Page 19 of Jenny
CHAPTER FIVE
Jenny kneeled in her backyard. The ground beneath her knees was rock hard. Sweat dotted her hairline beneath her wide-brimmed hat and ran down her neck. She wiped her face with her gardening glove. A good thing she’d slathered on sunscreen or she’d be getting sunburned.
The temperature was a scorcher on this August day. She glanced at Missy. “It’s hot, but it feels good to be outside.”
“That’s the spirit.” Missy dug holes to plant pink impatiens. She’d said the yard needed more color, left the house, and returned with flats of flowers. “You spend too much time inside. Somedays, I wonder if you’d ever see the sun if I didn’t open the blinds.”
“I work indoors, and the sun doesn’t appear that often in the Pacific Northwest, so I don’t miss much.”
“Today is gorgeous. Not a cloud in the sky.”
“Beautiful. I hope tonight is clear.”
“You’ve gotten into stargazing.”
Jenny nodded. “Something Dare started.”
Knowing he might be—or had been—looking at the same sky that night made her feel closer to him. Silly, but she went outside every night.
“You’re still emailing?” Missy asked.
“Not as much as we texted. He’s away for work, but we’ve kept in touch. It’s nice to have a new friend.”
Missy’s gaze narrowed. “Are you sure that’s all it is?”
“Yes, but…”
“What?”
Jenny thought about the way tingles filled her stomach whenever Dare’s emails arrived. His words made her feel as if she were special to him. “Sometimes… it feels like we’re more than friends.”
“Are you okay with that?”
“More than I thought I’d be considering I know nothing about him. Maybe that’s the appeal.”
“Whether you two are friends or something else, he makes you happy, and that’s all that matters to me.”
“Thanks.” Dare did make her happy.
Missy raised her chin and let the sun kiss her face. “This is the life. Hands in the dirt. Kittens asleep in the house. You next to me with a big smile on your face. It doesn’t get much better than this.”
Missy hadn’t sounded this content in years, not since before Rob’s death. Jenny’s heart overflowed with joy. Maybe her sister-in-law was finally finding some peace with what had happened. That was what Rob would have wanted.
Jenny wanted that for Missy, too. “After we finish and get the kittens fed again, let’s go out to eat and see a movie.”
“I’d love that. We haven’t done something like that in—”
“Way too long.”
Missy laughed. “We’re a pair.”
“Partners in crime.”
“Yes, but if Homeland Security comes knocking due to your internet searches, you’re on your own.”
It was Jenny’s turn to laugh. She wouldn’t be surprised if she was on a government watch list due to her internet searches on explosives, weapons, coup d’états, espionage, untraceable poisons, bomb defusing, and a hundred other things she’d looked up to research her thrillers.
They continued planting the rest of the flowers—red, pink, yellow, and purple. The bright colors shouted summertime and fun.
