Heather Webber - Digging Up Trouble

“Tam Oliver is asking to see you. If you could follow me?”

Tam! I’d forgotten about Tam. I could only imagine the superfluous tests they were subjecting her to.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Riley.

Kevin’s brows creased in worry. “Is Tam okay?”

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I thought about her Oscarworthy performance in the car.

“She’s fine.”

I followed the nurse down the red-lined hallway and stopped in my tracks when I stepped into Tam’s room. She was hooked up to all sorts of monitors, including one tortuous looking belt-thingy wrapped around her stomach.

The nurse said to Tam, “I contacted Mr. Phillips. He’s on his way.” She closed the door behind her.

“Ian? Ian’s coming here?” I asked.

The father of Tam’s baby was her first husband, a marriage that had been declared null and void after she discovered he already had a wife. He’d been in jail when Tam found out she was pregnant, and I didn’t know if he knew about the baby. Knowing Tam, probably not. And since he’d be serving time for a few more years, I wondered if he’d ever know about the baby.

But if Ian was coming, something serious must be wrong.

He and Tam had been dating hot and heavy for about a month now. Were head over heels despite the fact that Ian was an FBI agent and Tam had a thing against people who wore badges. I rushed over to the bed. “Tam, what’s wrong?”

She sniffled. “How’s Riley?”

“Fine. Just fine.”

A grin spread across her face. “I told you so.”

I smiled in spite of the knot of worry twisting my stomach. “What’s wrong?”

“I have to stay here.”

“What! Why?”

“It seems I’m not such a good liar after all. I’m having contractions. Looks like the baby wants to come early.”

Four

I’d barely slept at all last night between worrying about Tam and trying to figure out what I was going to do without her at TBS.

Shading my eyes against the early morning sun, I sur-veyed the Lockharts’ backyard and wondered if it was too early to call the hospital.

All my other calls had resulted in the same outcome: No change in Ms. Oliver’s condition.

A truck rumbled in the distance. I hoped it was Kit with the skid loader. The yard was going to take a while to clear out, but luckily the first dump truck had arrived on time, so we were all ready to begin when Kit showed.

The doctors put Tam on some sort of medication to stop the contractions until they had time to give her steroids to help the baby’s lungs develop.

She could be in the hospital for days, possibly weeks.

I just prayed that the baby would be okay.

“Nina, you’re here!” Lindsey said. “This is so exciting.”

Even with my Tam worries, I was excited too. I loved the buzz of the actual makeover day. The adrenaline, the challenges, the fast pace. This yard would definitely be a challenge, but the end result would be a job well done.

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Bright sunshine highlighted every flaw of the yard. Thank God the Lockharts had finally called someone for help, even though it had taken a lawsuit to provoke them. I looked at Lindsey. “Bill make it out okay this morning?”

“What? Oh! The fishing. Yes, yes.”

I noticed she wrung her hands. My eyebrow quivered.

What was going on? “Is there anything you need to tell me?”

“What? No. Nothing at all.”

Overall, I loved surprises. It’s one of the reasons I loved my job so much. However, I didn’t like feeling as though Lindsey was keeping something from me. Especially if it might be something that put my reputation or company at risk.

“There’s a big truck out front towing a trailer with a Bob-cat on it,” she said.

That had to be Kit. “We’ll be using the skid loader most of the morning, clearing all this out.” I gestured to the quar-ter acre of overgrown grass and weeds and a couple of rotting trees. (Okay, I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised to not find a rusting car resting on four cinder blocks amidst the weeds. Yes, it was that bad.)

I looked to my left, over a small picket fence. The house next door had a beautifully kept lawn, a trimmed boxwood hedge, nice planting beds, and an adorable little greenhouse.

To my right, the neighbor’s yard was enclosed with a six-foot wrought-iron fence. Tall fountain grasses provided privacy all along its perimeter. There was no seeing in, and no seeing out.

It was easy to imagine why. No one wanted to view the Lockharts’ yard in its current state. Not even me.

“Does the HOA know about the work going on here today?” I’d had issues with homeowner associations before and didn’t want to deal with that kind of hassle today.

Lindsey shook her head. “No.”

Digging Up Trouble

33

“Are they going to be up in arms over it? We’ll be making a lot of noise.”

“They want the yard fixed up more than anyone.”

I just hoped there wouldn’t be any problems. My stress level couldn’t take any more.

“I’m going to, uh, go grocery shopping,” she said, already stepping away. “You have my cell phone number?”

Again my eyebrow twitched. Something just wasn’t right about this whole job. Most clients liked to stick around, watch our progress. Some even baked us cookies and brought us lemonade. I was bummed. I’d wanted a chance to poke around her house, see if there were any pictures of Leah Quinn lying around. “Yes.”

“What time will you be done?” she asked, looking somewhat worried.

Both eyebrows lifted. Uh-oh. Something was definitely wrong. “Six.”

“Right. Six. Okay. ’Bye!”

I heard Kit unloading the skid loader and went down to the curb to see if Jean-Claude had showed.

He hadn’t.

I growled.

That was it. He was so fired when I saw him.

No more Ms. Nice Guy.

Girl.

Whatever.

There I went again, rambling to myself. Never a good sign my day was going to go well.

I decided to make myself useful as Kit tackled the backyard with the help of Ignacio and his crew.

To help ease my tension, I decided to get started with the planters. Nothing soothed me more than planting flowers, getting my hands dirty. I dumped my clipboard into the cab 34

Heather Webber

of my TBS truck and made sure my cell phone was clipped to my waistband.

The only color in the front yard was a terra cotta pot full of thriving white pansies on the front step. Maybe if there were leftover flowers from the backyard, I’d have Deanna add some to the front mulch bed, where three sad-looking spireas were in need of pruning.

From the bed of the truck I pulled out five large glazed white pots and set each on the ground. They were tall, maybe two and a half feet high, but not very wide. Maybe eighteen inches at best.

I hunted around the utility truck for gravel, which would provide good drainage and stability, and for potting soil, which I would mix with topsoil for planting.

I’d just finished stacking five sacks of potting soil on the Lockharts’ driveway when a hoity-toity female voice said from behind me, “Who are you?”

I turned. A small woman with long blonde hair stood on the curb, eyeing me.

“Nina Quinn,” I said. I held out a hand to shake, but caught a glimpse of it. Filthy. I rarely used gloves when planting. I pulled my hand back. “And you are?”

“Meredith Adams.”

That cleared that up.

Under severely plucked eyebrows big blue-gray eyes bulged slightly. Why they bulged I had no idea. Was this some sort of evil eye I’d never encountered?

When she continued to stare, I began wondering if she was all there. Upstairs.

“What are you doing here?” she finally said on an exas-perated sigh, and I realized she’d been waiting for an explanation. That cleared up the eye-flaring thing.