Page 82 of This Time Around
“With a BB gun.”
“Right.” She reached behind her and lifted the weapon, and Jack took a step back. “But not only did I miss, the gun backfired the first time I tried to shoot it and it hit me in the face.”
“Jesus,” he said, wishing he could reach out and soothe her bruised skin. But he sensed his touch wouldn’t be welcome at the moment. “That’s awful.”
“And then the cops showed up, because apparently it’s illegal to fire a pellet gun in the city limits,” she continued. “So now, on top of a black eye, I have a police record.”
“They arrested you?”
“Of course not.” She waved a hand, looking wild and a little desperate. “But now there’s a record out there of the police coming to my house and talking to me, which is pretty much the same thing.”
“Pretty much.” Part of him wanted to hold her. Part of him wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Most of him managed to hold it together as he stood there on her back deck trying to keep a straight face. “Were you really going to shoot a woodpecker?”
She gave a heavy sigh. “Probably not. But I did think I could hit the fence near one and maybe scare it away.”
“What did you hit instead?”
“I shot the nipple off my neighbor’s Venus pond statue.”
“Ouch.”
“They weren’t amused.”
“Probably best you only got one shot off,” he said. “I think your aim might leave something to be desired.”
“Right. Well, I should probably get back to?—”
“Allie, can we talk for a minute?”
“What for?”
“I wanted to talk about that text message.”
“What text message?”
He sighed. “Nice try. Can we maybe sit down or something?”
“Actually, I’m kind of busy.”
“Could you at least put the gun down then? I wanted to talk to you.”
She seemed to hesitate, then lowered her weapon, such as it was. “What?” He heard her try to infuse the syllable with anger and bravado, but it came out sounding defeated. It was enough to buoy him just a little.
“Allie, I didn’t send that text message this morning. The one that said I made a mistake?”
She glared at him. “What are you talking about? Is your phone in the habit of sending regretful morning-after messages all by itself?”
“No,” he said slowly. “But my ten-year-old daughter is in the habit of using it to send her own regretful morning-after messages after she drops her own phone in the sink.”
She blinked. “What?”
“You text-dumped my kid, not me.”
All the color seemed to drain from Allie’s face. “Are you serious?”
“Yep. Want to reread the message in that context?”
He didn’t give her a chance to respond, whipping his phone out of his pocket before she could say anything. He flicked it on and scrolled quickly to the text messages. “Here, take a look. ‘Made a mistake.’” He held it out to her, forcing her to take it. “The mistake was taking her phone into the bathroom when I’ve repeatedly told her not to.”
