Danger, Sweetheart by MaryJanice Davidson

sneaking?
    â€œI apologize. You were ranting?”
    â€œWe were discussing your giant cock-up.”
    Blake blinked. My mother said “cock.” Yes, it was part of a hyphenated word, but she could have said “screwup.” Balls-up. Even fuckup. Any of those would have been fine. Perhaps not “balls.” What is happening? “I don’t understand.”
    â€œExactly!”
    â€œYou seemed—we only—you were besieged. On the phone, all those talks we had, you sounded…” Broken. Bereft. Lonely. “… overwhelmed.”
    â€œIt was good of you to call,” she replied, calming. “You always called right back, no matter when you got my messages. You’re a good boy, when you’re not killing me with blood pressure spikes brought on by stress.”
    â€œI—” No. He had no follow-up to that. Best to stay quiet.
    His mother let out a short bark of a laugh. “And yes, overwhelmed, that’s putting it—are you saying I inferred I needed you to rush to my rescue?”
    No.
    Don’t, Blake.
    Do not do this.
    â€œActually—”
    Blake!
    He shut out the increasingly hysterical inner voice. “—I inferred, as I was the listening party; you implied. ‘Infer’ and ‘imply’ are opposites.”
    You care nothing for living. Definitive proof at long last.
    Pretending not to notice his mother’s reddening forehead, he doggedly followed the line of thought to its logical conclusion. “The speaker implies. The listener infers. I inferred.”
    â€œNot. Now. Blake.”
    â€œI’ll put the badge away,” he agreed at once. Even when Rake wasn’t there
    (Hey, grammar police! Shove that badge right up your ass!)
    he was there. And it bought him a smile, thank goodness, however brief. Time to get back on track. “During our conversations I inferred you felt overwhelmed. You implied you were plagued with problems.”
    â€œStop using the past tense!” she snapped back, but the fingers that had jerked him back to the present now affectionately ruffled his neatly combed hair (fun fact: she affectionately smoothed Rake’s eternally mussed hair) before pulling away so she could resume her pace/rant. Her pant. Her race? “And the only thing I’m plagued with is sons.”
    Hands shoved wrist deep in his pockets, Blake scraped his toe along the green floral carpet, scowling down at it as he mumbled, “’M not a plague.”
    An inelegant snort was his mother’s rebuttal. He looked up to watch her pace and was disoriented—again—by the décor.
    Flowers, had been his initial thought upon entering the room. Flowers everywhere. But not in a charming meadow way. A funeral home way. Flowered carpeting (green, with sizeable pink cabbage roses). Flowered wallpaper (white tea roses over pale pink stripes). Flowered curtains (sunshine yellow background and tiebacks littered with roughly eight million daisies). His mother had been pacing back and forth so quickly, her small form darting from floral-curtained window to floral-curtained window over floral carpet, that she reminded him of an irritated hornet trapped in a vase with flowers not at all happy to be in there with her.
    â€œDo you know what I’m trying to accomplish here?” she asked after another minute. But she shook her head even as he opened his mouth. “No, that’s not fair. I never told you boys in so many words. I spent decades never talking about this place; I can’t put that on you two.”
    Thank God! Blake, you idiotic bastard, you just might live through this! “Then why—?”
    â€œI thought that when you said you were coming to help … I thought you meant help .”
    â€œI did help!” he protested. “You don’t have to worry about the farms anymore. They aren’t your responsibility anymore.” Why are we still discussing this? Why