Page 45 of Monsters, Vows, and Growls
I was all ears. If Dad was looking for a new wife, it was news to me, but I couldn't fault him; it had been a decade since… Mom died.
"Why, what did you hear?" he narrowed his eyes at Carol.
"Hmm, me?" Carol dug out another donut and bit in, looking innocently at my father and grinning from ear to ear.
"Carol," Ella warned.
"What, you know too?" I asked, a little hurt. "And you didn't tell me?"
"It's nothing but rumors," he shook his head.
"I don't think it's a rumor that widow Dowell had to go get her hair cut after Minnie Lester pulled out enough strands to make a wig from," Carol grinned.
"What are you talking about?" I had an idea, but the notion of twoolderwomen getting into a catfight over my father was… a bit distressing.
"I heard Minnie had to get two stitches from a scratch on her face," Ella added.
"What did you do?" I turned to my dad.
"Oh, look, a squirrel." He pointed out the window.
"He's playing the field, is what he is," Carol snickered.
"If that's anybody's fault, it's yours for supplying an old man with your books." He pouted.
"You're readingherbooks?" I asked flabbergasted. "I don't even read her books."
"That's because you're a prude," Ella boxed me good-naturedly. Then she looked sternly at Dad. "No nonsense like that at our wedding, though, okay?"
He pretended to look insulted, and Carol sat down on the recliner's armrest and put her arm around him. "No worries, I'll keep an eye on the old lecher."
My father cleared his throat and leaned back in the recliner like he hadn’t just set off a small nuclear flirt-bomb. “Anyway. Ella’s locked down this idiot, which means I can stop pretending I wasn’t hoping you’d be the next daughter-in-law.”
Carol’s eyes widened. “What?”
“I mean, just imagine it,” dad doubled down, a bit too casual. “Two amazing women, both smarter than the boys they picked, running this family. Holidays would be great. And the grandkids would have excellent genes.”
"And who would I be getting knocked up by, you?" Carol's eyelashes fluttered at him.
My ears were ringing. "I'm not listening to this, I'm?—"
"As much as I'm flattered, Carol, I was thinking about Gabe."
For some reason, the way he dropped my brother's name detonated like a bomb between the women, who stared athim like he had said something more outrageous than Carol suggesting… nope, I still wasn't thinking about that.
“You’ll have to take that up with Gabe,” Carol said icily. “That man hates me.”
"Hate's a bit strong, don't you think?" I asserted, now that we were back on safer ground.
“I’m sure you could win him over,” Dad suggested.
Carol’s mouth pressed into a tight smile, but her eyes… they flickered, just briefly, making me wonder if maybe she wasn’t as unaffected as she pretended.
“You think so?” she asked, folding her arms.
“I’ve seen how he looks at you,” he said, biting into another donut. “It’s not hate. It’s fear. That’s different.”
“Your son once called me anEncyclopain,” Carol snapped. “And said my voice makes his ears bleed.” She held up two fingers, adding more as she kept ranting. "He calls me marshmallow and Tinker Bell. He says I'm agiantpain in the ass."
