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My stomach is churning. I don’t like Rhonda one bit, but she seems extremely certain.
But then, she was certain about Ernie, too, and she doesn’t know shit about him.
Except…Erniewasa little crazy.
I’m sick and clammy-handed, and I just want to get out of here.
“Do you take cards?” I ask, to remind Rhonda that I want to check out.
“Of course.” She resumes her scanning. “All of ‘em except American Express. Who do they think they are, demanding three percent?”
She scans my items with extra vigor, chucking them into the bag like she’s ripping them directly out of the hands of the greedy corporate executives at Amex.
Dane doesn’t seem ashamed of anything.
But he does seem a little bit like someone who might murder his wife.
And he’s asked me to come to his house. Alone. Tonight.
* * *
4
DANE
The Bronco comes coughing up the road at 6:58 pm. My new neighbor is punctual. Or eager to get this over with.
I watch through the window as she parks in the yard and takes her tool bag out of the trunk. The tool bag is laughably huge compared to her small frame, but she hauls it out and marches up my steps with surprising strength. She’s strong like a little French pony.
She has her hair pulled up today, purple pieces hanging down, revealing the silver rings along the rims of her ears to match the ones in her nose and lower lip and nipples. Which makes me wonder if she’s pierced anywhere else…
She’s wearing jean shorts, work boots, and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. The T-shirt is gray, but when she moves, I can tell there’s no bra beneath. She probably thinks she doesn’t need one because her tits are so tiny, and I guess she doesn’t if her only concern is big breasts bouncing around. But she definitely needs one if she doesn’t want my cock to stand at attention anytime she’s near.
“Oh,” she says when I open the door. “You do own clothes.”
“That makes one of us.” I raise an eyebrow at her shorts and T-shirt, which have both been hacked to shit with a pair of scissors.
“Sorry I didn’t wear my Sunday best to scrub your floors.”
“You’re not working in the house.” I come out onto the porch and shut the front door firmly behind me. “I can do that myself.”
“Then what am I doing?”
Remi looks tense and nervy, much more so than this morning when she was pounding on my door. When I step toward her, she flinches back.
I wonder if they’ve been talking in town…
Of course, they have.
I can feel my face hardening.
“For starters, you can fix that fence.” I point to the perimeter fence around my orchard. It’s about a mile long and so decrepit that half the slats are missing or hanging loose.
Remi regards the immense amount of work before her with a stoic expression. “Then I better get to it.”
Without another word, she turns on her heel and hauls her tool bag back down to the fence.
I stand in the shade of the porch, watching her, not even hiding my smile because she’s determinedly not looking at me.
