“In case you need a wildlife trapper, or”—she flipped the card over—“a new book!”
The server, a teenager who was probably not even old enough to vote, pocketed the card. “Wow, that’s some combo.”
“You’re relentless,” I muttered to Vera as the server walked away.
“It’s brilliant, isn’t it? That’s the fifth card I’ve given away today. I’m sprinkling them around town like pixie dust.” She smiled triumphantly.
Between bites, we debated other necessities for the store and talked about which nearby pond or swamp would be best for the catch-and-release critters. Admittedly, our dual passions—gators and romance novels—didn’t really go together like peanut butter and chocolate.
But for Vera and me, it was all part of our upbringing. Dad had trapped reptiles, Mom had read romance. To us, it made sense. Since they were both gone, it was our way of honoring them.
“There’s a park on the east side of town, but it’s owned by the county so we’d have to get permission to release the gators,” Vera said, adding that a friend of hers owned a small cattle ranch that had a river on the property, but she wasn’t sure if he’d want gators near his cows.
The river in back of Vera’s property—well, our property—was also a possibility, but neither of us wanted a gaggle of gators congregating in the yard. We loved them, but not that much.
“I’ll ask around. Don’t worry.” She took a bite of her spicy chicken bacon ranch melted sandwich.
“How’s things going with the store? Did you get the final occupancy permits?”
“I went to City Hall this morning. There are a couple of minor obstacles.”
I wiped my mouth with a napkin. “Like what?”
“We need special permits if we’re going to serve food. I didn’t realize that. What the fluff is that about?” She opened her mouth as if to say more, then closed it. Although she hadn’t planned to serve food right away, it seemed like a snag not to have the necessary permits in hand before opening.
“What’s going on? Tell me,” I probed. “Do you need me to step in and handle that? You’ve got a full plate with the redecorating. Also, you look a little tired. I think you need to slow down a bit. Maybe take a day off.”
“You didn’t come home to run the bookstore. And you didn’t come home to take care of me,” she said in a defensive tone. “Stop trying to fix everything. Nothing’s broken. You’re doing it again, I can tell.”
“Doing what?” I’d never told Vera that Dad had asked me to look after her. He’d thought she was a bit of a fragile snowflake, like Mom had been. Dad and I were of sturdier stock. Or so I believed.
“Worrying. Dictating. Controlling.”
“Jesus, Vera, you make me sound like a terrible human. I came home to help you. I came home so we could be a team.” As I studied her in the bright sunshine filtering through the window, I spotted a new patch of white vitiligo under her left eye. It was obvious that she’d tried to cover it with heavy makeup. Why she went to those lengths, I wasn’t sure—she was fanatical about not getting any sun, so her normal skin wasn’t that dark to begin with.
I wondered if she was purposefully not telling me certain things about the business or her personal life. Or if she was worried about the spread of her white patches. She’d mentioned that it had overtaken her shoulders and most of her back.
Her gaze darted over my head.
“Oh fluff,” she said.Fluffwas her go-to alternative swear word.
“What?”
“Gene’s here.”
“Shit,” I whispered, contorting my face into a grimace. It was always bad news when the Andrews sisters were under the same roof as Gator Gene.
Chapter Three
“Don’t make eye contact,” Vera hissed. “He smells fear. Like a shark, but not as smart.”
“Pfft. Like I’m afraid of that prick.” Maybe Gene wouldn’t notice us and would move along, since the restaurant was so crowded.
Vera stared at her half-eaten sandwich, her lips pursed in downward disgust.
Gene was the other alligator trapper in Wahoo, one with a long-standing grudge against my family. The biggest skirmish had happened right when we were graduating from high school, when Dad trapped an elusive nine-hundred-pound gator on the Wahoo Country Club golf course. Gene had wanted the capture in the worst way, thinking it would bring him notoriety and more business.
Instead, my dad nabbed the beast and found himself on the front page of theOrlando Sentinel. Because he’d turned the gator over to my uncle’s sanctuary instead of selling the creature for its lucrative skin, Dad had received a humane society award. That burned Gene’s biscuit.