IN FOR A PENNY (The Granny Series) (14 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Teague paused next to Maggie and Sera’s table.
Was it too much for a guy to pick up a to-go box and eat with his feet up at his desk? Maybe he needed to start wearing a ski mask when he wanted a break.

Nah, then someone would just call in a robbery.

It wasn’t but a few years ago, when Teague worked for the Houston PD, that every day there’d been a new fire lit under his ass. Overwork and stress had defined that job. Even so, at the time he’d thought nothing could be worse than what happened his college senior year.

He’d been wrong.

Dead wrong.

Now, Summer Shoals was supposed to be his happy place after everything that had gone down. When he’d left Texas in his rearview mirror, it was for a promise of better days. His new home was still busy, but trouble was different here.
Zany things like seniors slipping off rooftops and prize pigs running loose in the church. Apparently, the baptistery still smelled of slop and hog crap on a hot day.

“Teague,
it’s meatloaf day.” Eighteen-year-old Sue Ellen, the diner’s other waitress, sidled over. He sidestepped, but she gave him a big wink, then blurted loud enough for everyone to hear that she’d be happy to slide herself right between the slices of his meatloaf.
Christ Jesus.

“I’ll have mine to go.”
Far, far away.

He turned his attention to Maggie, who
was strung so tight today she was practically vibrating in her chair. Just past her sat his boondocker, Serendipity. Lord help him. He nodded cordially. “Maggie. Serendipity.”

“You can call me Sera. All my good friends do.”

“I remember.” Teague kept Maggie between Sera and him. He didn’t really get the cougar vibe from her, but after all that nonsense in the Walmart parking lot, it could be a mistake to get too close. “Everything okay after the toilet incident yesterday?”

“Yes, but we’ve got bigger trouble than that.”

He craned his neck to look over her head. “By the way, where’s Lillian?”

And didn’t that innocent question get Maggie’s hands to fluttering around her silverware and tea glass. “She’s feeling a little under the weather.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Tell her I’ll stop by for a visit later today.”

“Oh.
Oh, no.” She lowered her voice. “It’s, you know, some female stuff.”

How much female stuff did a seventy-year-old lady have left? That was probably more than
he needed to know. “What’s this about big trouble?”

Maggie glanced around the diner like she expected to find someone hiding, crouched behind the booths ready to jump out and attack. “Maybe we should talk outside.”

His mom, normally a pie-baking and retirement-center-visiting sweetheart, had gotten a touch paranoid and more than a little mean when she went through the change. Could Maggie be experiencing the same thing?

Sue Ellen delivered his paper-bagged lunch and flashed him some plump cleavage and an eye-blinding purple bra. Sweet girl, but he wanted a real woman, not someone a month over jail bait. He averted his gaze, pulled out his wallet and gestured toward Maggie’s empty plate and Sera’s full one. “Put these ladies’ lunch on my bill.”

“You don’t have to—” Maggie started, but Sera covered her hand.

“Remember. Be gracious and accepting. Expect the best and the universe will deliver it.” Serendipity lifted herself from her chair. “Thanks, Sheriff.”

The three of them stepped outside and huddled under the awning. The July Georgia sun was such a bitch and a half, he could feel it through the thick material of his uniform shirt. “Why so secretive?”

“What if I told you that no one has seen Nash Talley in ten
days.” Maggie arched her brow.

“So?”

“Hollis just said he hadn’t seen him for two Meals on Wheels Wednesdays,” Maggie told him.

“I’ll drive by his place and check on him.”
But not until after lunch, dammit.

Maggie swallowed. “I think he took—”

Teague’s phone rang. “Excuse me, ladies.” He angled his body slightly away to answer his phone. “Castro.” When it rained, it poured. By the time he got back to his desk, everything in this bag would be stone cold.

“Teague, thank the sweet baby Jesus and all those damned wise-ass men.” The whiskey-smooth voice on the other end of the line shot from his ear through every nerve ending in his body until even his toes were tingling.

He opened his mouth, but her name got stuck in his heart. He cleared his throat. “Jenny. It’s been a while.”

“How many times have I asked you to call me by my proper name?”

More times than he could count. But to him, she’d always be Jenny. “Jensen, to what do I owe the honor?”

“Have you talked to my mother?” Jenny pronounced the last word
mutha.
She’d damn well been up north too long. If he had anything to say about it, she’d move her heart-shaped little ass back south. But he’d given up that right over ten years ago. And she’d moved on too. Got married and had a little boy.

“Not recently, why?”

“Because she’s gone crazier than a bed bug high on Pixy Stix.”

Sounded about like the woman he’d always called Aunt Bibi even though they
weren’t technically related. “And this is surprising, why?”

“You don’t understand. Since the newspaper forced her to retire, she’s taken it to an entirely new level.” And Abby Ruth Cady was a hot-barreled pistol under normal circumstances. “She
called me yesterday from a campground in Ohio or Iowa or some flat place like that. Pretty as you please, she sold her house and took off from Texas in her dually. Bought a brand new horse trailer and is pulling it behind. Says she’s gonna see every state and then maybe head to South America.”

Teague didn’t bother to hide his smile because Jenny sure couldn’t see him. “She’s a grown woman.”

“You mean a child in a grown woman costume.”

Suddenly, something occurred to him. “Wait a minute. Your momma doesn’t have horses.”

“Exactly,” Jenny huffed. “Do you know what she’s got in that thing?”

Shit.
His gut cramped as though he’d eaten six diner lunch specials. “What?”

“Her guns.”

Sometimes it sucked being right.

“She is completely out of control. And I can’t break away from my job right now to track her down in whatever wheat field she’s stomping around in.”

“Oh, yeah?” He took a few more steps away from Maggie and Sera. “Well, I’ve got a whole flock of out-of-control mature ladies down here in Georgia that I’m trying to keep an eye on.”

“Maybe we should ship all these crazy red-hat women to one state and throw away the key. And you know Georgia started out as a penal colony.”

Just the kind of thing Jensen Elaine Cady Northcutt would know. He’d never once won a game of Trivial Pursuit against her when they were kids. But Jenny’s suggestion pinballed around in his brain. Something wasn’t quite right at Summer Haven, if only that the old house needed more sweat and muscle than those women could provide, no matter how many tool belts Maggie Rawls owned.

“That’s actually not a bad idea. Why don’t you call your mom and suggest she pay me a visit? You could tell her I’ve put on a big ole beer gut and can barely get my lazy ass out of my recliner.”

“Have you?” And didn’t those two soft-spoken words arrow right down to his sacral whatever-the-hell Sera was yapping about the other day.

“Still at fighting weight.”

Jenny sighed.

Frustration with your mom or possibly regret over what could’ve been between you and me?

Hell, no. Jenny Cady didn’t do regret.

“You know she never listens to a damn thing I say,” Jenny argued. “If I push her to come down there, she’ll do the exact opposite and race right up to the North Pole.
But you? That woman will listen to anything that comes out of your mouth like you’re spouting NFL statistics.”

Jenny knew her
momma, that was for sure. And he could use a pair of eyes and ears out at Summer Haven, especially after that toilet incident, and his something’s-up meter was off the charts when it came to those old gals. “Tell you what, I’ll see what I can do. But if I get her down here, you have to promise to come visit her before long.”

She scoffed, and he knew that sound well. It wasn’t that Jenny didn’t love her mom, but Abby Ruth could drive a Baptist preacher to drink. “It’s a deal. Call me as soon as she gets
there, okay?”

“Sure thing.”
He’d take any excuse he could get to call the woman he’d been in love with for more than half his life.

Maggie eyed Teague’s back as he talked on the phone. One minute he was smiling and the next frowning. From the sheriff’s tone, it was clear the woman on the other end meant something to him. There was just something different about a man’s voice when his libido and heart were going crazy.

He was a good man. He could help her sort through all this social-security-check-prison-funeral-Nash-Talley nonsense.

Sera gripped Maggie’s wrist and drew her close. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking we need help.”

“You’re Lillian’s oldest friend and yet less than two weeks after she asked you to keep things quiet, you’re willing to ignore what she wanted? She told you not tell anyone about what happened.”

“Teague’s not just anyone,” Maggie insisted.

“He’s worse than anyone.” Sera looked him up and down, mistrust clear in her expression. “He’s the law.”

“Oh, for the love of Pete. You asked him to call you Sera, like all your good friends do.”

Sera shifted from foot to foot. “I don’t want him to be suspicious of me.”

Maggie stepped back, looked at Sera through narrowed eyes. “
Should
he be suspicious of you?”

“That’s not the point here. Lillian and her trouble is the issue right now. Don’t you go switching this all up on
me. If we turn over the little we know to the sheriff, it’s all over. He’s going to tell us to go sit in those rockers on the veranda and sip tea while he chases down the truth. Or worse, what if he’s in on it?”

“Sera, that’s just downright ridiculous, and by the way, I make good tea.”

“Is that what you really want?” Sera tapped her foot, setting those little bells she wore tinkling.

Maybe Maggie was giving Teague too much credit. Maybe she was just desperate. “But I’m afraid it’s too much—trying to track down Nash and fix the bathroom.”

“What’s wrong with the downstairs one?”

“Nothing, but we’ve got
a historic approval committee coming out in a few weeks. There’s no way Summer Haven will pass muster the way it is now. Plus, I was hoping to offer some tours to bring in some money. It’s like a catch-22. No cash to pay for the damage and yet we can’t host tours with a huge hole in the ceiling.”

“If there’s one thing you are, Maggie Rawls, it’s handy. And together, we’ll patch up that bathroom.” Sera’s voice carried an unexpected edge. “Do you really want to stand on the sidelines while someone else takes care of all your problems?”

“No,” Maggie said. “No, I absolutely do not want to stand on the sidelines. I can take care of myself. And this.”

“
Which is exactly why Lillian asked you to handle her affairs, not the sheriff.”

Maggie swallowed back a frantic feeling. No. She was done being small, huddling in the background.

Teague finished his phone call and strode back to them. “I apologize. A fugitive we’ve been trying to run down for years has been spotted somewhere up north.”

That girl must be really special if he was concocting a story to cover for her.

“Goodness,” Maggie said. Even if that call had no more been about a fugitive than she was a
Sports Illustrated
model, those criminal type words all sounded so harsh. Not words she wanted attached to her best friend, so she couldn’t tell Teague about Nash because that would lead him straight to Lillian in the big house. No. It was up to her to figure this out.

“Now, what was it y’all were going to tell me about Nash Talley?” Teague asked.

Maggie gripped the duct tape at her waist to keep from making any nervous gestures. “Some folks are a little worried about him. But I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for why he hasn’t been around. Vacation. The flu.”
Or foul play.

Teague’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not what it sounded like before.”

“Oh, hon, we just wanted to get you away from Sue Ellen.” Maggie patted his arm and nodded toward his sack lunch. “She has her talons out for you, if you hadn’t noticed, and I’ve heard she’s not such a nice girl. Now, you better get that to-go order back to the office so you can enjoy that meatloaf while it’s still hot and fresh.”