Danger in a Small Town. Ginny Aiken

      After the day she’d had, it didn’t surprise Tess when she only managed to catch a nap or two that night. Her dreams kept taking her back to that horrible scene in the woods. She cried, she prayed and in the end, spent most of the night watching the shadows cast by an oak tree outside her window.

      When the sun finally rose, she was an emotional mess. But she knew she had to pull herself together. Uncle Gordon expected her to pick him up by ten o’clock.

      “Hey, you,” Tess said as she walked into his drab-green and dingy-cream hospital room on time. “You’re such a terror, they’re kicking you out.”

      He winked. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do to get sprung.”

      She was glad to take him home. “You ready to roll, then? You’re lucky they put your leg in that temporary cast. You can get around again.”

      A nurse pushed a wheelchair into the room. Uncle Gordon gave it a glare but didn’t fight the inevitable. Instead he glanced back at Tess and said, “Do you call shuffling behind a walker getting around?”

      The nurse chuckled.

      Tess rolled her eyes. “I sure do. Would you rather sit in a wheelchair—like this one—and have me push you wherever you want to go?”

      He scowled as they waited for the elevator. “You wouldn’t have the time. You’re too busy.”

      “Sure I’m busy, but I came home because you needed help. And a keeper. Molly and the others volunteered me for the job. They figured I didn’t have anything better to do.”

      Getting her uncle into the car took every bit of Tess’s and the nurse’s attention. Once they had him settled in, they stowed away an overnight case, a balloon bouquet and all the sample-size toiletries he’d insisted on bringing home.

      Tess thanked the nurse, then slid in behind the wheel. As she pulled away, Uncle Gordon let out another “Hmph!”

      She slanted him a glance. “Okay. Let me have it.”

      His brows met over the bridge of his large nose and he shook a finger at her. “I’m not happy about you quitting your job in Charlotte.”

      “As you’ve told me a couple of times.” She’d put him off long enough. She had to tell her uncle what had happened. “There were problems at Magnusson’s. Someone began to steal from the registers, and only department managers had the codes to open the drawers. Because my department was hit three times, the police began to suspect me.”

      “Idiots!”

      The anger in Uncle Gordon’s gaze told her to hurry with her tale. “It’s okay. They found the woman who did it. She worked for the IT department. She’s in jail, but some of the people I worked with never got over their suspicions. I couldn’t run the department if my employees were suspicious of me.”

      “Did they only hire idiots in that place?”

      She smiled. Such simple support was worth everything to her. “No, they just couldn’t get beyond their fears, and they didn’t want to lose their jobs if I proved to be guilty sometime in the future.”

      “So now you’re here, twiddling your thumbs, because of a bunch of fools. Now how can that make sense?”

      “Now this I’ve told you more than a couple of times. I’m starting my own business. Please give me a chance. I’ll show you what I’m doing once we’re home.”

      He “hmphed” again, but didn’t speak during the rest of the ride.

      Tess parked in front of the house, reached out and patted his hand. “Trust me, Uncle Gordon, I’m much happier here at home. I didn’t have anything better to do. Not in Charlotte.”

      “How can you be happier? You told me all you’re going to be doing is staring at a little box with letters on it that’ll suck the smarts right outta your brain.”

      “Oh, it’s got pictures, too!” She hopped out and rounded the car to his side. “Computers have come a long way. Wait till you see the sweet laptop I bought for my new business. It’s great!”

      Tess helped him swing his legs out of the car then opened the rear door to grab the shiny new walker. That’s when she noticed the flower bed under the bay window on the right side of the house. It was a mess. The rosebushes lay on their sides, and all the flowers had been trampled. “Would you look at that? What could have made that mess?”

      Uncle Gordon glared. “I’m going to have to have me another talk with Rupert Anthony. That man’s got himself a canine beast. And he thinks nothing of letting it roam and do its business on everybody else’s property. But it’s too much when the monster takes to trashing a man’s roses. You won’t ever see me harboring a dog. Uh-uh. Gordon Graver won’t ever make a sap of himself over a bag of bones, fur, teeth and barks.”

      Uh-oh. Tess had a problem—another one—on her hands. Her new little bag of bones, fur, teeth and barks wasn’t going to be welcomed by her uncle anytime soon. At least she’d postponed the confrontation by leaving the dog at The Pampered Pooch for grooming before going to pick up the semi-invalid at the hospital.

      She reached into the backseat and grabbed Uncle Gordon’s walker. A couple of twists later, she had it open and on the sidewalk. “They did teach you how to use this thing, right?”

      He snorted. “A drill sergeant named Harry made me push it up and down the hospital hall about a million times. Of course, they taught me to use it. But I’m ditching it the minute I get used to this clunky old cast.”

      “You’ll get rid of the walker when Dr. Meyer says you can,” Miss Tabitha Cranston, Uncle Gordon’s longtime lady-friend said as she marched down the sidewalk. “Is he giving you a hard time, Tess?”

      “Nothing I can’t handle.” She closed the car door and followed her lovable curmudgeon up the front walk, and then helped him with the stairs. “He thinks he’s tough, you know?”

      “He does have his moments.” Miss Tabitha’s warm hug was as welcome as always. “But we love him anyway, right, sugar?”

      Tess turned the key in the lock, then pushed the door in. “I haven’t met another man I’d be willing to move for.”

      Miss Tabitha helped ease the walker over the threshold. “There aren’t many of those, are there?”

      “See?” Uncle Gordon crowed. “I’m just about perfect. One of a kind.”

      “Oh, brother.” Tess dropped his bag of hospital gear on the floor at the bottom of the steps. “I’ll carry all this upstairs as soon as I make you comfortable.”

      “Tess,” Miss Tabitha said, her voice unusually tentative. “I took the liberty of asking one of my boarders to meet us here. He’s a nice, strong young man, and he can help us get Gordon upstairs. I think he needs to take another of those pain pills and go straight to bed before the pain gets too bad to bear.”

      “Bed!” he objected. “I’ve done nothing but lie in bed for three weeks! And you girls want me to go back to one? What’s the point of busting out of the hospital, then?”

      “The point,” Miss Tabitha said, “is that someone else needs that hospital bed more than you, Gordon. All you have to do is lounge around and wait for the bone to heal. You can do that here just as well as there.”

      “I’m not going upstairs. I’m perfectly fine here.” He pointed toward the living room. “I can sit on my own sofa just as well as lie on that bed!”

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