Free State Fair by Earlene Fowler

thing to do with me. I am so staying out of this.
    Words, Gabe always swore, that he was going to have engraved on my headstone.

CHAPTER 3

    “A REN’T YOU GLAD WE’RE TOO OLD FOR ALL THAT NONSENSE?” Gabe said, kissing my neck while I stood at the kitchen counter mixing dog food for Scout’s dinner. I’d just finished telling him about Jazz, Dodge, Justin and Cal. “By the way, Dove called. Three times. She wants to know if there’s something wrong with your cell phone.”
    “Not a thing. Do you think I should mention Dodge’s behavior to Levi?”
    “Not our business,” Gabe said. “Dove sounded awfully annoyed.”
    “Aunt Garnet arrives today. Still, don’t you think he should know that some guy is threatening his daughter?”
    Gabe leaned back against the kitchen sink and crossed his long legs at the ankles. “I distinctly remember you saying the last time you got involved with someone’s love life that it would be the last time.”
    “You’re a dog,” I said to him, then looked down at my gentle-faced brown Lab-mix, Scout, whose tail waved back and forth, a perpetual metronome of goodness. “No offense, Mr. Scout. You are the most true-blue man in my life.” I placed his dinner on the floor. “A young woman’s safety could be at stake.”
    Gabe scratched the side of his jaw with his knuckles. Through the kitchen window behind him, I could see our across-the-street elderly twin neighbors, Beebs and Millee, watering their rosebushes with identical old-fashioned watering cans. “So, tell him. We’ll probably see him at the concert tonight.”
    “We could mention it. Casually. Just in passing.”
    He held up his hands. “This is your deal. Leave me out of it.”
    “Fine,” I said, poking him in the chest. “By the way, you’ll have a certain wild-eyed, ex-rodeo queen waiting for you tonight. Mrs. Juliette Piebald sends greetings.”
    He laughed and pushed himself away from the counter. “She’s . . . quite something. But you have nothing to worry about. I’m just one pearl in a very long strand of men in her life.”
    I shot him a baleful look. “Who’s worried?”
    “I’m crushed. So, how’re things going at the fair?”
    “Same as every year. I have list of things to do during the fair’s run that would rival the president’s schedule. But it’s pretty quiet at the folk art museum, so I’ll be okay.” I washed my hands, then dried them on a kitchen towel. “We have a little while before we need to leave for the fairgrounds, so I’m going to rest my bones.”
    He joined me in the living room where we sat in matching leather chairs, sipped iced tea and watched the neighborhood through our picture window. The last thing I remember was Beebs and Millee practicing their Tae Kwon Do moves under the towering valley oak tree in their front yard.
    I jerked awake when the phone rang. The mantel clock said 6:40 p.m.
    I simultaneously picked up the phone and shook Gabe’s shoulder.
    “Sergeant Friday, wake up!” It was a nickname I’d given him when we’d first met because of how much he adored rules. “We’re going to be late for the concert.”
    It was Dove on the phone.
    “Get out your checkbook and look up a bail bondsman,” she declared. “I’m ready to commit murder.” Her voice was loud enough to assure me that Aunt Garnet wasn’t in the immediate vicinity.
    “Are you going to the concert tonight?” I asked.
    “Did you hear what I said?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” There was obviously no way I was going to dodge this conversation. I gave a loud dramatic sigh, hoping it was audible over the phone. “Gramma, she’s your sister . . .”
    “She’s already dusted my house—twice! I swear she’s rubbed the coffee table down to bare wood. She says my chicken feed is too fancy. She told your daddy he needs a haircut . . . well, he does . . . but that’s beside the point. She says her corn bread is better than mine!”
    Oh dear, that was truly throwing down the gauntlet.