Free The Legend of Sleepy Harlow by Kylie Logan

figure out that Noreen is a self-centered, self-righteous, annoying cow with OCD and an ego as big as all of the great outdoors?”
    I was saved from saying
practically no time at all
when Dimitri looped one arm through Jacklyn’s and another through mine. “Come on. We’re going for coffee. And Bea, it’s my treat. It’s the least I can do to show you how bad I feel about what happened last night.”
    Jacklyn’s smile was sleek. “Let me guess—that something you feel bad about has something to do with Noreen. Am I right?”
    Instead of answering, Dimitri piloted us over to the coffee shop near the park and left us at a table on the patio while he went up to the window to place our orders. He came back and put one cup of coffee in front of me and one in front of Jacklyn before he went back up to the window to get his own.
    “So . . .” Dimitri sat down, and without a word, Jacklyn popped the top off his coffee, added two bags of sugar and stirred. “Has Jacklyn chewed your ear off yet? About how much she hates Noreen?”
    “We haven’t had time to talk about anything at all,” I told him, and it wasn’t like I wasn’t curious, but I did have to admit, I was getting uncomfortable, like I’d stepped into the middle of a family feud I didn’t understand and didn’t want to get involved in.
    Dimitri took a sip of his coffee before he leaned closer to me. “Jacklyn hates Noreen almost as much as I do. With a fiery passion,” he said quietly, though not so quietly that Jacklyn couldn’t hear it. “Jacklyn would like to boil Noreen in oil.”
    “I wouldn’t waste perfectly good oil.” Jacklyn sat up and put an arm across the back of Dimitri’s chair, a sort of half smile on her face that made it impossible for me to tell if she was kidding or not. “I’d just as soon whack her over the head with a big old boulder. Then I wouldn’t be squandering resources.”
    “You keep talking like that and Bea’s going to think you’re some kind of nutcase. Tell her the truth, Jacki. Tell her what you told me a little while ago.”
    The way Jacklyn’s smile wilted, I knew she was sorry the fun was over. “Truth,” she said. “The truth is, Noreen is the reason I came to the island. I heard EGG would be here filming, and I came over from the mainland to thank Noreen.” She sat up a little straighter. “Call me shallow. I knew it would be a heck of a lot more fun in person than it would ever be via text message.”
    My coffee was hot. I popped the top and blew on it. “You came all the way over here to thank her for firing you?”
    Jacklyn’s dark eyes gleamed. “Absolutely. You see, if it wasn’t for Noreen—”
    “We’d all be a little less crazy and a whole lot less stressed,” Dimitri said, then laughed so hard, he ended up coughing, and he pounded his chest.
    “True,” Jacklyn acknowledged when he’d finally settled down. “But that’s not what I was going to say. I was going to say that if it wasn’t for Noreen kicking me off the show, my schedule wouldn’t have been nice and open when my agent called a few months ago. I’m just back from California.” Her shoulders shot back. “I got a part on
Brains and Beauty.
”
    “The soap?” I was impressed, and I told Jacklyn so. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
    “It would have been impossible if I was still hanging with these losers.” I can’t say for sure if the smile she tossed at Dimitri was genuine or not; I only knew that like the sun that shone overhead, it warmed him through and through. I could practically see him turn to mush right before my eyes.
    “It’s not officially a recurring role,” she added. “Not yet, anyway. But my agent says there’s a good possibility they’re going to write my character into a new story line. Cool, huh? I can’t wait to tell Noreen and watch her turn neon green with envy! Turns out when she got jealous and dumped me off the show, she was actually doing me a favor.” Jacklyn