Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
And it was Hutch.
“Okay, first,” she began, “non-negotiable, Brett and I are going to be keeping company with you up there too. If those people are watching you, I think you should have a lot of folks driving in and out of your place. I’ve heard of that outfit. The rumors aren’t positive, especially since we know those men don’t make those pies, and we’ve never seen any women. But you want to live and expect others to let you live, you return the favor. Them writing you that note is concerning. So Brett, and me, and once he hears of this, probably some of Brett’s friends are going to find occasion to drop by.”
Her voice lowered when she went on.
“I know you like your alone time, Mabel. I know you’ve got a fierce independent streak. We’ll have a mind to that. But you have to let us do this. When Brett finds out, this plan is the only thing that’s going to keep him from going direct to those folks and sharing a piece of his mind.”
I was afraid of that.
“I do like alone time, Abigail, but I also like people. So if it makes you feel better, and Brett, I’ll make us dinner this week and maybe, I don’t know, have a party or something.”
“I know this, Liam was all about that sang-you-wary this morning. It was the only thing he could talk about. So maybe you can talk to your dog trainer about setting up that tour on Saturday, then we can all head to yours.”
“That sounds good. I’ll talk to Hutch.”
“Now, about Hutch.”
Moxie jumped up on my stomach, stilled like the landscape was going to change and she needed to be prepared for it, then positioned herself horizontally on my chest and belly, and the minute I started stroking her, she closed her eyes and started purring.
All this happened while I said, “Again, not a thing.”
“Honey, you called him ‘honey.’”
I did?
Oh shit!
I did.
“I have a confession to make. I know Hutch,” she admitted.
My hand stilled on Moxie’s soft fur.
Her eyes opened.
I resumed stroking.
Her eyes closed.
“You do?” I asked.
“Right, not know him. I’ve heard of him. And I’ve heard of him because I know Bree Waddell. She’s been in the store a few times. She likes Gemma’s candles and Ida’s oatmeal mask.”
“Bree Waddell?”
“A woman in town who suffers from a pathological case of Pretty Girl Syndrome.”
Uh-oh.
“They dated,” Abigail told me. “I’m not in Bree’s friend posse, because she doesn’t have one due to Bree being Bree, but when that whole thing blew up, everyone in town was talking about it.”
I tensed and asked, “Blew up?”
“Restraining order.”
My voice was pitched high. “Against Hutch?”
“No, sister. Bree.”
Oh God.
Oh no.
Crap.
“I think they dated awhile,” Abigail said. “I also think Bree never heard the word ‘no’ in her life. Men bending over backward, kissing her ass. Women wanting to occupy her orbit in hopes of castoffs, but instead finding she wasn’t recruiting mean girls, she just was a mean girl. I never liked her. She’s beautiful, I’ll give her that. And she knows it. After the whole thing went down with Hutch, though, people started calling her Caroline.”
“Caroline?”
“You heard Outkast’s song ‘Roses’?”
Holy hell.
I laughed but said, “Yikes.”
“Yeah. She keeps her head low now. And there’s a reason why. Hutch rocked her world by seeing through her, getting shot of her, and she didn’t like it. She also didn’t want to lose him, and she thought she could teach him a lesson. Gossip gets exaggerated, but I heard one story where she texted him one hundred times in a single day.”
I’d had a taste of this, nowhere near as bad, so I was feeling nauseous, listening to the fact Hutch had endured it.
But Abigail wasn’t done.
“She’d pitch up at his place just to yell at him. He’d be sharing a drink at The Hole or The Halfway with Doc Riggs or Jaeger Rhett, and she’d turn up and give him shit. This went on for months, with things escalating, until she somehow got wind he was at the feedstore. And this isn’t exaggerated. There were witnesses. She laid into him. Followed him around the store, shouting at him. All that ‘Who do you think you are?’ and ‘You think you’ll do better than me? You’ll never do better than me,’ nonsense.”
Gross.
Abigail continued, “Word is, he didn’t even glance at her. Just bought his dog food, put it in his truck and got in. The problem was, he’d backed into a spot, behind which was the store, and she stood in front of his grille, shouting at him through the windshield. This went on a long time. He couldn’t leave. Eventually, the cops were called, by Hutch or someone else, I don’t know. They took her away. What I do know is, after that, Hutch slapped a restraining order on her.”