The Great Escape (Wynette, Texas #7)(47)

Toby hopped off the counter and raced over to her. “Hey, Viper. You got work for me to do?”

“Not today.” She studied the sign. “You’re a real artist, Bree. It looks great.”

“Thanks, but I’m just a dabbler.” She began maneuvering the heavy sign toward the road, being careful not to smudge the fresh paint.

Lucy hurried to help her. “You must have been working hard. Everything looks great.”

“I can be there early tomorrow,” Toby said.

Bree adjusted the sign. “You have to watch the stand in the morning while I check the hives.”

“I don’t want to watch the stand!” Toby cried.

Lucy took the pressure off Bree. “I have some other things to do tomorrow anyway.”

Bree stepped back from the sign. It was painted the same on the other side but had a slightly different message:

Carousel Honey

Memories of summer all year long

“We’ve only had ten customers all day,” Toby protested.

“It’s not even noon.” Bree gazed down the highway. “Ten customers is more than we had this time yesterday. The sign is going to help.”

She didn’t sound convinced, and Toby wasn’t buying it. “You need to get a real job,” he said.

Lucy waited for Bree to tell Toby to knock it off, but Bree acted as if she hadn’t heard, and Lucy had to bite her tongue to keep from telling him herself. Instead, she said, “I’m definitely buying some on my way back from town.”

That embarrassed Bree. “You don’t have to.”

“Are you kidding? I love honey.”

“It’d be really good on your bread,” Toby said. And then, accusingly to Bree, “Viper makes bread all by herself. It’s really good, too. The best you ever tasted.”

“You bake your own bread?” Bree said.

“Sometimes. I’ll bring you a loaf.”

“That’d be— Thanks.” She reached in her pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit up. Toby regarded her with disgust. She gave Lucy an apologetic grimace. “I didn’t mean to start again. It just happened.”

Lucy wasn’t entitled to pass judgment on what people did when they were stressed. A dark green sedan whizzed by. “See,” Toby said. “Your sign is stupid. Nobody’s going to buy anything.”

Lucy couldn’t stand it. “Stop giving Bree such a hard time.”

Lucy had sided with the enemy. With a scowl, Toby stalked up the drive toward the house.

Bree took a deep drag on her cigarette. It looked odd seeing someone who resembled a Victorian painting puffing away. Bree gazed at Toby’s retreating figure. “I don’t know anything about kids. As I’m sure you can see, we’re sort of a mess right now.”

“He’s scared,” Lucy said.

“I can’t imagine what was in Myra’s head making me his guardian.”

“I’m sure she thought a lot of you.”

“We were close when I was a kid, but after Star ran off—she was Toby’s mother—we only talked on the phone every few months. Star and I … We were best friends.” She flushed, as if she were embarrassed to have revealed this small bit about herself.

An ancient Crown Victoria slowed and pulled over next to Bree’s new sign. Lucy left her to tend to her customer and biked on into town.

By the time she’d bought her groceries and two small pots of herbs for the baker’s rack on the porch, her pack was too heavy to add more, so she stopped on her way back and told Bree she’d come over the next day to pick up her honey.

“Really. You don’t have to.” Bree smiled, the first Lucy had seen. “The sign’s working. Three more cars have stopped. I’ve sold six jars. And your honey is on the house.”

Lucy wanted to argue, but she understood this was Bree’s way of thanking her for helping with Toby. Another customer slowed. Lucy waved at Bree and took off.

By the time she’d reached Goose Cove Lane, she’d made a mental note to bake bread first thing tomorrow so she could take some with her. She turned into the drive and laid on the brakes. A car was parked by the house.

A dark gray SUV with Illinois plates.





Chapter Eleven




LUCY WAS FURIOUS. SHE SLAMMED the door behind her, dropped her backpack, and stomped down the front hallway, passing the empty wall space where the baker’s rack should never have been in the first place.

Panda was in the sunroom, his back to the windows, his eyes on her. She hardly recognized him. His wild mane had been cut and tamed into something respectable, although she suspected that wouldn’t last for long. He was clean-shaven, or as clean-shaven as he’d ever get, and he wore a neatly pressed gray dress shirt with equally neat dark gray pants, both a far cry from the cheap suit he’d worn to her wedding. It was disconcerting seeing him dressed like a reputable businessman, but she wasn’t fooled. Beneath all that good grooming was a renegade biker who’d taken advantage of her, then called her a bad lover.

His gaze went to the fire-breathing dragon crawling up her neck, then to her fake pierced eyebrow, and two things were immediately clear. He was no happier to see her than she was to see him. And he wasn’t alone.