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Her wee shoulders slumped. Suddenly, she looked all of her eighty-six years.
“You can’t sell the shop,” she said.
“I’m not cut out to sell lingerie,” he said softly. “I’m more suited to a security business. I have the skills for that. I want to do it. I’m looking forward to doing it.”
“But you like it here in Invertary, I can tell,” she said.
Lake smiled at her.
“Yeah, I like it here. It’s a whole lot more interesting than I thought it would be, but I also like the idea of running my own security company.”
She looked straight at him, her eyes wide and her heart laid bare. Lake shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“Nobody else includes me,” she said. “Everybody thinks I’m old and useless.”
“That’s not true. People don’t include you because you’re mean and have a sick sense of humour.”
“I have a superior sense of humour, son. It goes over their heads.”
He smiled at her.
“I can’t stay in Invertary, Betty. You know that.”
“You could if you wanted to. You could start a security business here.”
“It wouldn’t be the same.”
“No. It would be better.”
Lake smiled at her. He didn’t say anything.
“We did have fun, though, didn’t we?” she said.
Lake felt his breakfast bubble in his stomach.
“Yeah, we did.” For some reason he wanted to put his arm around her, but that would have humiliated both of them. “Now.” He cleared his throat. “Are you going to give Kirsty back her underwear?”
“Not on your life,” she said with her trademark evil grin. “You’ll have to prise it from my cold, dead hands. And, much to everybody’s disappointment, that won’t be for a while yet.”
Lake sat back in the marshmallow couch and felt something dig into his back.
“You’re bloody impossible,” he told her.
She grinned with pride. Lake reached behind him to pull out the thing that was prodding his back. It was Betty’s teeth.
“Excellent,” she said. “I’ve been looking for those. Be a dear and give them a wash.”
Lake hung his head and sighed.
“It could be worse,” Magenta said when Kirsty made it back to the shop.
Kirsty felt her eyebrows rise.
“How, exactly?” she said.
“After everything you’ve done the past couple of weeks you could have landed in jail. As it is, you only lost your underwear.”
“I didn’t lose it. It was stolen.”
