How to Howl at the Moon (12 page)

“Oh, all right. Fine! You’re doing some reconnaissance in your dog form, and that’s all it is, and it’s none of my business, and I’ve always been a virgin. You and your brothers and sister were all conceived by supernatural means. Happy?”

Lance was exhaling and inhaling through his nose like a bull.

“Oh relax! You’re going to give yourself a
heart attack
. I’ll see you later, huh? And don’t forget dinner on Saturday. Seven sharp.
Chance
.”

With that Lily walked out, all but switching her invisible tail.

*                          *                         *

Lily
knew there was more to this ‘work’ than Lance was saying. She could feel it. Something was different about his dog spirit. It felt more surfaced, open… happy. Beside
s
, when Lance got all stubborn and refused to budge—

Well, to be fair, he was always like that.

But still, there
was
something going on with this ridiculous charade. Lily was not fooled. But naturally, Lance would never admit it or stop doing whatever he was doing.

There was nothing for it. She had to go see this mysterious Timothy Traynor for herself. She called Leesa at the sheriff’s office.

“Leesa! I need you to do me a favor. Call me and let me know when Lance goes out on a call that’ll take a while. But don’t let him know I asked you or that you told me.”

There was no point prevaricating. Everyone in town knew that Lily had to know everyone’s business, and Leesa, as her son’s receptionist, knew it so well it was probably etched on her immortal soul.

“Will do, Lily,” said Leesa in a bored voice.

“Thank you!”

Now she just needed an excuse. Maybe a fruit basket?

*                          *                         *

Tim hated this fucking shovel. No matter how much he wrapped up his hands, it still hurt like hell to operate the damn thing, thanks to all his broken blisters. Fortunately, after the first thirty minutes or so of agony, his hands got so numb the pain faded. Then he only had to deal with the sore muscles in his thigh from stepping down on the shovel edge to sink it in the dirt, and the ache in his back from prying up each orangey-brown clod.

Frustrated, h
e looked over the bit he’d finished. He’d
gotten less than
a quarter of the
area he needed
turned in three long, painful days
. His seedlings w
ould be coming up any
time
now
,
and the last frost date was the tenth of May
. They’d need to be
transplanted
to the field
in just a few weeks. Then there were the peas and lettuces that need to be started in situ
right away
. He’d called around about hiring a guy with a backhoe, but couldn’t justify spending several hundred dollars on it when his bank account was a one-way street
,
and those same hundreds could be spent on more seeds. Or fertilizer. Or mac and cheese. So, on he went.

He left off to
do a midday check on his seedlings in the greenhouse, and that’s where he found the stranger. She was looking over his seed trays. What the hell?

“Um… hello?” Tim said warily.

She was a small woman—maybe five-
foot-
three and slender. She didn’t seem at all embarrassed to have been caught snooping. “Hi. Timothy Traynor? I’m Mrs. Beaufort, but you can call me Lily. I came to drop off a coffee cake. That’s why I stopped by.” She waved in the direction of a baking pan covered by a dishcloth that was sitting on the counter.

“Oh. Um. That was nice of you. Wait—”
Beaufort
. Tim looked over the black hair and sky blue eyes and felt himself unaccountably blush. “Are you related to Sheriff Beaufort?”

“I’m his mother.” She sounded proud of that fact and very certain. Well, duh. She
would
be certain, wouldn’t she?

“You don’t look old enough to be his mother.”

Tim hadn’t said it as a compliment, but he could tell from the way she relaxed a little that she took it as one. “Oh. Thank you. Lance, my son, he’s the sheriff.”

“I… know that?”
Tim said.

“He’s a good man.”

Tim nodded politely. If she said so.

“He’s too serious, but he does have a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. Watching out for trouble. Because trouble—we don’t want that here.”

Tim blinked into her blue eyes. She was talking to him very pointedly. “Okay.”

“So maybe you should grow your…
plants
…” she waved her hand around the greenhouse. “Somewhere else. Fresno’s warmer.”

“Excuse me?”

Tim took a step backward toward the door. Lily Beaufort was migrating toward him, edging into his space in a way that pushed him to retreat.

“Plus, more people to buy… whatever it is you’re selling. Lots more. In Fresno. Or Oakhurst even. That’s far enough away. What about Mariposa?”

Tim hadn’t realized he was still moving until he felt the knob of the greenhouse door press into his back. She was regarding him with a cocked head and an intent, challenging look that made her seem much larger than she actually was. Something inside him wanted to turn around
and flee.

Instead, Tim got pissed. He was tired of being bullied! And what was it with this town, anyway? People were either so friendly you could hardly believe it, like Daisy at the diner, or that hyper-enthusiastic guy at the post office, Mr. Beagle, who talked Tim’s ear off anytime he got within three feet of the place. Seriously, you passed by the post office door at your own peril. Or the townspeople were
Beauforts,
which… yeah. Someone needed to teach that family about a little word called ‘boundaries’.

Tim put his hand behind his back to grasp the knob, stepped to one side, and pulled the door open. “Thanks for the coffee cake. But if anyone needs to leave here, Mrs. Beaufort, it’s you. Nice to meet you. Bye.”

Lily startled, like she was shocked he’d say such a thing to her. But she was the one who’d been rude first! He wasn’t going to apologize.

She continued to stare at him, but she took a step back. “Why did you choose Mad Creek, Tim?”

“Because! Because I know Linda Fitzgibbons, the woman who owns this property, and we made a deal. I’m allowed to live here rent-free in exchange for a plant hybrid I’m growing for her. And that’s, you know, a key selling point because I don’t have the money! I lost my job, and I’m trying to get back on my feet, so, my apologies, but I’m not going to be run off! Not by you
or your son or anyone else!”

Lily hrmphed, but her intensity
deflated. She turned to look over the plants with a casual air like they hadn’t just argued, the two of them, complete strangers. She wandered to a tray and poked at the dirt.

“Could you please not—”

“The plant hybrid for Linda Fitzgibbons… what does that mean?”

Her tone was nicer now. Curious. But Tim didn’t trust her past the end of her nose. “It’s a rose,” he said sullenly. He regretted it once he’d said it. But Lily Beaufort didn’t know anything about Roots of Life or Marshall, or where Tim had gotten the rose hips. There was no reason not to tell the truth.

“We have yellow roses in our yard,” Lily said. “They must be strong, because we never do a thing to them. They’re pretty but they get spots.”

“That’s probably blackspot. Or possibly fungus. Do they get full sun?”

Lily shrugged. “They’re against the front of the house, which faces east.”

“If they’re against the house, they get shade at least half the day from the house’s shadow. If they get four hours of sun a day, they should be all right, but there’s some organic spray you can get for blackspot. It’s worth it. Also, be sure to clean up any fallen leaves regularly, because the disease harbors in the leaves.”

Lily looked at him assessingly, but she continued to stroll away, looking around. “So these roses you’re growing are yellow roses? Red?”

“With a hybrid, you breed two different rose species, so you don’t know exactly what you’ll get until the hybrid plant blooms. But yes, I have some nice crosses that should be yellow. The one I hope to get for Mrs. Fitzgibbons, though, is a cream with lavender tips.”

“Sounds nice.” She didn’t look very impressed.

“It
will
be, if I succeed. It’s really hard to get. Plants with tips are almost always red or pink. No one’s ever done a tipped lavender
. Not the shade I’m going for anyway
. If I pull it off—” Tim shut his mouth. No point getting into that. Mrs. Beaufort would probably think he was just some loser wannabe, and he wasn’t about to recount his awards and stuff. Anyway, why was he telling her anything?

Lily turned and gave him a smile. “You know, plants have always fascinated me.”

“They have?”

“Oh, yes! Green things! Growing! Life!” Her nose did a weird little quiver. “I’d love to hear more about all this. What do you say we go in and have some coffee and coffee cake? I can see you’ve been working like a slave, Tim. You deserve a break.”

“Well, I—”

Lily grabbed the coffee cake, linked her arm in his, and led the way.

Over coffee and coffee cake, Tim told Lily about Roots of Life.

He told her about Purple Passion Pepper and the awards.

He told her about Marshall, the bastard, and the profits he’d kept for himself and the copyrights he’d filed and how that meant Tim couldn’t grow his own
hybrids
.

Tim had seen a documentary once about how certain carnivorous plants lure in food with tiny, fine, hair-like cilia, which wave and wave and gradually draw the speck of food—or fly as the case might be—down into their gullet. Talking to Lily Beaufort was like that. Her eyes were like information vacuums and her sympathetic little murmurs were like the tiny waving cilia hairs drawing out his life story with seductive ease.

And maybe Tim had been in need of someone to talk to, because he could
not
shut up.

They drank a pot of coffee and ate the
entire
coffee cake. Lily had quite an appetite for being such a petite little thing.

“You’re going to be a huge success,” Lily said matter-of-factly, as she cleaned the last crumbs off her plate. “I’ll tell all my friends to go see you at the Mad Creek farmer’s market.”

“Thanks. I’d appreciate that,” Tim said sincerely.

“But you really shouldn’t be doing all this on your own!” she said with a motherly
tsk
. “It’s way too much work. And you shouldn’t spend so much time by yourself out here. It’s not healthy for a boy your age. People might get the wrong idea. Particularly stupid people.”

“I’m not alone. I have Chance.” Tim felt a sudden wave of affection and wished the dog was there right now.

“Chance?” Lily
asked
with wide-eyed curiosity.

“He’s my dog. At least, I hope he is.”

“Well, where is he?” Lily looked around.

“He, um, well, I’m not sure where he goes during the day, but he’s only around at night. I think maybe he has another home. Hey, maybe you know him? He’s some type of collie, I think, really thick black hair, brilliant blue eyes. He has a white spot here—” Tim placed a hand over his heart. “And a tiny spot here—” he touched his ear, smiling at the thought of it. “Honestly,
he’s the most beautiful dog you ever saw.”

“Doesn’t sound at all familiar,” Lily said dryly.

“Well, Dr. McGurver said Chance didn’t belong to anyone in the area, and he would know, right? Maybe Chance just likes to wander during the day. Whatever, he’s awesome company. We’re fine
, just the two of us
.”

Lily hummed. “Sounds like he’s an older dog. Probably boring. Set in his ways.”

“He’s not boring, but he is stubborn,” Tim grinned. “Sometimes I think he gets
me
to do what
he
wants.”

“I know the feeling.” She looked at him with those overly bright eyes. “He’s sedentary, though, I’ll bet. Of course, you work hard all day so you don’t need an active dog. Maybe a couch potato lump is what you need.”

T
i
m laughed. “You don’t know Chance. Last night we took a long hike through the woods and he showed me a new trail. Of course, he does like to watch movies with me too. But we take dance breaks.” He smiled at the memory of the two of them jumping around while watching
Austin Powers
last night.

Lily choked on her coffee. “D-dance breaks?”

Tim felt stupid now. Why had he said that? “Just, you know, being silly. It’s easier to be yourself with an animal.”