AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cassidy folded her arms across her chest, the first safe move she’d made since they’d gotten there. “Don’t try to tell me Hutch is responsible for that, because I won’t believe you. He couldn’t have found a skunk and then lured him into our cabin in the little bit of time we were at Ty’s.”
“Knowing your boy, I’m not so sure,” the principal observed tartly. “But, in this case, you’re right. That’s not what he did.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Instead, he set off some chemicals that smelled like a skunk.”
“They didn’t do a bit of harm,” Ty insisted. “And I had a long talk with him about it and made him scrub the cabin from top to bottom. You’ll notice he didn’t try anything like that again.”
“You what?” Cassidy erupted from the chair, practically knocking him to the floor.
He rubbed his sore shoulder. Jeez! That’s what he got for defending her son. Next time, the kid could take the heat all by his lonesome. “What? What did I do?”
“You knew about all these things he did and never told me?”
Ty climbed to his feet “You caught on eventually! Remember when we ran out of gas? Itold you then it was Hutch and you said we should ignore him.”
Hurt turned her eyes to pewter. “I’m his mother. You should have let me know what he was up to from the start.”
“Why? So you’d have an excuse to leave? Damn it, Cassidy. I’d just gotten you there. If I’d ratted on the kid, you’d be in Georgia right now.”
“You promised to be honest with me!”
“I think I see what happened,” Mr. Peters said. “Hutch contrived all these incidents and Mr. Merrick encouraged him.”
“That is not what happened.” Ty glared at the principal. “You’re missing the point here. This ten-year-old boy is desperate for a father. And so, in his own inimitable fashion, he decided to do something about it. Because of the way his mind works, he went about it in a very methodical manner, using logic and intelligence to try to—”
“Manipulate people. Mr. Merrick, Iappreciate that you’ve put up with all this to help out your grandmother and protectyour joint business interests, but you must agree it’s not appropriate.”
Cassidy slowly sank into her chair. “Excuse me? What did you say?”
“I am not doing this for my grandmother’s sake,” Ty interrupted in hardened tones. “I told you why I was doing this. Winged cows with rockets on their butts, remember?’
“Are you sure? With all the bad publicity Yellow Rose Matchmakers has received recently, Ican understand why you’d be so accommodating to Ms. Lonigan and her son. Isuspect you can’t afford any more problems.”
“Oh, no,” Cassidy whispered.
Mr. Peters shot her a pitying glance. “There’s more.”
Ty’s hands clenched. How he wished he could wrap them around the principal’s throat. Everything he’d done could be explained. Though the way the school officials were doing the explaining, it would like as not break Cassidy’s heart, not to mention his arms andlegs.
“I think we’ve heard all we need to,” Ty warned.
“I’m afraid we haven’t. Hutch told us about the reporters who were at Yellow Rose when he first showed up. They’ve been chronicling his adventures. Were you aware he’s been sending them progress reports?”
“No,” Ty bit out, “I wasn’t.”
“Wait a minute!” Cassidy’s hands started fluttering again—always a bad sign. He shifted a few inches to the left. Mr. Peters and Mrs. Lopez followed suit. “I want to know what you’re talking about. What bad publicity? What has any of this got to do with the Yellow Rose?”
Ty gave it one last shot “I’ll tell you later.”
“No, you’ll tell me right now.”
“Okay, fine. It’s no big deal. Amagazine reporter discovered that one of my grandmother’s employees—Wanda—wasn’t using the computer to make her matches.” He fought to control his fury—with limited success. “It may interest you to know that her success rate outstripped the machines. But because we’re billed as a computer dating service, certain individuals suggested fraud was involved. When it all hit the fan, my grandmother ran every last questionable profile through the computer, and whaddaya know? The computer confirmed Wanda’s matches. End of story.”
“Well, not quite,” Mrs. Lopez retorted. “You fail to mention the follow up article and its importance to Yellow Rose’s future. You need them to give you a positive writeup, don’t you?”
For the first time since he’d known Cassidy, Ty saw her look completely devastated. Her arms folded around her waist like a drooping flower blossom. Worst of all, she didn’t move. Not a twitch, not a fidget, not a knee or elbow or finger out of place.
