Alex looked at me with unabashed amusement.
“What on Earth has happened in here?” Mrs. Anderson’s voice rang out through the room, and the sixty-two-year-old woman who was far fitter than I was stalked into the kitchen and looked around.
“We baked,” Alex said by way of an explanation.
“With what? Twenty toddlers?”
Valid question.
“Now, Mrs. Anderson. Wherever would I get twenty toddlers from?”
Also a very good question.
I turned in time to see her shaking her head.
“And I suppose you’ll be wanting this cleaned up, eh?” She put her hands on her hips and looked around. “Alexander!”
He flinched, and I dipped my head to hide my smile.
“No, not at all. Olympia is changing, then she’ll be down to help us tidy up.”
“Mm. If it’s not to my standard, I’ll be calling you back here, you understand?”
“Yes, Mrs. Anderson.”
“Excellent. I’ll be back to check on you in an hour.” She scanned the room again. “Adelaide, dear, what are you doing?”
“Oh.” I met her gaze. “Filling the sink with warm water so we can start cleaning.”
“You won’t get very far running the cold tap, dear.”
I jerked back to look at the sink and, yes. There it was. The cold tap.
“Right. Of course. Good spot.” I turned the cold tap off and ran the hot one instead. “Thank you.”
She winked at me and swept out of the room just as quickly as she’d appeared.
Oh.
Oh, no.
What if she’d seen us? She’d come out of nowhere, after all. There was every chance we simply hadn’t heard her, and she was too polite to mention it.
“Alex… Do you think she saw us?” I asked, testing the water temperature.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “But I’m assuming we’re both on the same page when it comes to keeping this a secret.”
I nodded, turning on the cold tap, and looked at him. “Yes. One hundred percent secret. Which means no more of what we just did.”
“Maybe,” he muttered.
“No, not maybe. Definitely.”
“No, maybe.”
“I’m baaack!” Olympia skipped into the kitchen in a clean dress. “Let’s go!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – ADELAIDE
“Okay, it’s just really unfair that you’re this good a person,” I said to Alex, closing the car door behind him. “You sell the bunnies, donate the money to the animal shelter, and then you pay Olympia out of your own pocket?”
He grinned at me. “She helps to take care of them, so she gets a cut of the money. Except a ten-year-old doesn’t need one hundred and twenty pounds, so she gets forty, then the rest is split between her trust fund and rabbit food.”
“Does she know you’re holding out on her?”
He laughed and started walking. “Absolutely not. The girl has eight rabbits—she knows she has to contribute to their food costs, but she doesn’t know the rest goes to her trust fund, no.”
I shook my head slowly. “The way those rabbits produce, the girl is going to be a multimillionaire off rabbits.”
“No kidding. When this final lot are born, I’m separating the males and females for at least six months, and probably getting at least half of them fixed so they can’t have any more babies. Poor Peter does nothing but clean out rabbits, and there’s plenty of other things for him to do.”
“I suppose there’s that. So what do we do here? Do we just hang around until all the rabbits go?”
Alex nodded as we headed over to where large, clear boxes were set up. The tops were open so you could reach in—kind of similar to what you’d see at the pet store or at a petting zoo for rabbits and guinea pigs.
“Two of the girls have been reserved already, so they’ll be kept in a separate space. But, yes. We’ll set them all in here, and people can stop by and pet them and get them. They can either take them today, or George will deliver them in his crates later.”
“Who’s George?”
“He owns the pet store. He often takes the babies and looks after them for us if someone wants them but doesn’t have a hutch yet.”
I frowned, stepping out of the way of a puddle. “Why would people buy rabbits if they aren’t ready for them?”
“The same reason my mother brought home three cats,” he replied dryly, making me laugh. “In all honesty, a lot of people see them, fall in love, and just need a day or two to get hutches. George usually finds some discontinued hutches in his storeroom and he sells them for a little cheaper.”
“That’s nice,” I replied, putting my hands in the pockets of my dress.
Yes, my dress had pockets.
I was fancy today.
All right, so I was wearing wellies with it, but it was muddy.
“So what is this?” I asked, looking around. “Some kind of summer fair?”
Alex nodded. “Usually, I’d have George sell the rabbits, but if he doesn’t have space, I do it myself. If we have any babies when the fair rolls around, I’ll bring them down and sell them here if it’s not too hot.”