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“Right you are,” Joa
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It took almost an hour and a half for the ranger from Fish and Wildlife to show up and take charge of both Elvira Hollenbeck and her snakes. By then Joa
Frustrated, Joa
“Just over the Divide.”
“Since we seem to be engaged, don’t you think we should meet for a late lunch?”
“What about Junior?”
“I’ll bring him along. Not very romantic, I know, but that’s the way it is.”
“How’s he doing?” Joa
“All right. Once I got him started on video games, he finally stopped driving me crazy about the badge.”
“I have one for him,” Joa
“Well what?”
“What happened with Eleanor?”
“We had a nice chat.”
“Butch, when it comes to my mother, there’s no such thing as a nice chat. What did she say?”
“She asked if I was going to marry you, and I said yes. End of discussion.”
“Just wait,” Joa
“Of course not,” Butch agreed. “You’re her daughter. Maybe we could work out a deal. You talk to my mother, and I talk to yours.”
“I don’t even know your mother.”
“It’s just as well.”
“You never talk about her.”
“For good reason.”
“Is she going to be happy about this?”
“About our getting married? Sure.”
“Then why don’t you want to talk to her about it?”
“Probably for a lot of the same reasons you don’t want to talk to yours,” Butch admitted. “That’s why I know how to handle Eleanor. It’s familiar territory. Those two women are birds of a feather. My mother and yours could be twins.”
“Oh, great!” Joa
“Right,” Butch said. “We’ll turn our mothers loose on each other. Bisbee, Arizona, will never be the same. When it comes time for the rehearsal di
“Butch, give me a break. I’ve had my hands full with a gun-toting construction crew and a Gray Panther who evidently supplements her Social Security checks by illegally collecting rattlesnakes. I haven’t exactly had a chance to pick up the latest copy of Bride magazine.”
“Well,” Butch said. “Maybe we can talk about it at lunch.”
Walking into Daisy’s, Joa
Butch gri
It turned out, however, that Daisy’s Cafe in the early afternoon was neither the time nor the place to discuss wedding plans. For one thing, the addition of a very noisy Junior to the mix made Butch and Joa
Hoping to quiet Junior, Joa
“What have you got there?” Daisy asked, pulling a stubby pencil out of her stiffly lacquered beehive hairdo.
“Mine!” Junior a
Before Joa
Gri
Joa
“You from around here?” Daisy asked as Junior resumed his seat.
Junior’s face clouded. The grin vanished. He shook his head sadly, then he pointed at Joa
“Well,” Daisy said, “lunch first. What’ll you have?” Junior looked at her in bewilderment.
“How about a hamburger,” Daisy coached. “You like hamburgers?”
He nodded. “Like.”
“And to drink. What about a milk shake? Chocolate, maybe?”
The grin returned. Junior beamed. “Yes. Junior like.” After Joa
“We don’t know,” Joa
“How are you going to do that?”
Joa
“So he could be from almost anywhere,” Daisy said with a thoughtful frown. “That would make it tough.”
Joa
“I’ll think about it,” Daisy said. “But before I do that, I’d better turn in your order or you won’t ever get any lunch.”
Daisy disappeared into the kitchen, and Joa
“What’s that?”
“The fact that you’re always on duty,” he said seriously. “The fact that your pager can go off anytime of the day or night and you have to go. You’re like a doctor on call, and it’s the same way for Maria
Over time Joa