Free Fire at Dusk: The Firefighters of Darling Bay by Lila Ashe Page B

perhaps what they’d done, but the fact that he’d canceled it? That he’d been a jerk of the first degree?
    “Did you also know that we had sex in the Mustang?”
    Maureen waved her hand. “Don’t you try to shock me, young man. I know you smooched and then she left in a huff.”
    There were eyes in the trees, spies everywhere . Really, he had enough in savings that he could run off to Mexico and be pretty damn comfortable for at least a few years before he had to figure out a next step. He should just go. But damn, if he’d packed a bag, Maureen would have heard it through the grapevine and would probably show up within minutes of him zipping the suitcase.
    “Do you happen to know where I left my spare key?” It was a smart-alec question. His spare hadn’t been on his hook for the last month, and he couldn’t figure out what he’d done with it. There was no reason for Maureen to know where it had gone, though.
    She lifted a ring of keys out of her basket and jingled it. “I took it.”
    Didn’t that just figure. “Why? You already had one, and you always ring the doorbell anyway.”
    “So I could have Eva come in and clean. She needed a key.”
    “That’s what I hire Rosamunde to do. Every two weeks.” Hank was terrible at house-cleaning and he knew it. Rosamunde was the daughter of Eva, Maureen's longtime best friend.
    “She’s terrible at the baseboards. Eva’s better.”
    “You’re too old for the baseboards. For that matter, so’s Eva.” Hank hated to think about someone his grandmother’s age hunched over, wiping the corners of his rooms.
    “Ah, I’m just messing with you,” said Maureen. “Rosamunde’s great. I just wanted a key so we could watch your cable TV when you’re at work.”
    “And again, what about your key?”
    She suddenly became extra invested in something her fingers were doing.
    “Gramma?”
    “Oh, all right. I dropped it off the pier.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I needed something to throw at a seagull that had taken one of my stitch markers.”
    Hank shook his head. Sometimes he thought it would be easier talking to a three-year-old than Maureen, even though her faculties were still sharp as her pointy needles.
    The pot had almost a full cup of coffee in it now, and he poured it into his mug. He couldn’t wait any longer for it. He needed it.
    “So, Gramma, what’s up this morning? Besides knowing more about my life than I do, apparently.”
    “I need to tell you not to see that girl anymore.”
    Hank blinked. “Samantha?”
    “Who else are you seeing, Madonna?”
    Someday he’d introduce her to a current pop artist. “I appreciate your concern.”
    “But I should butt out.” Maureen clicked her needles and her fingers were moving so fast he could barely tell what she was doing. “I hear you. But I’m not concerned with what you think about this one.”
    “You never are.”
    Maureen pressed the tip of a needle to her chest and took a breath that would inflate a blimp. “You wound my heart when you say that. Right here is where I feel it. In the middle of the night, all I can think about is my grandson and his happiness. What did I do to deserve—” She reminded Hank of an opera singer, her chest heaving with emotion.
    “Before you get all wound up like that, can you please do a man a favor and get to the point?”
    Maureen deflated and cheered up. “Okay. Look. That girl’s no good. Never has been. There. I want great-grandkids someday and I don’t want a junkie to give birth to some meth-addled crackbaby.”
    “What?”
    “You know what I mean. Dump her. You can’t trust a girl like her. And Eva says there’s a new waitress at Mabel’s, and she’s just the kind of girl you like, all skinny and blond.”
    “I like a brunette with curves.” Samantha had perfect curves, made for speed.
    “You do not.”
    “That’s like telling me I don’t like pickles.”
    “But you do like pickles. You love them!”
    “I know. But if you told me I