Smitten Kitten Corruption: Country Cottage Mysteries 22 by Moore Addison & Bloom Bellamy

Author:Moore, Addison & Bloom, Bellamy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hollis Thatcher Press. LTD.
Published: 2022-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

I bolt toward the stage, just as the Live Your Best Love Life Conference draws to a close, and grab ahold of Ida Rose’s elbow before she topples to the ground. Our bodies collide briefly, and something hard and steely against her hip touches my side.

“Great catch, Bizzy.” She chortles as I help her onto the main floor. “Nobody wants to see an old lady rolling around on the ground with a broken hip. It’s given me trouble before. And this poor cat.” She nuzzles her cheek against Darling’s forehead.

I’ve been dropped before, Darling mewls. I would have been fine. Unless, of course, I landed underneath her. Then I would have been flat as a pancake. She stretches her paws. Speaking of which, I vote we have pancakes once we grill the woman.

Speaking of grilling the woman…

“Do you have some kind of apparatus around your hip that gives you support?” I ask, glancing down to where the hard protrusion is located. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were packing heat. That’s the way my husband’s gun feels when I’m pressed against him.”

She looks at me from over her wire-rimmed glasses. “That’s because it would be my gun,” she whispers as much as she can with the roar of the crowd around us.

Darling, Fish, and I gasp at the thought.

“Ida Rose, why are you carrying a weapon with you?” I ask lower than a whisper and she winces because clearly, she heard.

“A girl can’t be too safe.” She glances over at the refreshment table where a majority of the women are swarming both the cookies and that chocolate fountain Georgie seems to be guarding. “My father was in the military, so I’m no stranger to firearms. And when I was married to Norvel, well, it’s probably best I didn’t have a gun then. I could have pumped him full of an arsenal of bullets. He wasn’t the best husband. But once we separated, I got a permit to carry. I felt miles safer after that. Plus, I had the kids to protect.”

“Kids? I don’t know why, but I thought you just had one son—the one that was married to Willy.” No sooner do the words leave my lips than I cringe. What if her other child met some horrible fate? I feel bad even bringing it up.

“I have a daughter.” She sighs. I haven’t thought of that brat in ages. I have no idea why I brought her up—even if it was in a roundabout way.

Brat? I blink back.

I take it relations have soured. But still, I can’t imagine thinking of my own child that way, regardless. Little Mack may be my nephew, but I love him as if he was my own. And I would never call him a brat, to myself or others. Although, I could see Mackenzie using the term, so there’s that.

“A daughter.” I nod. “Is she in Maine?”

“Both of my children are.” She sighs heavily. “Loretta lives near Bangor and Butch lives in Seaview.

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