She waved at Laura, motioning her over. She narrowed her eyes, swearing she saw a smile on Laura’s face. An evil smile. She put her hands on her hips as the mower approached. Laura was again wearing cutoff jeans—her mowing shorts?—and she gave Cassidy a flirty smile when she killed the engine.

“Good morning, Cassidy. What brings you around?”

Cassidy narrowed her eyes even further. “Really? I believe it’s Saturday.”

Again, a smile. “I believe you’re right.”

“Oh, come on. We had a deal. What gives? Your yard has obviously just been mowed. There’s no need to mow it today.”

“What gives is that yesterday morning, at exactly seven—while I was enjoying coffee on the patio—your guys showed up. My mother, who is an invalid and needs her rest, was roused from a sound sleep.”

“Roused?” Who says that?

“Yes. Roused. She was grumpy all day.”

Cassidy rubbed her temples with both hands. “So you’re saying my yard crew didn’t come at ten?”

“That’s correct.”

“So even though you don’t really need to mow, you’re doing it anyway, just to annoy me.”

“We had a deal. I’m the only one who lived up to my part of it. So, yes, to annoy you.”

Cassidy held her hand up. “Okay, look. I called them. I really did. They assured me they would come later. I don’t live here, so I don’t really have any control.”

“Not my fault.”

“Yeah…okay…so what? To just be a bitch, you’re going to mow anyway?”

Laura Fry’s eyes peered into hers, making Cassidy take an involuntary step away from her.

“Bitch? Did you just call me a…a bitch?”

“Oh…Jesus,” she murmured. “I didn’t…I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You didn’t mean to call me a bitch? Or bitch means something else in your vocabulary?”

Cassidy threw her hands up. “Look, I’ll give you a thousand dollars to stop mowing.”

That statement was met with silence and a rather blank stare.

“Well?”

“I hate wealthy people who just throw their money around.”

With that, Laura Fry started up the mower and engaged the blade, making Cassidy jump away as grass was shot in her direction.

She didn’t know whether to be mad at Laura Fry or her yard guys. Should be the yard guys, she supposed…she’d called them and changed the time. But right now, it was her cute neighbor in cutoff jeans who her anger was directed at.

“You’re unbelievable!” she yelled, even though she knew Laura couldn’t hear her. Or could she? Was that a damn smile again? She spun on her heels and marched—stomped—back to the road.

* * *

“I don’t find it that annoying,” Larson said as she floated next to Cassidy. “I hear mowers all the time in my neighborhood.”

“That’s not the point. We had a deal.”