Shlooping was a new word for Halle. He’d either made it up on the spot or was mispronouncing whatever word his dad had actually used. Regardless, she understood what he meant. “Coop the Shloop!” She wagged a finger at them to underscore her warning, pulling the expected snickers out of the boys. “Save me some, you hear?”
“Coop the Shloop!” Ryder hooted out her new nickname for his brother and followed it up with a belly laugh that had him clutching his sides.
Cooper made the obligatory “shlooping” sounds, lowering his head to his plate to eat his next bite like a vacuum cleaner. No hands.
“Careful,” Halle called to him. “I don’t want you to choke on your food.”
He toned down the sound effects but continued to eat without his hands.
“I’ve created a monster,” she muttered as she turned around to open the door. “Make that two of them.” She adored both boys to pieces, though. Serving as their nanny was turning out to be easier than she’d anticipated. They were high-energy and hilarious, but they listened to her and followed her rules.
Another triple knock sounded on the door as she twisted the handle.Oh, for pity’s sake!She opened the door. On the other side stood Brooke Aspen. They were about the same age, and both of them were single—something that shouldn’t have bothered Halle as much as it did. She was pretty sure it was why the woman kept showing up at the door in the hopes of meeting Owen.
Brooke was a dyed blonde and slender in a willowy sort of way. Unlike Halle, who’d been born and raised in the country, it was obvious Brooke was from the city. It showed in everything from her high-end wardrobe to the way she complained about farm smells.
She was wearing a tangerine-colored suit with wide pant legs. A paisley scarf was tied loosely around her neck, and a straw Stetson was perched at a sassy angle on her head. Her feet were tucked into leather boot heels—expensive-looking ones that were heavily embroidered. She probably thought she was setting new trends in western wear for the country peasants who lived on their street.
Lucky us!
In Brooke’s hands, with their perfectly manicured tangerine fingernails, she clutched a homemade pie between two quilted hot pads. A swirl of steam rose from the center, telling Halle that it had just come out of the oven.
“Hi, Brooke!” Halle forced a cheerful note into her voice. “What can I do for you?” Since she was the hired help, she technically wasn’t under any obligation to invite the woman inside or act like they were friends.
Owen’s closest neighbor was all gifts and smiles, but there was something about her that rubbed Halle the wrong way. She couldn’t say what it was. Maybe it was petty jealousy on her part that the woman owned her own cattle ranch.
Whereas I let my family’s chicken farm get conned away from me.
Not for long, though, if Owen lived up to his reputation as one of the top forensics investigators in the private security industry.
“I brought you a pie,” Brooke announced with a wide smile that showed off her bleached white teeth.
“Oh, wow!”Again.Halle eyed the steaming pastry, unsure it would get eaten before it went bad. Maybe she would try freezing this one. “That’s the third one this week.” One for each day she’d been on the job, though she doubted the pies had anything to do with her.
Brooke’s smile didn’t so much as waver. “It seemed like the neighborly thing to do. You have a lot of mouths to feed. I made this one with Aspen blueberries fresh off the vine.”
Aspen blueberries?Halle resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “It sounds delicious.”
According to word on the street, Brooke bought her fruit and vegetable seeds from the same nursery in town where everyone else did. It was misleading to toss her last name in front of the fruit she harvested to make it sound proprietary.
Halle reached for the pie. “I’ll let Owen know you stopped by.”
Brooke moved the pie out of reach. “It’s really hot. Allow me to carry it to the kitchen for you.”
“It’s okay. I can handle it.” Halle reached for the pie again. “The boys are eating lunch, and Owen is away?—”
“I insist.” Brooke took a determined step forward.
If Halle hadn’t flattened herself against the open door, she might’ve been burned by the hot pan as Owen’s smiley neighbor barreled into the entry foyer with it.
“Hi, boys,” Brooke called cheerfully—a little too cheerfully in Halle’s opinion. Her voice never failed to grate on Halle’s nerves.
“Hi, ma’am,” the twins chorused politely. Then they went back to wolfing down their lunch.
Ryder was crunching his way noisily through three brimming tacos. Bits of lettuce, cheese, and meat dribbled onto his plate with each bite he took.
Cooper was busy demolishing an equally overstuffed burrito. Two hours of throwing, catching, and running intervals on the baseball fields this morning had helped them work up an appetite.
Brooke moved past the island to the stove with the familiarity of someone who’d been in the house a thousand times already. Had she?
