Page 7 of A Class of Her Own

He nodded and looked around. “You’d think.”

I pursed my lips. “I shoveled it myself. But I’d like a discount on my next HOA payment.”

Now it was his turn to cock his head. “I’ve only been doing this a little while, but I’m quite sure we don’t run a discount program.”

“I pay for snow removal, and I ended up doing it myself.”

“That was your choice, I guess.”

He tucked his hands in his pockets, and it was the type of relaxed,I’m not taking you seriously, move that spiked my heart rate.

“My choice? Do you see what I drive? I couldn’t get in my driveway without shoveling. And heaven forbid I parked on the street. Hazel would have triple ticketed me for that infraction.”

“Hazel only has single-ticket authority.”

“Brooks!” I groaned out his name. Why was he always like this stone I was beating upon? Never reacting, always immovable, never ruffled. I wanted him ruffled! “You get my point.”

“Yes. As exaggerated as it might have been.”

I glared. He stared right back, minus the emotion. It grew silent as we both watched each other, me waiting for any sign of weakness I could exploit, him most likely wondering what weakness of his I’d try to exploit.

“Oh, Meredith, dear, how sad you must be.” A squeaky voice pulled our attention away from each other.

Hazel marched up my driveway, bundled in a fur-lined parka and some sort of tall boots that hit her above the knee. She had a knitted scarf around her neck and held one end in her hand, pressed to her mouth. She’d moved it to speak before pressing it back against her mouth. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she didn’t have it wrapped up around her mouth too if she was that cold.

“Sad?” I asked, knowing full well it was a mistake.

She moved the scarf. “To find out yours was the only house missed by the snow people. It must feel like you’ve been targeted,” she said and then pressed it back against her pink lips.

I looked back at Brooks and raised my eyebrows, even though I spoke to Hazel. “Brooks here was telling me there were several homes missed.”

Hazel shook her head and waved her free hand before pulling the scarf away from her mouth. “Oh, no. I don’t think that’s true. I’ve contacted everyone, and it looks like it was only you.”

“You called all one hundred and twenty homes?” I asked, my jaw feeling lose with shock.

“You know how many residences there are?” Brooks asked with raised eyebrows.

“Don’t you?” I shot back.

“Moving on. The snow removal company told me . . . ” Brooks started, but Hazel waved her hand at him and he stopped midsentence.

“Oh, no,” she giggled. “I blitzed it out on the interwebs and heard back from everyone.”

I didn’t trust her information. At all. For starters, her verbiage was suspect. For all I knew, she’d messaged a group of Japanese noodle houses, and they’d all reported back that they were happy with their snow removal. I also didn’t believe for one minute that all the other homeowners had responded. I knew people too well to believe that statistic. I did, however, believe that my house was the only one skipped, although the reasons were a little fuzzy at the moment.

“Thanks, Hazel,” I sighed. Then I changed tactics. “I am sad, actually. You know my dad’s a widower, right?” I softened my stance and made my eyes large. “He’s mostly homebound, so I had to go shovel him out after I finished here. Thankfully my sister had brought him dinner, but I haven’t had mine yet. And I’m so cold and hungry. It’s been a hard night.”

Hazel’s eyes grew round, and she dropped the scarf down to her chest, pressing it against herself as her mouth rounded too. “Oh, now we can’t have that. Brooks will call that nasty snow company immediately, and we’ll get this figured out. In the meantime, I have some delicious stew left over from dinner. Why don’t you come over and get a bowl, huh?”

“Beef stew?” I asked, thinking of my dad and his sudden issue with beef.

“Yes, dear.”

I threw Brooks a smirk over my shoulder as I followed Hazel to her house. “I love beef stew.”

CHAPTER THREE

I needed to run. I needed to blow off some steam and feel the burn of my muscles as they worked. It was the best way I’d found to manage stress, and I was under a whole lot of that now that Hazel had decided I was her personal project. The beef stew and sob story had backfired, and, for the past two nights, I’d come home to find Hazel waiting on my porch with a casserole dish and two plates. Thanks to my efforts to make Brooks squirm, I’d ended up dining with Hazel for three nights in a row. I didn’t like it one bit. Hazel was fine as far as neighborly relationships go—I never heard her through our shared wall, which was all I really needed—but I craved my alone time. Not only did I spend my entire day with twenty-five children and co-workers, but I thought of alone time as something I’d earned after years and years of caring for others and putting myself at the bottom of the list.

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