A Date With the Other Side Read Free Page B

cell phone was ringing left and right and the whole town’s buzzing with his arrival. Seems like nobody knew he was coming, now here he is, and nobody knows how long he’s staying. Folks are afraid he’s here to inspect the plant, maybe shut it down.”
    “He can’t do that!” Whatever Shelby felt about the changes Samson Plastics had wrought on Cuttersville, she knew it would be a disaster if the plant closed. Half the town would starve.
    Sweating in the June sun, even with the porch roof blocking the direct rays, Shelby picked at her tank top and inspected Gran’s petunias. White and purple, just like she had every year. There were classic and feminine, like Gran, and suited this tiny Victorian house with excessive gingerbread detailing. Gran had moved into the house in ‘fifty-six after her husband, Shelby’s grandfather, had gotten too friendly with a bottle of gin one night and his pickup truck had kissed a fence post.
     
    “…about these folks staring at you. They just don’t like you because you’re corporate.”
    Though Madge probably meant to make him feel better, it only restored his earlier surliness. He didn’t want to be in Cuttersville. He was forced there on a hazy, indefinite assignment that felt suspiciously like a demotion.
    He was probably allergic to hay, he wasn’t overly fond of grease, and his idea of a good time did not involve haunted houses or cow tipping. Yet here he was, trying to make the best of it, and
they
weren’t going to like
him
!
    He’d see about that.
    With a charming smile over his coffee cup, Boston told Madge, “I’m hurt to hear that, Madge. I’m not a corporate shark, I’m just a poor workingman like anybody else, working too many hours and paying too much in taxes.”
    Madge chuckled. “That’s another reason they ain’t going to like you. The girls in this town will be buzzing around you like mosquitoes, with that smile and those city clothes. You look like you stepped right off the TV.”
    The only local girl he’d met so far had been Shelby Tucker, and she hadn’t seemed all that impressed. Amused maybe, but not impressed. But then who wouldn’t be amused when confronted with the sight of a man trapped inside a doily bedspread hole?
    “Madge, you jawing that young man to death?”
    His landlady scooted around Madge and took the seat opposite him. “Get him one of those Specials and leave us to talk.”
    Boston narrowed his eyes and decided to forgo pleasantries.
    “Should we talk about your granddaughter waltzing into my bedroom at the crack of dawn this morning?”
    The smile Jessie Stritmeyer gave him was smug. “Well, since you brought it up. What did you think of Shelby? Sweet girl, isn’t she?”
    He was thinking more along the lines of insane, but maybe that’s what
sweet
meant in the country. “She seems to think she can bring a tour through the house anytime she feels like it. That wasn’t in the lease, Mrs. Stritmeyer.”
    “Well, actually, it is. It says on the second page that should the landlady find it necessary to enter the house, she is authorized to do so.”
     
    Jessie watched various emotions play over Boston Macnamara’s face. Incredulous was warring with furious.
    “That refers to
emergencies
, like pipes leaking while I’m at work or a fire breaking out.”
    “It doesn’t say emergencies, does it? It says if the landlady finds it necessary. Well, I find it necessary to help my granddaughter put food on her table.” Besides, her houses were the best on the tour, if she did say so herself.
    Jessie called to Madge to bring her some herbal tea. She couldn’t handle the caffeine in coffee anymore—it kept her up at night and messed with her bladder, and Lord knew she had enough problems with that leaky sieve as it was.
    Boston was turning a strange purple, damn near like her petunias. For a second, she rethought her plan, since he seemed a little more uptight than she’d remembered from their initial meetings over