Black Cat Crossing Read Online Free

on her face. “Ran into some people over in Austin. The Staffords. Remember them? They knew our folks real well back when we were kids.”
    “I remember.” Aunt Rowe spoke slowly, as if she wished she didn’t know who he was talking about.
    “Miz Stafford’s near ninety, still sharp as ever. She was surprised to hear my folks stayed together till their dying day.”
    I remembered seeing Henry and Eliza Flowers and their other children, Becky and J. T., from time to time at family reunions. Bobby Joe was never with them.
    “Your folks had issues,” Aunt Rowe admitted. “Lots of folks did.”
    He shook his head. “But not yours. They were perfect, just like Saint Richard. And you. Always better than the rest of us.”
    “Cut the crap.” Aunt Rowe raised her voice. “No one’s perfect.”
    “Not your daddy, that’s for sure.” He gave us the smarmy grin again. “See, Miz Stafford tells me your daddy and my mama were especially close, right before the time I came along. Put two and two together, Rojo. I think I’m your baby brother.”
    Aunt Rowe gaped at him. I gasped. He was saying PawPaw cheated on Granny. I wanted to call Bobby Joe a big fat liar. My grandparents were the happiest couple I’d ever known.
    “Given this new information,” he went on, “I’d say the land we’re sittin’ on, including those profitable little cottages you rent out, is rightly half mine.”
    Aunt Rowe moved quick as a snake. She jumped up from her seat and took a couple of steps toward him on her cast. She gripped a crutch in her right hand and swung it toward his head like a batter itching to hit a home run.
    The crutch connected with his temple, and the impact sent his chair flying over backward.
    Aunt Rowe’s face was beet red. “How dare you come into my house and slander my father’s good name,” she yelled. “You can take your lies somewhere else, ’cause you will
never
get your slimy hands on one square inch of this property. No. Way. In. Hell.”
    Bobby Joe was down on the floor, flailing on top of the wicker chair, protecting his face with his arms. Blood spurted from the place where her weapon had connected with his head. She stood over him with a crutch poised in the air like she planned to clobber him again.
    I jumped up. “No, Aunt Rowe. Stop.”
    She was zoned out, livid, and didn’t seem to hear me. “You’re a lying sack of—”
    A loud voice interrupted the melee. “Excuse me.”
    I glanced up to see a man standing at the screen door. He had two children with him—a boy and a girl—and their mouths were hanging open.
    “I’m Tim Hartman,” the man said. “And we have reservations for the Barcelona cottage. We’re, um, kind of early.”
    •   •   •
    T WO hours later, I was at my friend Tyanne Clark’s bookstore. The store had closed at five, and we sat in a cozy reading nook in the back enjoying glasses of sweet tea with lemon. Ty had kicked off her Crocs—I swear she had every new style they made and a pair in every color—and sat with her legs curled under her. She was as petite and blond as I was gangly and dark, and the easy chair seemed to swallow her.
    Ty and I had met when we were eight, during one of my summer visits to Aunt Rowe’s. Since then, I’d married, divorced after four difficult years, and given up on finding a man I was willing to live with. Instead, I spent all my passion at the computer, trying in fits and starts to write a book I could sell. So far all I had to show for my trouble was a pile of rejection letters.
    Tyanne had married, given birth to three children, and opened Lavender’s only bookstore, Knead to Read, a name inspired by her bookstore cats, Zelda and Willis. With Internet sales, e-book rentals, and a booth at every Hill Country bazaar and festival in three counties, Ty kept her business hopping.
    At the moment, the store mascots were winding down their day. Zelda, an orange female, was asleep on Ty’s lap. Willis, a big tabby tomcat