AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I shook my head, unable to trust my voice.
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” I croaked.
“Do you ever feel, Maggie, that you’retoobusy?”
Lately, yes, I had been feeling that way. I found myself wanting to slow down, to simply enjoy life as it was. But I couldn’t let that sway me now, when I needed busyness as an excuse. “Not at all.”
“Okay, then.” He kicked at a rock, blew out a breath. “I guess I’ll go.”
I swallowed hard. “I should get back inside, too.”
He pivoted toward the van, then abruptly turned around.
My heart bounced around my chest.
“Just one more thing,” he said.
“Yeah?”
Why did hope flicker in my chest? It had no right. None at all.
Clouds darkened his eyes. “I got caught up in talking with Roscoe Dodd earlier at the bakery.”
Confused by the switch in both his tone and the topic, I said, “Well, he can certainly bend an ear.”
Donovan’s eyebrows dipped low, and he looked up at the fronds of a palm tree as they whipped about.
Warning flags popped up left and right. “Is something wrong with Roscoe? Or the Dodds?”
Roscoe was a sweet old man, mid-eighties, who lived with his son’s family not too far from my dad’s house. He was a talker, yes, but beloved around here.
“He’s fine. Just fine,” Donovan said. He tossed another glance at my T-shirt, then added, “Like everyone else in town, he was talking about your dad selling Magpie’s.”
If I never heard another word about selling Magpie’s, I’d be a happy woman. Ecstatic, even.
“Did he have anything worthwhile to add?” I asked, still curious about Donovan’s serious tone.
I was hoping so, especially since it had become clear that Carmella was avoiding me. She wasn’t answering my calls and hadn’t been in the shop in days.
Donovan crossed his arms. “Roscoe asked something I didn’t have the answer to, but you might. About the coffee shop’s deed.”
“The deed? What about it?”
Donovan stiffened, looking pained. “Not completely sure. Roscoe thought if Dez does plan to sell, it might have something to do with the lawyer he went to see.”
The statement knocked me backward a step. I wasn’t 100 percent sure, but I thought the shop was in both my parents’ names. It was how Daddy had so easily taken it over when Mama went missing.
If Dad did plan to sell, would he have to get Mama’s name removed from the deed?
But he didn’t plan to sell.
I was certain of it.
Mostly certain, leastways.
Suddenly, my skin hummed with panic.
