Winter's Tale (The Foxglove Corners Series Book 3) by Dorothy Bodoin

Author:Dorothy Bodoin [Bodoin, Dorothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
Published: 2015-02-21T05:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

The words of thanks died in my throat. We were both outside the store now and alone in the parking lot. My car was parked at the end of a line of trucks and vans.

His lips arranged themselves in a sneer. “Well, if it isn’t Jane again. Seems you’re everywhere I go these days.”

Nothing about him had changed. He hadn’t gotten that shave yet, and his eyes were as cold as I remembered them. He was a predator who thought he had snared his prey. But I wasn’t going to be trapped.

I started to walk away. “Excuse me. I’m in a hurry.”

“Not so fast, Jane. You called the cops on me. You told them I tried to steal your dogs. You and that old lady are both crazy. You say I’m a thief? You’re the thieves. You stole my dog.”

With every word Grimes uttered, he seemed to grow angrier. By the time he had finished, the veins in his temple and neck were bulging, and his large fists were clenched. Next to him, I felt a foot smaller than my height, which was average. As much as I would have liked to run for the sanctuary of my car, I forced myself to look up into his furious eyes without flinching.

“No one called the police, and you were trying to steal the shelter dogs. Don’t try to deny it.”

“I was just looking for my dog. Just taking back what’s mine. Why would I want those mangy mongrels when I got a good dog of my own? You set that big gray mutt on me, too. That’s not very friendly. If I get rabies, I’m going to sue you.”

All right, I told myself. You’ve stood up to the man. He’s delusional. End this.

Fine. But how?

Another man came out of Hazelton’s, carrying a bag of rock salt and a snow shovel. I glanced toward him with a half smile. He crossed in front of us to a black truck without looking our way.

“That dog was protecting his property,” I said. “Stay away from the shelter. It’s under police protection now.”

In situations like this, I always like to have the last word. I left Grimes standing there and walked away as quickly as I could, without appearing to be running. I resisted the impulse to turn around, even when he shouted, “Tell that husband of yours to take better care of you, Jane. You’re going to have some big trouble real soon.”

~ * ~

As I sped away from Hazelton’s, Grimes’ threat and his angry voice were with me in the safety of my car. I planned to stop at the animal hospital before going on to the shelter to take possession of Winter. Driving fast seemed to calm me.

Lila was right; I had made an enemy. Grimes’ rancor went back further than the day he had attempted to steal the shelter dogs. He knew I had lied to him that night at the Cauldron, and he resented it. But why was I thinking of what I’d told him as a lie?

A tale told to an unknown man in a tavern isn’t a lie.

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