Heated Moments

скачать книгу бесплатно


“Hmmm.” His mother pretended to be absorbed in the laptop, the telltale twitch of her left eye giving her away.

“She wanted to tell me your order had just come in, and she wanted to know when was a good time to deliver it.”

Virginia shook her head. “That’s what I get for doing business with the town blabbermouth,” she grumbled. “I should have just driven to Columbus and picked up what I needed from Home Depot.”

“Everybody blabs everyone else’s business around here,” Dylan said. It was a fact of small-town life he hadn’t missed during his years in Chicago. “So, mind telling me what you intend to do with a truckload of concrete stones and concrete mix?”

He waited for an answer to his question, but her lips remained stubbornly pressed together.

“I’m going to find out eventually, so you might as well spill it.”

She swiveled in her chair and faced him. “I want to put a fire pit out back. When the weather turns cool, the guests can sit out there and roast marshmallows, make s’mores.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” he said. “So I wonder why Luke didn’t know anything about your plans when I asked him what was up?”

Dylan had his suspicions on why the bed-and-breakfast’s part-time handyman was clueless, but wanted to hear the answer from his mother. He shifted his weight against the counter. Several moments passed. “You’re not having that pit built, are you?”

She slowly shook her head.

“You were planning to try to do it yourself.” Dylan chuckled. The sound was as dry as the muffin, which still left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Just hear me out, son.” Virginia raised a hand. Without waiting on a response, she launched into a spiel about some television show on the Home Design channel called Granny’s Old House, where a senior citizen tackles home improvement, design and landscaping projects.

Dylan listened as his mother babbled on, but only because he was waiting for her to stop long enough to take a breath. Then he could ask her if she was out of her flipping mind.

She tapped on the laptop’s keyboard with her index fingers and then turned the screen toward him. “Granny says it’ll only take a couple of hours.” Virginia inclined her head toward the small screen. “See for yourself.”

He glanced at the laptop. Sure enough, a woman with a hard hat covering her gray hair was on the business end of a shovel, talking about how easy it was to build your own fire pit.

“It’s not any more difficult than arranging a few flowers in a vase,” Granny said breathlessly as she hefted one of the large concrete blocks.

Granny was full of it, Dylan thought.

“We’re both in our seventies,” his mother said. “If she can do it, I can, too.”

“More like seventy-nine and a half for you,” he muttered.