Read Online Rules of Lying (Jane Dough Series) by Stephie Smith - Free Book Online

words. “Well … you … Don’t think you can get all your neighbors to let their properties go wild too. That is not what the clause means!”
    Actually, I hadn’t thought of that. I wish I had, though it wouldn’t have mattered. Alberto would have insisted on an exchange of favors if I asked him to let his lot grow wild. Nothing could be worth that.
    “I have no intention of doing such an underhanded thing. I’m going to clean up the place. If I don’t get a prospective husband to help me, my new neighbor, Mr. Tyler, has offered to stand in. And he has a friend who owns a land clearing company. So there!”
    Mr. Carlson looked shocked, but no more than I must have. I hadn’t known I was going to lie until the words were out of my mouth.
    I told myself it was okay to lie because my lie lent credence to something I knew was true, and I probably wouldn’t be able to convince Carlson of that truth otherwise. That was one of the rules of lying. I knew I would get my yard in shape one way or another, and this little lie would convince Mr. Carlson of that too. So he wouldn’t worry. Hmmm. Maybe I could even add rule number one to this and say it was for his own good. Except he wasn’t looking very good.
    His red face turned purple and just as I panicked, thinking he might be having some kind of attack, I saw a movement behind him and caught a flash of gray and white. Little Boy.
    Little Boy was the name I’d given the stray cat. I’d spied him in the woods once when he was a kitten, but hadn’t been able to get within thirty feet of him. The next time I saw him was a few months later, and he had grown long but hadn’t filled out. I put a bowl of dry cat food out for him twice a day, and he started sneaking up to eat it. I was working my way up to catching him so I could get him neutered. He seemed to know what I was doing and stayed just out of reach.
    I was worried now because Little Boy had a bad habit of spraying around my door and Mr. Carlson was standing in what Little Boy considered his personal territory. Heaven only knew what Carlson would do if he was sprayed by a cat on my stoop.
    Little Boy had no intention of stopping to spray Mr. Carlson though. He whisked right by and through the open door with a wriggling present hanging from his mouth.
    “Eeeeeek,” I shrieked. “A snake!”
    I like to pretend Sue is the only one scared of critters, but Sue has nothing on me when it comes to reptiles. “Catch it!” I screamed just as Little Boy dropped the snake at the place where my feet had been. They weren’t there now because I had jumped out the door and into Mr. Carlson’s arms.
    Mr. Carlson was not moved by my fear. Well, he was somewhat moved because I almost knocked him down trying to climb up his body to sit on his head. I figured the higher I got, the less likely it was that the snake would get me. Mr. Carlson quickly recovered from his shock, though, and shoved me off.
    “I’m not catching a damned snake for you.” His growl came out of a scrunched-up face. “It serves you right. That’s what you get for living the way you do. I have a mind to charge you with assault. I could have been injured the way you came barreling at me!”
    He brushed furiously at the front of his coat, cursing loudly now. His anger would have seemed out of proportion to what had just transpired—if it hadn’t been for all the little brown sticky beggarweed pods I had generously gifted him with.
    “Trouble, Ms. Jansen?” asked a non-threatening, non-yelling voice. I cut my eyes from Carlson to the owner of the voice.
    Oh my God. The young, good-looking doctor. And I looked like this. Didn’t anyone bother using a phone?
    *****
    Dr. Bryan Rossi had come bearing gifts. The first gift was that he knew how to catch a snake. In between my yelps of terror as he went after it, he laughingly explained that it was just a Florida ringneck snake with a mouth so small it couldn’t bite anyone if it tried. He caught it and