“This is what I wear to work every day,” she informed him loftily.
He grinned at this as if she was a slot machine that had just paid off.
The driver cut the engine. The truck shuddered like a big animal. “Is there a problem, ma’am?”
“No, no. I just thought I might have a septic emergency.”
“Understandable,” he said solemnly. “Pretty pungent. The good stuff always is.”
“Don’t worry, Avalon,” Mac soothed. “It’ll only smell like this when the temperature gets into the high seventies or eighties. Which it will be for... oh, the next few weeks. We’re looking at a warm spell. Or when a breeze sends it up toward the house. Which is usually only during the day. It’s a little more pungent in the summer though. When I plant my summer crops.”
All of which of course meant she had to cancel with Rachel indefinitely.
He was a stone-cold evil genius.
“I kind of like the smell,” she lied coolly.
“Smells like prosperity, doesn’t it?” said the philosopher in the truck, in all seriousness, listening to this exchange. He sucked in a long breath and sighed it out with pleasure bordering on a purr. “Farm-to-table vegetables! Nothing like it! Knowing who grew your food and where it grew and in what it grew. It’s how foodshouldbe. Mac is great at it.”
Despite Mac and the Stench (now there was a band name if she ever heard one), Avalon was charmed. She supposed she was glad there were people in the world who took pride in doing things like scrubbing crime scenes or cutting linoleum with those terrifying knives shaped like little scimitars or formulating gourmet poop, things she was ill-equipped to do.
But something about it made her wistful and restless again. It was pretty clear that even the gourmet poop guy was more fulfilled than she was currently.
Fresh Loads gave his truck door a friendly pat. “Well, if everything’s okay here, I’m going to go drop this load off. You comin’, Mac?”
“Right behind you, Randy.”
Randy fired up the engine again and steered his fragrant load off to wherever Mac would be planting his winter crops.
Mac turned to her. “So what’s the deal, Harwood? Are you on sabbatical? Are you going to be here indefinitely?”
“Why? Trying to suss out how fast I need to sell this place so you can plan another skirmish? How stupid do you think I am?”
“Not even a little bit stupid. Now, if you’d asked me about yourjudgment...”
Her temper was ramping. “If I’d angled the ramp just a little farther back, I would have made that jump across Whiskey Creek.”
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing. So is physics. Funny thing is, now I could easily calculate the right angle for a ramp that might get you across. If the mood strikes you.”
“And now you’re trying to kill me?”
“Why? You tempted to make that jump?”
The wordtempted, with all its soft plump consonants, hung there, throbbing with dimensions of meaning.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
“I notice you haven’t made me a newfinancialoffer for the house yet,” she countered.
His expression didn’t change in the least. It was like he hadn’t even heard her. She was positive he had.
“The giant cat on your shirt is staring at me and you’re wearing dogs on your feet. Don’t you think you’re overcompensating for not having a pet?”
“My mom donated this stuff to me.”
She realized that raised a lot more questions than it answered, so she hurriedly added, “How’syourmom, Mac? What does she think of your farming and groundskeeping career?”
“Who knows?” He shrugged with one shoulder, indolently.
