“Well, I’m here anytime you need me. Day or night. Unless I’m getting my hair done, nails done, have to go to the shop, or it’s mahjong night.” She listed off on her fingers before waving her hand dismissively. “But Luna can just tag along with me on my errands and I know the girls would love for her to come to mahjong.”
“That sounds great!” I pressed the teabag against the side with the spoon that she’d provided. “I was wondering what you charge.”
“Oh don’t you worry about that.”
How could I not? I had no money in my bank account.
“I have a sliding scale. I’m sure we can work somethin’ out.”
That still wasn’t an answer.
“Is it okay if Princess Penelope and I redecorate?” Luna called out from the play area where she was holding a tiny couch in one hand and a bed in the other. “I think it needs better fresh way.”
“Oh please do!” Mrs. Birch responded with a wide smile as she turned in her chair. “Then I can tell people that a princess is my interior designer.”
When Mrs. Birch turned back around she whispered, “What is fresh way?”
“Feng shui,” I explained. “I’m an interior designer. Well, I was.”
I guessed now I was technically a bartender.
“Oh, how lovely.” She sipped her tea and then sat it down on the table. “So, you and Hank seem to be getting along quite well.”
The way she said quite well had my cheeks burning. I felt like I was back in high school when my choir teacher asked me if I had a crush on Nick Parson. Spoiler alert: I did. “Um, yes, he’s been…he’s…been so helpful.”
“He’s such a good man. Now, if you ask me,”—She lowered her voice and leaned forward. I found myself doing the same wanting desperately to know what she was about to say even though I hadn’t asked her—“He had to grow up way too soon, even before he lost his mama. She was a, well, let’s say free spirit. That boy has been raising his kin since before puberty. But he never complained. Never once.
“And he did a mighty fine job with those boys. Let me tell you, they gave him a run for his money. Gettin’ picked up by the law for all sorts of shenanigans. But Hank was always there to bail them out and put them on the straight and narrow. They grew into two fine young men, and that certainly wasn’t their daddy’s doin’. Hank had to take care of him, too. James Comfort was always three sheets to the wind.
“True, Hank wasn’t a choir boy. He has been in a rumble or two. And, yes, he did put that Tanner Jennings in the ICU but between you me and the fencepost, that boy had it comin’. He was sayin’ awful things about Hank’s mama years after she passed. Hank was just doin’ what any good son would.”
I sat there absorbing all of the information I’d just learned. I knew that name…Tanner Jennings. Oh, right, he was the first lawyer that had handled my grandfather’s will. Hank had put him in the hospital? I just couldn’t imagine him doing something like that. Not that he wasn’t capable. He was built like an ox. I just had never seen an angry bone in him. But why would I? I’d known the man two seconds.
“And he seems very fond of you. You definitely put a pep in his step I haven’t seen since…well, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it.”
“Oh, no.” I leaned back and shook my head, not wanting to give her the wrong idea. “We’re not…I don’t…we’re just friends.”
“Bless your heart, of course you are sweetie.” Mrs. Birch’s knowing smile told me that she was saying one thing but meaning another.
I wanted to assure her that we were, but I was scared she’d think “the lady doth protest too much.” And the thing was, she’d be right.