Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise Book 2) by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

Bart. I have to go with Pumpy. Thanks again for the lunch. And for the apology.” I snapped my container closed.
    Bart’s mouth turned down.
    “Why don’t you see yourself out,” I continued as I backed out of the room. Pumpy had already disappeared down the stairs to the lower level. I gave a little wave and ducked into the stairwell behind him.
    I tried not to breathe as I waited to hear the sound of Bart’s engine. The silent seconds ticked by. I reached the ground floor where Pumpy was waiting for me. Still no engine.
    Pumpy called for my attention. “Well, I measure the rooms, and I calculate it up real good, three times. You got enough tile for half the rooms left. You need to get more.” He thrust a piece of paper from his yellow pad at me.
    I glanced down, but didn’t read the numbers. “What? That’s impossible,” I said. I’d ordered twenty percent too much tile. We couldn’t have run out.
    “Yah mon, so sorry. I finish what you got. Maybe it come in quick.”
    “Let me see your tape measure,” I said.
    He handed it over. I re-measured the rooms, confirming dimensions I already knew by heart. I went outside and inspected the remaining pallets of tile. I counted them up. I calculated square feet. I compared it to the footage of the rooms, and a headache formed behind my left eye. We didn’t have enough, but what I didn’t know was why. I was furious.
    Finally, I heard Bart’s Pathfinder start, then the sound of his tires on the dirt lane. That at least was good.
    I ushered Pumpy’s plump figure back to his car. On our way through the bottom floor, I saw a sight that filled me with dread. Another hole, this time in the back of the living room wall. Concrete dust and crumblings littered the floor below it. It looked just like the other: five inches square and three inches deep.
    “Did you see this?” I asked Pumpy.
    He squinted in the dim light. “No, miss. Why you got a hole in the wall?”
    I ignored him and showed him out, then stood in the driveway watching him go. When he had turned out of the gate, I dropped my face into my hands. If every day was this hard, I would need to grow an armadillo shell.
    I walked back into the kitchen, fretting, and almost didn’t realize what I was looking at until I was a few feet away from it. A giant bush rat was sitting in the middle of my kitchen island, eating my leftover chicken, rice, and beans. I screamed as loud and long as I could.
    He hesitated for a moment over his Styrofoam treasure chest, then lifted his tail and ran toward the great room. I ran after him. He scurried up the interior of my unused chimney, and my heart sank. If there was one rat in that chimney, there was probably a whole family of little ratlings.
    Gross .
    I’m allergic to cats, but it was clear I needed to acquire a few of them, and fast.
    My phone buzzed with a text. I picked it up.
    “Smile: Nagyon Seretlek,” Nick’s text said.
    Ever since he returned to Dallas, Nick had been sending me daily “Smile” messages. Sometimes they were serious, and sometimes just silly.
    I replied. “Nanu nanu?”
    “Wrong.”
    “Live long and prosper?”
    “Nope.”
    “May the force be with you?”
    “Wrong again.”
    “I give up, what does it mean?”
    “You’re a smart woman. Figure it out.”
    I googled it on my phone. In seconds, I did smile. It meant “I love you” in Hungarian. My clever gypsy lover.
    I texted back, “Taim i’ ngra leat.”
    “That’s my girl.”
    “Thanks. I needed that.”
    My phone rang. It was the real McCoy.
    “What’s wrong?” Nick asked.
    “I have just had an incredibly crappy day, and to top it all off, the granddaddy of all bush rats just helped himself to my lunch in my kitchen.”
    “Did he say thank you?”
    “No, and he left a mess, too.”
    “You need a man up at that place.”
    “Are you applying for the job?”
    “Will the position be open in a month?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “Well, kill the fatted calf, baby, I’m coming