Read Online Home Sweet Gnome by Jennifer Zane - Free Book Online

Indians out here than the North and South.
    “There she is!” Aunt Velma called out. She ducked her head to fit through the small bedroom doorway, her red hair matted flat on one side.
    I pulled down a slat in the metal shade on the window behind me. Nothing stood out of the ordinary until a woman who was about five foot nothing, had blinding white hair and wore a purple velour tracksuit climbed out of a late-model Taurus. That car had the Dixie horn?
    She angled her head back into the car and made the toot-the-horn arm motion and the horn blared again. She laughed and slapped her knee at the repeated sound. Yes, that was the car. Everyone in the parking lot turned her way and had mouths hanging open, staring. The trunk popped and she went to the back, grabbed an avocado-green hard-sided suitcase circa 1975 and set it down. Reaching back in, she pulled a large cardboard box that, from my elevated angle, I could see was filled with liquor bottles. She placed this on the ground next. Lastly, she pulled out a huge watermelon. Oh man, this was going to be a serious road trip.
    This was not a woman to underestimate. She was strong as an ox to lug a watermelon of that size when you weighed ninety pounds soaking wet. I had no doubt she could drink any one of us under the table based on her trip supplies. This woman had been a Roller Doll? She marched right over to JT, who stood on the curb, phone to his ear and mouth on the ground and handed him the watermelon. He fumbled with his coffee, his phone and the large fruit, completely stunned. When Esther turned back to the Dixie car, JT was mumbling to himself. It was probably a good thing I wasn’t a lip reader.
    Aunt Velma and Goldie piled out of the RV and I followed, albeit a little less enthusiastically.
    “Only you, Goldie West, would drive an RV that looks like a giant silver dildo,” Esther Millhouse commented, hands on hips and shaking her head.
    JT spewed coffee in a three-foot radius, then muttered something I could definitely understand without hearing.
    “Put that watermelon inside for me, young man,” Esther dictated. Probably knowing he couldn’t just hand the thing back to the woman without appearing rude, he did as he was told. He gave me a look that screamed What the fuck?
    “Daphne, Daphne, come meet Esther.” I didn’t have a choice but to join my aunt and meet the woman since she was going to be spending the next few days with us.
    “Hello, Esther.” I shook her tiny hand and tried not to cry out when she gave me a death-grip squeeze.
    “I’ve heard all about you,” she replied. “This is going to be great. I love a good trip with the girls, and that man, hoo-wee. Has any of you claimed him yet, because it’s been a long time since I’ve had myself a man like that?”
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw JT step out of the RV, but at the woman’s words, backpedaled right back inside. Perhaps he was afraid he was going to get his ass pinched. I tried not to grin.
    “I’ve already claimed my man, Esther. You were at the wedding forty years ago,” Goldie said.
    Esther sniffed. “How about you Velma?”
    “Carl’s all the man I need right now, Esther.” Based on the way they humped like rabbits, I couldn’t imagine her having enough strength for another.
    “Hmm, it’s just you and me, kid.” She eyed me like a boxer across a ring. “So who is that beefcake?”
    “JT, stop hiding and come out here,” Aunta Velma called.
    Ducking his head, he stepped out of the RV and tried to look like he wasn’t dreading the next few minutes. “Ma’am.” He nodded at Esther, who was taking in every inch of the man like a woman at an all-male revue.
    “JT had a little problem with his motorcycle in Bozeman and we’re going to drop him off at Sturgis on the way.”
    Esther nodded smartly. “Saw the sad thing on the trailer. Heading there for vacation?”
    JT ran his hand over the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable. “Something like