Sometime Yesterday by Yvonne Heidt Page B

laugh from Natalie. She panted in an effort to breathe. She felt drunk and her heart was racing faster than she could ever remember. Was this normal? She realized she didn’t care; she only wanted to do it again. A lot. “You need to go,” she said. “Boss.”
    “You can be the boss of me later.”
    Natalie almost purred. “’Kay.”
    Van brushed a hand down Natalie’s cheek. “I’m not going to kiss you again because then I’ll never leave. Dinner tonight?”
    “What time?”
    “Around six thirty? Oh, and I almost forgot. Your mother and I were talking about the house when you were upstairs and she mentioned that you were going to the library today?”
    Natalie nodded.
    “Hold off on that. I called my dad and he said he knows some of the history. He invited you both to dinner tomorrow night.”
    “We’d love to come.”
    Van smiled at her. “Bye, Natalie. I’ll see you later.”

    *

    Van called her father to let him know that Natalie and her mother accepted his invitation for dinner. She could still smell Natalie’s perfume. It was as heady and intoxicating as Natalie was herself.
    When she arrived at the job site, she saw the crew loading equipment and her foreman standing by his truck. He was yelling into his phone then closed it when he saw Van.
    “Great,” Van said under her breath when she recognized the anger on Rick’s face. He was pissed.
    “That woman.” He hissed then pointed to the house.
    Van searched her mental file. “Miss Alora,” she corrected him.
    “Whatever. She was a sweetheart when we arrived. We started work and the woman came out screaming like she was demon-possessed.”
    Van got out of her truck and sighed. “What happened?”
    “Every plant, every tree, every single goddamn flower was not what she ordered.”
    Van interrupted. “You have a signed estimate and contract.”
    “And I tried to show it to her. She insisted on seeing you.”
    “Okay. Where’s the paperwork?”
    “Not necessary. She fired us ‘ cheatin’ sumbitches’ and ordered us off her property. Then she called—”
    “The cops.” Van finished for him when she saw her cousin Rory pull up in his Bayside City Police Department cruiser.
    “Are you ripping off little old ladies again, Vanessa?”
    “Bite me, Rory.”
    “Look,” he said. “I’m going to get out of my car and look like I’m reading you the riot act. Then you can look properly chastised and leave, okay?”
    Van turned to Rick. “Did you dig anything up yet?”
    “No, we were done marking out boundaries and loaded in all the stock. It’s all back in the trucks now.”
    Van checked her watch. “Okay, tell the crew to go back to the nursery. I have another job you can go to after lunch.” She wrote down Natalie’s address. “You can start in on the brush clean up. I’ll be up later with the plans and we can go over them then.” Rick nodded at her and left.
    She turned back to her cousin. “Give it to me, officer.”
    Rory made a big show of his lecture, gesturing and pointing toward Miss Alora who was looking out her window. “Miss Alora is a paranoid schizophrenic and must be off her meds again.” Rory paced in front of Van. “She calls us at least three times a week to report her neighbors and the government spies in her bushes.”
    Van hung her head and got back in her truck, biting her lip to keep from laughing.
    “One more thing,” Rory yelled at her.
    “Yes?”
    He winked at her. “I heard about the girl.” Rory slapped the side of her truck. “Now, you can leave.”
    “Yes, sir!” Van said.

    *

    Natalie sat across from her mother at the table.
    “I’m going to love Van simply because she put that look on my baby’s face.”
    “I can’t seem to stop smiling.”
    “When are you going to see her again?”
    “Tonight,” Natalie said. “What do you want to do now that we’re not going to the library?”
    “You could rest, Nat. You had a rough night.”
    Natalie had forgotten the nightmare until her