C's Comeuppance: A Bone Cold--Alive novel Read Online Free Page B

wickedly at Lyla. “And Frigid Country was the first place I came to. I go in and there’s this fat broad guarding the front office—”
    “Carolyn. The fat broad is Carolyn. And she’s one of the nicest—”
    “I don’t care. All the fat ones are nice, aren’t they? Well, to be such a bitch, Jemma sure wasn’t skinny! But fat broad was in my way and she wasn’t the boss.”
    “I’m beginning to get the picture.” T helped himself to another serving of lasagna.
    “So I tell her I don’t want any coffee, I want ol’ JT whose name is out on the sign. Seems JT doesn’t come round any more—”
    “He had a stroke three–four years ago.”
    “—but the daughter’s in, so I go in and introduce myself.”
    “As if introductions were necessary at this point.”
    “Now that you mention it, I don’t think I ever did say who I was.” He stacked his dishes and silverware. “I told her I wanted a house and she said she couldn’t help me.”
“Just like that.”
    “Wham, bam, thank you sir, no dice. Go next door.”
    “Ooh. You did make her mad if she referred you to DamSite. She didn’t look anything up on the computer or offer you one of those newspaper ads they seem to print every day?”
    C squirmed. “She fiddled with that computer for about thirty seconds. For all I know, she was e-mailing DamSite that a pigeon was on his way.”
    Lyla smiled. “You didn’t call her a frigid bitch?”
    “Doesn’t sound like he had to.” T finished off the lasagna, licked his fork. “Maybe you could call her and see how her day went, Lyla?”
    “Sam, I’ll do no such thing.”
    “Not even to help your brother-in-law before he leaves town for good ?”
    “Oh, tit-for-tat, is it?” C stood. “Lyla does a little spy work to find out what I did wrong when I didn’t do a thing and I get banished?”
    “Well, Lyla?” There was a glint in T’s eye that even C couldn’t miss.
    “Gonna’ tell me about Constance?”
    “Maybe you can worm it out of me later tonight. After you call Jemma. After Harrison’s in bed.” He lowered his voice. “After C’s gone.”
    She twisted her lips and took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll do it.” Standing, she shook a finger at C. “But then you’re gone!”
     
     

Chapter Three
     
    J emma held her mother’s elbow as they climbed the bleachers at the high school football stadium. The autumn breeze swung her hair into her face and she found herself swiping at it, almost toppling them.
    “You know, Jemma, I can hold on to the handrail and be perfectly all right!” her mother scolded. She jerked her arm out of Jemma’s grasp and determinedly pulled herself up one more step before collapsing at the first empty set of seats.
    Jemma settled in beside her mother. Even though they’d climbed only four steps, her mother was winded. That shortness of breath combined with her mother’s arthritis did not bode well for the coming winter.
    “Hey, Jem-Jewel, you’re losing your touch.” The sarcasm dripped off Wiley Rose like oil. Which, when Jemma looked up at the man, wasn’t a bad comparison. The part-owner of DamSite had inherited everything he had from his father, including half of a business that could have run itself if there hadn’t been so many hands in the till, and dark good looks that had deteriorated into smarminess from living just barely on the legal side of any dealings. The ‘Jem-Jewel’ nickname had been his special gift to her when they were in high school, when he’d wanted to show up the daughter of his father’s rival. Everyone had forgotten it but him.
    Jemma stared at him as he leaned on the metal railing, one foot poised to pitch himself higher in the stands in pursuit of the current Mrs. Rose, number four if memory served. It would be her son they were there to watch. Wiley himself had managed not to be fruitful. It was all the proof Jemma needed that there was a God. “And how’s that, Wiley?”
    “One of your clients showed up at our