Page 64 of Honeycombs & Homecomings

The aunts. Right. In this town, an aunt was any woman over fifty-five. And there was no shortage of them.

The red and blue lights of an ambulance flashed over the tops of the maze.

“We better get these women checked out,” E. Morrison said.

Cash pointed to Tony. “What about him?”

Roger swatted a hand in his direction. “He’s not going anywhere.”

That’s not exactly what Cash meant, but whatever.

He walked over to Jo. She grinned at him, then took his hand.

“All right, folks,” Roger said. “Let’s get out of this maze and get your wounds checked out.”

E. Morrison stepped up, his thumbs hanging on his deputy belt. “To keep y’all from killing one another, the twins, Cash, and the tall gentleman here, will go first, then the fellas dressed up in the shark costumes,” he cleared his throat. “Then Deputy Roger will go, followed by this surly couple on the bale of hay and then me. Questions?”

Ryan pointed to Tony.

Allie whistled for Honey’s attention.

He glanced at her.

“Honey, stay with Tony. Keep him here,” Allie said.

Honey sat down and placed a massive paw on Tony’s back.

Tony let out a moan.

The group proceeded as the deputies instructed. Allie and Jo went to the ambulance first. Aside from her black eye, Allie had scratches all over her arms, but Cynthia had taken the brunt of that fight. Cash was certain she’d be covered in bruises in the morning.

A crowd gathered, and E. Morrison headed off to take care of crowd control, while Roger stayed and took the Warners statements. Cash doubted there’d be much truth in it, but with the contract safely torn up and shoved in his pocket where he could take it home and burn it later, he didn’t think they had much to worry about from them anymore.

Brandon had been there when Cynthia had slapped Jo, and since he was technically a third-party witness, they were in the clear. And, while Jo had attacked Tony first, no one seemed to care much about that.

Cash stood at the back of the ambulance with Jo, Allie and Brandon as the EMTs looked over the twin’s scrapes. Jo stood next to him, her shoulder touching his as one of the EMTs prepared an alcohol swab.

Allie sat on the top step of the ambulance and Brandon leaned against the open ambulance door by her side.

One of the EMTs, that Cash recognized from high school, was working his way up Allie’s arm, going over each cut and scrape.

She flinched back when he went over a nasty cut on her arm. “Watch it, Dan.”

Dan the EMT smirked.

“For the love . . .” Allie shook her head. “You have the bedside manner of a wasp.”

Brandon smiled at Allie. In fact, he hadn’t taken his eyes off her since the deputies had arrived. Cash grinned, maybe the guy wasn’t so bad after all.

Jo’s EMT finished his swab, and with a quick glance at Jo and a returned nod, he carefully dabbed at the cut on her face. Jo hissed, but held her ground. Cash wrapped an arm around her waist and she leaned into him.

“This is a nasty scrape,” the EMT said.

“You noticed?” Jo said.

The EMT leaned closer, then shot a quick glance toward Cynthia. “I’m sure every nick and cut on her was justified.”

Jo grinned. “Thank you.”

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