Trouble's Brewing Read Online Free Page A

What would you like to order? Prince Albert in a can? A pizza? What?”
    “Hmm … I was thinking more along the lines of one of your great hamburgers right off the grill.”
    “What?”
    “Hi, Mom.”
    “Tim!” I sat in my swivel chair, pulling it closer to the desk with a scootch of my feet. “What are you doing trying to fool your mother this way? You sounded just like one of the kids around here.” Even as I said the words, a couple of giggly female students entered the library, arms wrapped around their notebooks. I watched as they moved slowly toward the YA fiction section, then looked back down to my desk, where a scattering of papers and a few stacks of books had managed to take up residency since lunchtime.
    He chuckled. “Ah, I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve. Nice to know all those drama classes at college were for a good cause.” “You’re a stinker.” I noticed that a book in one stack belonged in another and made the transfer. When I did so, I saw the Gold Rush News clipping of Donna’s great escape from the bear during one of our Potluck gatherings. I giggled in spite of myself.
    “I haven’t been called that in a few years,” Tim said after a pause.
    “I can think of a few other names I’ve been called lately, but not stinker.”
    I rested against the back of the chair. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call? The kids okay? Samantha?”
    “Always the mother, aren’t you? The kids are great. They’re always great.”
    I narrowed my eyes, waiting for a report on my daughter-in-law. “And Samantha?”
    “Ah, my dear sweet wife Samantha.” The dramatic tone was back in his voice, placing emphasis on the “man” in her name.
    “Tim …” I sat up straight but dropped my head so as to keep my preferred quiet in the library, even behind the glass wall.
    “You never answered me,” he said.
    “Answered you?” I heard the library door open again, and I looked up to see three more students entering. “I don’t remember there being a question, but I’m keenly aware that you are avoiding mine. Son …”
    “Mom, what would it take for me to get one of your grilled hamburgers?”
    I turned my chair to face the back of my office. “What’s going on?”
    Again he chuckled. “I’m just hungry, that’s all. And I’ve got a craving for one of your hamburgers.”
    Once again I heard the library door open, only this time I didn’t bother to turn to look. A sense of dread ran down my spine, then leaped into my stomach, settling there like a heavy rock. For some time I’d been worried about my son’s marriage to his college sweetheart. I’d hoped I was wrong, of course. A mother always knows when her children are in some sort of trouble, but we always pray for the best. But just recently Tim had called his sister Michelle—our deaf daughter who works at a resort in Breckenridge—telling her he was building a bigger home for himself and his family, something I thought a great waste of money … and also a “tale-tell.” Something was rotten in Denmark!
    When I’d pressed my husband, Samuel, about it, he pooh-poohed my concern away, telling me if I wanted to know if anything was going on, call Tim and ask. But then … Jan … and I simply let it slide.
    Now, with this phone call, I knew there was trouble.
    “Tim, I’ve been meaning to ask you … wait …” I swiveled back around. “I want to close my door—” My words faltered. There, standing on the other side of the glass wall, was my handsome son, cell phone pressed to his ear.
    “Hi, Mom.” He smiled a forced smile. His thinning light brown hair was tousled—probably from being windblown—but he still managed to look sharp in a pair of dark slacks, gray oxford, and multicolored sweater. His brow moved up and down in an imitation of Charlie Chaplin, an attempt to make me laugh—or at the very least, smile—but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
    From the looks of things, my youngest boy had come