Complete Me (Book Three of The Kirkland Family)

Complete Me: Chapter 37

Chapter 37

Rose finished her piano lesson that evening and walked little Jennie back to the diner. Mona and Zack walked out to the parking lot behind her, going on their date with smiles and laughter, and Rose felt very uneasy about it, but she wished them a happy time. Back in her apartment, she fed the kittens, loved on them for a while and prepped her dinner. She didn't know if Cole wanted to join her that evening, and she wasn't sure if calling him would look too clingy, so she decided to wait until he got back home.

Just as she slid a baking dish of chicken breasts into her oven, her phone rang, and she ran to catch it. "Hello?" she asked, breathless.

"Rose, how do you get tree sap out of your hair?" Violet's voice asked in a panic.

"Tree sap?" Rose said. "Why do you have tree sap in your hair?"

"It's a long story," her sister said. "Just tell me how. I tried calling Momma but she isn't answering."

"Okay...I think peanut butter will get it out, like that time Joey Burnhart put gum in your hair. And use your hair dryer to warm it up a little. If that doesn't work, you might have to Google it."

Violet huffed. "There is no wifi or internet or stupid cell service down in this holler. I have to walk down to the cabins and Abigail Tate's place for a landline — which I am not doing with tree sap in my hair, because old Abigail is the nosiest woman alive — or go up the mountain — which is where I am now — to make a call."

"Where are you, exactly?" Rose asked, appalled.

"Flora Bradley's home in Virginia, not far from this town called Lynchburg," Violet said with a weary sigh. "I discovered that Flora knows the source of Grandma's song, but ever since I got here, she's been three sheets to the wind on white lightning, or she's off 'communing with nature' — whatever that means. I have no idea where she goes, but she's here one second and gone the next. She's a freaking ghost sometimes, Rose! She's ninety years old, and she outruns me!"

Rose pictured that...and began giggling. "She sounds spunky."

Violet sighed again, but this time, there was a tone of affection to the sound. "She is. She's wonderful, actually. Rose, you just don't know — this woman lives out here, all alone, at her age, and her nearest neighbor is a half mile away. I can't figure if she's crazy 'cuz she's been isolated for so long, or if it's just her."

"Well...if she's putting tree sap in your hair..."

"Oh, noooo!" Violet said, sounding grumpy again. "That wasn't Flora. That was her stupid great-grandson — 'Staff Sergeant Isaiah Jonah Bradley of the United States Army, but you, sweet thang, can call me Whiskey Izzy, everyone does.' Ugh!"

"Whiskey Izzy? Why?"

"Something to do with his unit in the army," Violet said. "But he was medically discharged, and he showed up three days ago, and already he's stuck a snake in my bed, vinegar in my coffee and dumped a bucket full of frogs on me in the shower. And now, I have tree sap. In. My. Hair! Flora thinks he's flirting with me, but this little boy doesn't know who he's messing with. I've dealt with little snots like him before, and I can do it again."

Rose opened her refrigerator to dig out the vegetables for a salad and said, "Wow...how old is he? He can't be very young if he was a Staff Sergeant."

"He's thirty, Rose! Thirty years old, and he acts like he's twelve," Violet snarled. "Oh...I'm gonna get him for this one. If I have to cut this stuff out of my hair..."

As she laid the vegetables on her cutting board, Rose smiled because Violet never got this worked up over a man, unless it was Zack pulling one of his shenanigans, and that made her wonder. "Is he cute?"