Beeline to Trouble Read Online Free PDF

to keep up, wishing my sister was with me. Where was Holly when I needed
her
? Not around, that’s where.
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to grab you like that,” I said, moving faster than her, blocking access to the four-wheeler. “But I’m still reporting you. What’s your name?”
    “Get out of my way,” she said, her buggy eyes almost popping out of their sockets. “And mind your own business. Do-gooders like you drive me nuts. Did you ever stop to consider that I might have a permit to pick these?” I could see the lie in her eyes. Before I had a chance to open my mouth, she continued, “No, of course you didn’t. Self-righteous busybodies like you make me sick.”
    I decided to smirk right through the name-calling, realizing the absurdity of her claim. She went on, “Is this how you locals always treat visitors?”
    I was about to blast her with my personal opinion of this particular visitor, but I was getting a really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Visitor? We have lots of visitors but still . . .
    I groaned inwardly, because that would be just my kind of luck to have a run-in with one of the Paines’ houseguests. Please tell me it isn’t so.
    “
Now
will you get out of my way?” she said, as though reading my mind.
    I moved aside, momentarily speechless at the audacity of the woman.
    She reached over and started the engine then turned back to me. “Oh, and here, if these are so important, you can have them.” And she shoved the flowers right in my face before climbing onto the ATV.
    It didn’t help my growing concern when she tore off in the direction of my sister’s house. And suddenly that particular four-wheeler seemed more than vaguely familiar to me. Maybe the clue was a “Queen Bee Honey” sticker on the back. Exactly like the one I’d stuck on Holly’s machine last time I’d ridden it, right after I’d ordered a box of bumper stickers to promote my honey business.
    Worse, the woman had left me holding the flowers, i.e. the bag, which was exactly when the police chief decided to pull up behind my truck, the tires of his car crunching on the gravel shoulder.
    I have to admit, living in the same town I was born and raised in has its ups and downs.
    One of the major downers got out of his vehicle, and glared at me with his hands on his hips. Or at least I suspected that Johnny Jay was glaring—hard to tell behind those mirrored sunglasses he always wore. Power and control were sport to him, and his reflective shades were just one of many props he used to exercise them.
    I’d gone from kindergarten through high school with Johnny Jay, and I didn’t like him any better now than I did then. Usually I choose to ignore him when he comes strutting along. Unfortunately,
he
always chooses to badger me.
    I pretended not to notice him, hard to do when he was right there in front of me, but I made the effort by refusing to establish eye contact.
    “Picking wildflowers is illegal, Fischer,” he said, scribbling something on a clipboard. “First I’m going to write out a citation. Them I’m confiscating the evidence.”
    “I didn’t pick these,” I said, sounding lame even to me. “Some woman on an ATV did.”
    He glanced up from the clipboard, “More lies from our
Story
,” he said, putting special emphasis on my name. “When are you going to grow up?”
    Then he ripped off a sheet of paper and handed it to me.
    I couldn’t believe the amount of the fine. “That’s way overboard!” I complained.
    “It costs more when the offender knows better.”
    While I was staring in sticker shock at the price for a medium-sized bouquet of flowers, I heard a click and looked up in time to see that he had taken a photograph of me with the incriminating wildflowers.
    “Hand them over,” he ordered.
    “They better not show up on your dining room table,” I said, reluctantly offering them up.
    “You don’t get a say.”
    “I’m not taking this lying down.”
    “Rumor has it,