Swing and a Mishap (Summersweet Island 2)

“You have to. He needs to hear it all.”

“He makes fun of her constantly for being the… worst lay he’s ever had, and he goes into a seriously disgusting amount of detail about her being cold and dead and… fuck, I wanna puke just repeating that, because this is my future sister-in-law, but there you go. Kevin Stratford in a nutshell. How do we want to kill him when he gets here?”

“I vote for fire!” Bodhi announces, raising his hand high in the air. “Tess just bought marshmallows.”

It takes me at least five minutes of deep, heavy breathing with my eyes closed while Palmer and Bodhi discuss the easiest way to kill a man before I finally feel like I don’t want to flip the table, break every single plate and glass in here into a shattered pile on the floor, and then drop to my knees and scream at the top of my lungs until my voice is hoarse.

When I feel calm enough, I unclasp my hands, lean to the side, pull my wallet out of the back pocket of my jeans, and throw down enough money to cover all our breakfasts along with a very generous tip for the server who had to listen to all this insanity the last hour and a half while she waited on us. I cut off Palmer’s protests about picking up the tab by telling him he can get the next one. Even though I’m probably going to regret all the advice I was bombarded with this morning, it feels good to have friends here and to be able to make future plans with them. It just feels so settled and so homey, even while thoughts of murder are running rampant through my head.

“Why is he so calm?” Palmer asks Bodhi as I slide out of the booth, both of them joining me before Palmer looks at me when we all get out into the aisle. “Why are you so calm?”

“I’m anything but calm right now. I’m trying to rise above and handle this the mature way,” I tell them as we make our way toward the front door, waving and saying hello to a few people we know as we go. “Plus, I just got Wren and Owen. I don’t really want to screw that up by going to prison. Have you seen the type of craft rooms they have there? Appalling.”

“See?” Bodhi smacks Palmer on the arm as we get out onto the sidewalk and into the bright late-morning sunshine. “I told you he was Dorothy. Grounded and sarcastic. We’re gonna be such good friends forever!”

The three of us laugh, Bodhi and Palmer promising to have my back when Kevin gets here if I need anything, and then we go our separate ways. Palmer heads off to join Birdie at SIG, since he picked up a few golf lessons to teach this week, and Bodhi walks off toward the beach to probably fall asleep in the shade of a tree somewhere.

I drive back to my cottage to get packed up and changed for the game later, since I need to head up to the school, review some film from our last game, figure out the batting lineup, make sure the field is in tip-top shape, and keep as busy as possible so I don’t look up Kevin Stratford’s address and go pay him a visit that ends in me needing bail money and a good lawyer.

My cell phone dings in my hand with an incoming text as I’m loading up my golf cart in my driveway before heading up to school. Pulling it out of a side pocket of my backpack, I smile when I see the message.

Wren: Hi! Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I forgot my phone at home and left work to get it really quick and just saw your message—as well as all the flowers filling all my tables and counters that weren’t here when I left for work before dawn. I don’t even want to know how you got into my cottage when I wasn’t home, and I don’t care. It smells like heaven in here, and it’s SO FREAKING PRETTY!!!!! Thank you for not bringing *all* of them though. I probably would have been trapped in here LOL! See you at the game tonight.

Okay, so at least it’s good to know I didn’t overwhelm her with the flowers or send her screaming in the other direction. Now I just need to figure out a way to slow things down and give her the respect she deserves after everything Kevin has put her through, without trying to rip her clothes off of her every time she’s standing anywhere near me.

This should be fun.CHAPTER 13Shepherd

“You caught my heart.”“Hey, blue! If you’re just gonna watch the game, buy a ticket! That was a strike!”