Payton chuckled. “Maybe only until you are forty.”
“Or fifty,” Zed laughed with him.
Brook swung her forefinger around to take both of them in. “It’s not funny.”
“I’d have given my right lung to have seen that fight. I bet it was kind of funny. That big boy thinkin’ he could whip you or, worse yet, turn you into his little pot-smokin’ girlfriend.” Zed slapped his thigh and kept laughing until he had to pull a handkerchief from the pocket of his overalls.
“I bet he’ll be glad to stay at home the rest of his year,” Payton said. “Can you imagine how his tough friends would tease him about a little wisp of a girl whipping his butt?”
Brook stood up and slung her book bag over a shoulder. “I hope Mama thinks like y’all do. I’m off to the laundry to help Aunt Tawny. Is that where Aunt Harper is?”
“Yep, but since the boss is back, you can tell her to come on to the café.” Zed continued to wipe at his eyes.
A wide grin split Brook’s sweet little face, and for a second, Zed took credit for her perfectly even white teeth. He might not share actual DNA with those girls, but he figured he loved them more than blood kin, so he could have passed down his smile to her.
Harper was busy folding towels and Tawny was replenishing the maid’s cart when Brook entered the small laundry building. Tawny motioned for her to come over and inspect the cart.
“I think I’ve got it arranged just like Flora did, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to pass judgment.”
“Wow, I really do feel like a supervisor,” Brook laughed.
“Just remember that supervisin’ brings on lots more responsibilities,” Harper warned.
“Then maybe I don’t want the job. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is.” Brook sighed. “Oh, yeah. Uncle Zed says for you to come on back to the café. But can you wait just five more minutes?” She dropped her backpack on a folding table and nodded at the cart. “Looks like Flora did it herself.”
“What do you need, kiddo?” Harper asked.
“I was wonderin’ if maybe y’all could come to the house tonight and be there when I tell Mama about the trouble I got in today at school. She’s goin’ to be real disappointed in me.” Brook hopped up on the folding table, her legs dangling and her shoulders sagging.
“What happened, honey?” Tawny stopped what she was doing and sat beside her.
Tawny laid a supporting hand on Brook’s knee. She knew what it was like to be apprehensive about having to come home and admit to trouble at school. “Tell us what happened,” she said.
Brook told them the same story, word for word, that she’d told Zed and Payton. “Mama sent me to martial arts classes for a couple of years so I could get rid of my anger, not use it on someone when I was angry, but dammit.” She clamped a hand on her mouth. “I’m not supposed to cuss, either.”
“But dammit”—Tawny grinned—“the way I see it is that you were protecting yourself and not taking the rap for drugs again. Flora is doing the right thing getting Cassidy away from that little thug. I’m proud of you, girl, but you are right, you’ve got to come clean with your mama.”
“That means you’ll come to the house about seven thirty, then?” Brook asked.
“Of course we will.” Harper patted her shoulder. “We’ll always be there to support you, but also know that we won’t fight for you with your mama if we think you are wrong.”
“Thanks. Now you can go on to the café. I think Uncle Zed is fixin’ a burger for Payton, and it won’t be long until the fishermen start comin’ in for supper,” she said.
“Yes, boss.” Harper grinned.
“I wish I was smart enough to really be a boss.” Brook let out a long whoosh of pent-up air.
“You are well on the way,” Tawny said. “Let’s go work over in cabins one and two. The folks in there had Do Not Disturb signs on their doors until half an hour ago.”
“Yes, ma’am. I love y’all,” Brook said.
“Love you more,” both Harper and Tawny said at the same time.
“Y’all sounded just like Granny Annie. She used to say that all the time.”
“Best compliment I’ve ever had.” Tawny pushed the cart out the door behind Harper.
Harper and Zed got finished in the café a little early that evening, so she had thirty minutes before she had to be at Dana’s place to support Brook. The girl had spunk and she hadn’t started the fight, even if she had thrown the first punch, so Dana should go easy on her when it came to her punishment for getting in trouble at school.
She’d rushed to her cabin and took a hot bath to ease some of the aches and pains out of her legs and back. Keeping an eye on the clock she’d hung beside the vanity mirror, she reluctantly crawled out after fifteen minutes and wrapped a towel around her body. She was halfway across the floor when she heard the familiar sound of a truck parking in front of her cabin. She hurriedly threw on underwear, jeans, and a clean T-shirt and slung open the door as Wyatt raised his hand to knock.
Grabbing his hand, she pulled him inside and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m so glad to see you, but we’ve only got five minutes. I’ve got to be at Dana’s in ten.”
His lips found hers in a long, passionate kiss that sent sparks bouncing off the cabin walls. Teasing her mouth open with the tip of his tongue, he deepened the next one, leaving them both panting when it ended.
“Why?” He led her to the bed and pulled her down in his lap. “Do you.” Another scorching-hot kiss. “Have to go to Dana’s?”
“Because Brook got in trouble and she wants me and Tawny there when she tells her mother. I’ll tell you the story later, but I really have to go right now.” She planted one more kiss on his lips and then hurried out the door.
Tawny was already there when she arrived, equally out of breath because she’d jogged the distance in a pair of flip-flops. Brook was curled up on the end of the sofa. Dana was in the rocking chair and, from the way she raised an eyebrow, all of what was about to go down was not a total surprise. Had Uncle Zed told her?
“Okay,” Brook said. “Mama, I’ve got something to tell you.” And she went on with the story. “I started the actual fight and I have to go to in-school suspension for a week for it. That boy’s a jerk, but I shouldn’t have hit him first or as many times as I did before the teacher pulled me off him.”
“And what did you do when the teacher got you away from him?” Dana asked.
“I kicked him two more times and Mr. Green came runnin’ out of his room and grabbed my legs and they hauled me into the office,” she said. “Mr. Green was as big a jerk as Ryson when he was here at the lake, but he did stand up for me and tell the truth about what happened.”
“I’m glad you told me, but I’ve got to admit that Marcus Green called me right after school and told me the whole story, pretty much the same way you just did. And he apologized for being such a jackass when he was here,” Dana said. “You let your temper get away from you again, didn’t you?”
“I sure did, but he made me so mad when he said that about Cassidy. She thinks she’s in love with him, and he just used her. We might not be the friends that we were in the first week I was here, but it just isn’t right for a boy to be that disrespectful. He should take lessons from Payton on how to treat a lady,” Brook said.