled. Surely I can have both alone time with my new husbandanda daughter that acts like I exist, too?
Aggie gets to her feet, stretching slowly and putting her hands behind her back. “Well, now that you’re back, I might as well show you something.”
“Oh god.” Here we go. The other shoe is about to drop.
CHAPTER 76
DAKOTA
Aggie’scasual statement makes my heart stop in my chest. “Show me? Show me what? What is it? What’s happened?”
She shoots me a dirty look and waves a hand, dismissing my concerns. The elderly woman turns and heads for the doors to the bookstore, forcing me to follow after her. “You’re being ridiculous, Dakota. You think if something happened, we wouldn’t have led with that? Calm the fuck down.”
“I’m calm. I’m totally calm. It was just an ominous statement.”
“Asking you to look at something is ominous? Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” Aggie shakes her head, her wig’s waves bouncing. “You’re still wound up tight even after a night of fun.”
Am I? I bite back a retort, because I feel it’s perfectly normal to be anxious after leaving my teenage daughter with two elderly troublemakers for a night. “Just show me the problem and we can figure out how to handle it.”
Aggie starts laughing. She shakes her head at me as she walks slowly through the store, leaning on her cane. “All right, but promise you won’t get mad.”
Her words make a pit form in my stomach. I follow on Aggie’s heels, not paying attention as much as I should be. Of course I won’t get mad at whatever happened. We’ll just handle whatever has happened. Is that why Rabbit didn’t say much? She’s letting Aggie deliver the bad news? I should have known better than to leave. She?—
Aggie stops and gestures ahead of her with her cane. “Here it is. We made a room for you two.”
They what? I stare ahead, noticing just now that the shelves have been moved, stacks of books cleared. My things have been neatly stacked in one corner, and in the center of the “room” is a queen-sized mattress on the floor and a bed adorned with thick blankets and two pillows. There’s even a framed picture on one of the shelves, and it’s of an old book cover with a golden dragon.
They made us a room. My voice comes out squeaky with surprise. “You…did?”
“Yeah. You wanted to know if there was a problem. There is. The problem is how do we get you to calm down already? Sheesh.”
I feel like a jerk. Here I’ve been convinced they got up to trouble, and they were making something special for us. “I’m sorry, Aggie. It’s the first time I’ve left Rabbit since I found her. I just worried.”
“It was your daughter’s idea,” Aggie says mildly. “She wanted to do this for you. Thought you might like to have a little privacy with that man of yours. And me, I thought it was a good idea. You’re so damned anxious about everything that I thought it would be one less thing on your plate.”
“I’m not anxious,” I protest, feeling even more guilty.
“Girl, please.” Aggie gives me a wry look as she shuffles inside the “room.” “You give me anxiety just watching you. Anyhow, no need for you to keep your man at arm’s length around us. You’re allowed to be a woman and be a mother at the same time.”
“Yes, but Rabbit comes first.”
Aggie leans on her cane, glancing around the quarters set up for us. “We set you up at the back of the store, so you can feel like you have a little more privacy. Rabbit’s moving her room all the way to the front, by the windows. She says it’s because Kermit doesn’t like to go deep into the store, but I think she wants you to have space. I told her to go into that sporting goods store and find that man a pair of shorts. She did, too. Got three pairs and a backpack, though I don’t know what he’s gonna do with the backpack.” She waves a hand at the surroundings. “Anyway, it’s in here somewhere.”
I’m speechless, but I know Aggie wants—and deserves—words of praise. So does Rabbit. “This is really special. You guys are very thoughtful to do this for us. I hope it wasn’t too much work.”
“It was far too much work,” Aggie tells me, a gleeful smirk on her face. “I mostly sat in a chair and directed while Rabbit did all the heavy lifting. She’s a good kid.” Her expression changes to something a bit more severe. “She’s a big girl, too. Knows about the birds and the bees. She wants you to be happy, and if you keep acting like an anxious idiot, you’re going to make her upset.”
“Acting like an anxious idiot is what I do best,” I joke.
“I noticed.”
Ouch. I gaze around the sweet little room, thinking about everything she said. Rabbit and Aggie worked on putting the room together for us. No mention of Dottie. I think again about her out-of-character nap yesterday. “How’s Dottie feeling today?”
She shrugs. “Fine. Just tired.”
