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“Old Granny Spencer just hinted that all is not well with my aunt. Do you know what the gossip is?”
“Oh, woman, don’t ask me, please. I don’t want to get into the middle of it.”
“What is it, Gus?” she asked, hands on her hips. “Since when do we keep secrets from each other.”
“Okay, but you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Pinky swear,” Maggie said, holding out her hand. He locked his pinky with hers.
“What’d old lady Spencer say?”
Maggie told him. “It seems like there’s more to the story, if you ask me. My aunt has been in Spencers daily unless the cook shops and I told her that.”
“There is something else. Val asked her to move out.”
“Why?”
“The whole thing with her criticizing Annie. Val’s cook said he doesn’t want anyone badmouthing his family.”
“Gus, no way! She’s got a big mouth, true, but Annie is the first one to admit she had a wild side. Where is my aunt, anyway?” she asked, climbing down the ladder and jumping in her boat.
“Betty’s living over at Vic Chastain’s with your mother.”
Maggie looked up at him with a frown. “My family is getting on my nerves.”
Gus crouched down, whispering conspiratorially. “You didn’t ask for my advice, but trust me, it’s for the best. Your aunt don’t need that old redneck cramping her style.”
Maggie looked at him with a grimace.
“You men are all impossible. Hand me my rope, please.”
He did as she asked, and when Maggie started the motor and pulled away from the dock, he waved, and she waved back, both of them chuckling. The trip home took five minutes tops and when her dock came into view, she saw Rhonda in the play yard with baby Tina and Brulee, the dog.
“Mama!”
“Yep, that’s me,” Maggie muttered, pulling alongside the dock.
Dealing with her child would take precedence over investigating her aunt’s whereabouts. After tying up the boat, she walked down the dock with her satchel, waiting to swoop up her daughter.
“She saw you pull into the cove and started yelling for you right then,” Rhonda said. “And thank God, because the kid had a fit when I wouldn’t let her get in with the horses.”
Tina heard that and pointed to the corral. “Horse.”
“Right,” Maggie replied. “But girlfriend, you know better than going in their yard, right?”
The previous week, Maggie called Rhonda over to look at daffodils pushing through the soil, and in a moment’s time, Tina, who wasn’t walking all that steadily, had climbed the fence around the paddock and once inside, she ran after the horses.
She nodded her head. “How about taking a little pony ride after your nap?”
Rubbing her eyes, Tina began to whine, sayingno nap, and Maggie singsonged, “No nap, no horses. Nap, horse.”
The thumb went into her mouth and she rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. “Okay! I guess it’s naptime then,” Rhonda said, laughing. “I’ll take her inside.”
Tina unwillingly let go of Maggie and went to Rhonda. At the same time, Maggie’s phone beeped. It was Justin.
“Did you see your girlfriends?”
“I did. It was nice. Tina is just going down for a nap so I’m going to take Dale out.”
