Butterfly Bayou (Butterfly Bayou 1)

Miranda grabbed her tray with a shake of her head. “Well, I can see you are not going to be reasonable.”

She was. She was being entirely reasonable. She would entirely reasonably ask Armie about it later. If this woman thought she could make her run away and hide or something, Miranda would soon learn that there wasn’t a lot of drama she couldn’t handle. “Guess not. But remember about the gossip thing. Didn’t sleep with him. Yet.”

Miranda strode away, banging out of the clinic with a whole lot of fussy sounds.

Mabel turned to her. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for someone to take that queen bee down?”

“If I’d been really smart I could have kept the cookies.” It struck her that Mabel knew a lot about the town. “Should I expect other visits from women who think Armie will finally be theirs once his tender innocent daughter is pawned off on a man? Are they waiting for her marriage or just for her to leave home?”

“You trust him that much? You didn’t even think twice about it. How do you know he doesn’t have a whole bunch of women on his string?”

“My sister likes him and she’s a good judge of character. My brother-in-law likes him, too. And I know self-delusion when I see it.” She’d seen it in the mirror for years.

The door swooshed open and Noelle wheeled herself in, followed by the man himself. No wonder Miranda had come to protect her turf. That man was fine. He walked beside his daughter, and the man rocked the khakis.

He turned and looked out into the empty parking lot. “Was there something wrong with Miranda?” He glanced back her way. “Hey, did you ask her about what’s up with the wiring in that house she sold you? I want to know if she’s paying off the inspector.”

Even his suspicion was sexy. And great minds and all that. “I did ask her about that and she avoided the question. She did not come here for business purposes. She’s angry because I stole her man.”

He winced. “Roxie might have mentioned that could happen today. Lila, I’ve never given her any reason to think we’re together.”

“You should look out for Annie Dubois, too,” Noelle offered with a cheery smile. She didn’t seem to mind that Peanut was sniffing all around her. She simply reached a hand out and gave the dog a pet. “Just like Miranda, she’s been after Dad since high school, according to the gossip.”

“She helped me out in math,” Armie said with a shake of his head.

Yep, he was cute when he was confused. It was exactly what she’d thought it was. He was a guy and many, many times men didn’t pick up on the subtleties of female desire.

“So I’m not wrecking your future home?” she asked.

The slightest smile curled up his lips. “I am a perfectly single man. I cannot help it if a number of women around town find me attractive. I can assure you I’ve done nothing to make them desire me. In fact, I gave Miranda a ticket for parking violations a couple of months back.” He glanced over at Mabel. “You think she’s going to cause trouble? Should I talk to her?”

Mabel shrugged. “She’ll try to cause trouble. I don’t think Lila is going to be intimidated, though.”

She wasn’t, though she was still sad about the cookies. She should have known once she blew her tight control on the amount of carbs she allowed herself that her diet would go all to hell. “You should be on the lookout for women around town calling 911 in an attempt to get you to pay attention to them.”

After all, it had worked once.

“This is going to be fun.” Noelle looked far more enthusiastic than her father.

“It could cause trouble for the clinic,” Mabel pointed out.

Lila didn’t see how. “No one’s coming in anyway. I don’t think she can make it worse. Noelle, why don’t you come back to the exam room? I want to take another look at that wound.”

Noelle nodded up at her. “Sure thing. I need to talk to you about some weird stuff with my period, too.”

Gyno. She could handle that. “All right.”

Armie shrank back. “I’ll wait out here. Lila, I need to talk to you when you’re done with Noelle. I made a trip out to visit Carrie Petrie earlier today.”

He’d gone to talk to her? He hadn’t believed her suspicions, but he’d checked into it? From the grave look on his face he was either worried he was going to piss her off by saying everything was fine or he’d found out it wasn’t. Either way, she appreciated him taking her seriously.

“Thank you.”

Noelle made her way back, Peanut following and generally proving why dogs shouldn’t be allowed in a medical setting.