Jules gave her the wary eye. “We’re getting out of town.”
“Oh. Nice.”
“Yep.” Jules hitched a shoulder. “Enjoy your weekend.”
Shirley stopped in shortly after Jules left. “Nice speaker,” she said unconvincingly.
“It was short notice. Did Jules even listen?”
“Couldn’t tell.” Shirley gestured to the binders. “Redoing the old stuff to match?”
“Jules said—” Anna buried her head in her hands and groaned. “Is Corporate really coming in for a visit next week?”
“Yep.”
“But you didn’t ask me to make the old data match the new system before they get here.”
“Nope. Not a bad idea though. Eventually.” Shirley tapped her pack of cigarettes against the cube door. “Well, kid, at least now you know she was listening.”
But it didn’t mean she heard.
There wasn’tmuch of anything moving in the trees today, not in the right direction anyway. Jackson had a notion that had something to do with his hunting buddy.
She hadn’t clamped her trap for more than the millisecond it took her to suck in a breath since they left his truck this morning. Radish hadn’t been happy to be left home this morning, but right now, Jackson was jealous of the old girl. Least she had some peace.
“How many times did it take you to pass economics?” Louisa was saying.
He swiveled his head away from the tree he’d been scanning to look his baby sister up and down. “You failed economics?”
“My teacher was a real dickhead.”
An explosion the likes of which he’d never heard from his daddy’s mouth erupted in his head, accompanied by a couple of tirades hehadendured from his momma. “You talk to Mamie with that mouth?”
She rolled her eyes heavenward, though if she thoughtDaddy would’ve been on her side, she was flat wrong. “He was. It’s like he thought we all wanted to beeconomists.” She spat the word like it meant the same thing asmurderers. “Plus, weallhad other classes.”
“Some teachers are tough. Means you gotta be tougher.”
Her lower lip curved. Barely a smidge, but he noticed.
“Not everybody’s tough as a big old military officer,” she said.
“An economics class isn’t war.” He scanned the trees again. A branch rustled. A squirrel paused on it. He lifted his shotgun and aimed at the furry little thing.
“You got one?” Louisa yanked out her shotgun and bumped Jackson’s arm. “Where? I wanna get it.”
The squirrel jumped branches, and Jackson watched its path disappear in a zig-zag line of rustling leaves. “Louisa. Ain’t gonna get a thing if you don’t pipe down.”
Didn’t need to look close to see the lip now.
He stifled a sigh. That no-women-during-hunting-season rule apparently applied to girl hunting buddies too. He slouched against a tree. “We hunting or jabbering?”
The lip got bigger in direct proportion to her narrowing eyes. If it wasn’t for her having Daddy’s eyes and dimple, he would’ve wondered if they were full siblings, but she had ’em, all right.
Used ’em like Momma did though. “Some people can doboth. Guess the big old Air Force didn’t teach you that yet.”
“Air Force taught me to keep my trap shut if I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.”
“Yeah, well, the squirrel won’t shoot back at you.”
