Read Online Doing It at the Dixie Dew by Ruth Moose - Free Book Online Page B

again from the outside. Then he tapped the glass, wiggled his fingers good-bye and was gone.
    I sat feeling almost contented for a moment, wondering if that butterfly of a kiss counted as brotherly affection, a friendship buzz or an appetizer for something more. Whatever it meant, I only knew I was sleepy and so relaxed, limp as a rag doll. Ossie DelGardo and the rest of the world could go to hell. I was going to bed.

Chapter Six
    I did wake up feeling good, much better than I thought I would. There had been no nightmares, no reliving over again the moment of finding Father Roderick or hearing again in my mind Ossie DelGardo’s hooded threats.
    I didn’t know what all Scott put in the toddy, but it was what I needed. Sherman was a nice way to wake up. He’d climbed on my bed, licked my cheek. Then Ida Plum. What would we do without her? Funny, in a small town like Littleboro, where everybody knew everybody else, I didn’t know all that much about Ida Plum Duckett. Just that she’d worked for Mama Alice, cooking and serving, the last several years. Years I’d been away when I should have been in Littleboro, making up to my grandmother for all she’d done for me. Instead I’d gone my selfish way, sometimes not even coming back to Littleboro for a few weeks in the summer. Ben had been my life. And then one day he wasn’t.
    Funny, though, Ida Plum seemed to know something about everybody and more than a lot about some people. She wasn’t a gossip, or didn’t seem to be, worked hard and was more than dependable. She read situations, like this morning, and stayed two jumps ahead of them.
    â€œIf you’re going to that auction,” Ida Plum said, “eat a big breakfast first.”
    â€œSounds like you’re mothering me,” I teased, and refilled my own coffee cup.
    â€œSomebody’s got to. You go running around in the dark, finding dead people and getting hauled into the police station in the middle of the night.”
    So I ate and dressed and was brushing my teeth when I heard Scott’s truck, and his two-note whistle, at the back door.
    â€œIda Plum Dumpling.” He circled her waist as she stood at the stove. “How come you never got married again?”
    â€œWell, it wasn’t because I wasn’t asked,” she said. “Maybe they never said it in the right way. And with the right jewelry.” She laughed.
    Scott poured himself juice. “Oh, I see. Mr. Right has to say it the right way at the right time in the right place.”
    â€œI didn’t say that,” Ida Plum said as I came in the kitchen. She set a place on the sunporch for Mr. Lucas. One end was straightened up and he’d have a view of the back garden. Maybe he wouldn’t notice the screen I had hiding my small collection of unpainted tables and chairs. They sat stacked in an assortment of styles and finishes.
    On the way to the auction Scott drove down country roads in a part of the county I didn’t know or, if I did, had long ago forgotten. Dust stormed up behind him and James Galway played flute on the tape deck. Somehow I expected guitar or ballads or Willie Nelson, something in bluegrass. This was a paradox. There was a lot I didn’t know about Scott, a whole book, a lifetime.
    That gap of years when I had been away in that foreign land “up North.” Where had he been? What had he been doing?
    But the way he steered me through the crowd he seemed to know auctions and people. The auctioneer tipped his white straw hat as Scott and I walked past the crowd already seated under the trees.
    We inspected chairs in a row beside the barn. There were two sets of four that matched, plus some odd ones missing rungs and seats. “I can’t afford to have the seats caned,” I said.
    â€œNot to worry,” Scott said. “I know the county’s best caner and he’s reasonable. Plus he takes MasterCard.”
    â€œYou’re