Good thing Radish couldn’t tell anybody otherwise.
He made to shove the armadillo in a corner, but then hegot a better idea.
Radish gave a sigh and padded into the living room. His dog’s way of claiming innocence. Pretty sure she threw ayou’re too old for that, dummyin for good measure.
Louisa was coming next weekend. She’d given him the armadillo for his twenty-first birthday. Didn’t matter where he was in the world, first thing she did when she came to visit was check on it. Once or twice she put a dress on it. The armadillo, he’d keep. The dresses went to the shop for grease rags.
A note on the table caught his eye. Curious, he tucked the armadillo under his arm like a football and went to check out Anna Grace’s parting shot.
The handwriting was about as symmetrical as he’d ever seen, and the note wasn’t half-bad either.
Jackson–
Your movers lostyour silverware organizer. Also, it’s difficult to dry dishes with towels that are made of holes instead of cotton. I only mention it because I didn’t see any paper plates.
Anna
(JUST Anna)
She’d probably stoodabout fourteen feet high and looked down her nose at that paper while she was writing the note, too.
The lady might be strung tight, but she sure amused him.
He crossed the kitchen to the fridge and deposited the armadillo in it front and center, right where it’d make Louisa scream like a girl the first time she went digging for his beer.
That’s when he realized something was missing.
Son of a biscuit. His apple pie was gone.
Still, he felt his grin go a little wider. “Good for you, Anna Grace,” he murmured to himself. “Good for you.”
CHAPTER NINE
She made plans, and life changed her plans. So she planned to change her plans in anticipation of life, until the day she surrendered her plans to change her life.
—The Temptress of Pecan Lane, by Mae Daniels
Thwack!
A gust of cool air swept across Anna’s nose. She bolted upright in her desk chair. “Entropy at absolute zero is impossible.”
“Can you leave that crap in the classroom?” Jules tapped her fingers on the blue binder she’d dropped on Anna’s desk. “Quarterly review. Customer. Need a slide flipper. For God’s sake, wipe your chin.”
Anna swiped at her mouth. She worked her jaw around, wincing at an unfamiliar pain on her cheek. She gingerly fingered the abnormally smooth grooved skin. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes.” Jules smirked. “You got some shift and caps lock on your face.”
Anna rubbed at her cheek where she’d been laying on her keyboard. Thermodynamics would kill her yet. “Three more weeks,” she grumbled. Then finals, but at least she’d be done. She stood and had to grab her desk when her left leg refused to work. Apparently sleeping at her desk was bad for her faceandher circulation. “I have a test tonight.” She fingered herskin again. “How bad is it for real?”
“Pretty sure you don’t have to worry about anyone hitting on you today.”
Like anybody in the office would try. Jules was the only one who still treated her mostly the same as she had before the divorce. Anna tested her weight on her leg. Getting better. “Is everybody else already there?”
Jules leaned out the door. “Shirley’s not—no, wait, there she is. Yep, everybody else is ready.”
Anna limped out of her cube, using the walls for support. Her leg tingled. “I seriously hate thermo.”
“It doesn’t like you much either.” Jules grabbed the binder and stalked out of the lab.
