“Elroy McTavish, you get in this house right now.” It was a mad female voice from across the street.
“Damn, I’m busted. That’s my wife. Quick, pretend you’re choking.” He waved at his wife. “Gloria, this young woman was choking and I stopped to help her.”
Gloria, wearing a pale-pink tracksuit, garish orange hair, and an excessive amount of blue eye shadow, stomped down the front walkway wielding a cast-iron frying pan. “Hussy, you better stay away from my husband. Elroy, you stay away from her. She’s a fallen woman. Jesus hasn’t forgotten about that liquor store you wrecked. You’ve got a heart condition, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and constipation. Your days are numbered. I’d hate for Jesus to kick you out of heaven on account of being around a loose woman. I told you there’d be trouble when those sports people moved in across the street. Now get in this house right now.”
“I’m coming, dear.” Elroy hightailed it back to the golf cart, threw his walker into the passenger’s seat, and hit the gas. He pulled into the driveway, rolled over some bushes on the side, and then bounced back into the driveway. It was like watching live-action pinball.
Gloria pointed to her eyes and then to Harm in the universal “I’m watching you” gesture.
This just might be the low point of her day. And considering she’d spent an hour handcuffed in a nonsexual manner earlier, that was saying something.
She added another asterisk to her sign, along with, “Must be under fifty and healthy.”
Seconds later, a fairly new model black Mustang screeched to a stop in the middle of the road. Which was a problem, considering the red Mazda behind it hadn’t anticipated the stop and ended up plowing into the Mustang’s rear bumper. The whole back of it crumbled, and a hubcap popped off and rolled down the street, barely missing another kid on a bicycle.
Rush hour had obviously started.
The driver of the Mustang stepped out of the car, smoothed down his stringy black hair, and headed her way without so much as a glance at the semi-totaled Mazda behind him. Or even his own crumpled bumper.
“I’m Max and I’m your date.” His black pencil mustache didn’t go with his full hipster hillbilly beard, but she had to admit she admired his confidence.
“What the hell?” An angry man in a gray business suit jumped out of the Mazda. “You stopped in the middle of the damn street for no reason.”
He started to stay more, but then he caught sight of Harmony and read her sign. Seconds later, he was straightening his tie and smiling directly at her. If he hadn’t been missing some pretty important front teeth, it might have been a fairly good smile. “I’m Chester and I’m your date.”
“Man, I was here first.” Max glared at Chester.
“You wrecked my damn car.” Chester’s eyes turned mean.
“Accident, bro. You’re the one who crashed into me.” Max pulled out his wallet, retrieved a card, and flicked it in Chester’s direction. “Here’s my contact info. I have full coverage with USAA. Call me later. You can go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Chester reared back a fist and landed a decent right hook to Max’s jaw. Chester pulled his punches, so Max should have seen it coming—God knew she had—but now didn’t seem like the best time to point that out.
Max shook his head as he recovered, then tackled Chester with a roar. Harmony stepped back to give them a little more room as they rolled around on the lawn.
This so wasn’t turning out how she’d thought it would.
Seconds later, a blue Dodge truck pulled up and the passenger’s-side window rolled down. The driver called, “I’m here about the hot girl who needs a date.”
A white Ford truck pulled in right behind him, followed by a dark-green Chevy. The Chevy’s driver laid on the horn and looked around like he was trying to figure out why all the vehicles were stopped. At least until he caught sight of Harmony and her sign—then his eyes nearly dropped out of his head.
He was out of the truck and making his way to her before the other guys had even turned off their ignitions.
Yeah, she really hadn’t thought this one through.
Thirty minutes later, the front yard looked like a war zone. Bloody men dotted the lawn, some of the bushes had been crushed by flying bodies, and the police were questioning witnesses.
Harmony, who’d put on a swimsuit cover-up, much to the dismay of the two police officers who’d questioned her, sat on the front steps next to Lyric.
“I’m willing to admit that this wasn’t my best plan.” She put her head on her sister’s shoulder. “Sorry about the mess.”
“No problem.” Lyric patted her leg. “Don’t feel bad. This isn’t nearly as bad as the time I posted an ad on Craigslist for a conference I was giving on self-pubbing research papers. Spell-check changed it to self-rubbing … freakin’ spell-check. Every pervert within a two-hundred-mile radius showed up to my conference.”
“Damn, I bet that was fun. Sorry I missed it.” Heath stepped out the front door with a heaping bowl of popcorn. He sat down on the other side of Lyric. “Eat up, darlin’. Dalton’s going to be late. Apparently SWAT has locked down the neighborhood and won’t let anyone in or out. Some inmate saw Harm on social media, escaped from the county jail, and is headed here. Good news is he was in for a white-collar crime—no history of violence.”
“Damn social media. I bet it was that kid who snapped all those pictures of me.” She should have confiscated his damn phone.
Heath held out the bowl of popcorn to her. “Butter makes everything better.”