I grabbed her arm. “Neely Kate. Let it go. She’s not worth it.”

She shrugged me off. “No, Rose! She thinks she can get away with whatever she wants, and she does because no one ever stands up to her.” Neely Kate moved closer to Hilary until they were about a foot apart. She had to tilt her head back to look the taller woman in the eye. “You don’t scare me, Hilary Wilder. There’s absolutely nothing you can do to me or Rose, so don’t even try.”

Hilary’s eyes glittered with anger, and her gaze turned to me. “Are you sure about that, Rose?”

The blood rushed from my head.

She knew.

Neely Kate stepped between the two of us. “What are you talking about?”

How did she know about J.R.’s blackmail? Did Joe tell her?

An evil grin lifted the corners of Hilary’s mouth. “Ask Rose.”

“I’m not asking Rose. I’m asking you.”

Hilary’s grin faded. “Don’t pick a fight with me, Neely Kate. I am one person you don’t want to tangle with.” She gave us a final distasteful look before glancing at the woman behind the counter. “These women are verbally accosting me. If this is your usual clientele, I think I’ll do business elsewhere.”

The older woman’s eyes widened in panic. “You two need to leave.”

“What?” Neely Kate screeched.

“You’re shouting and disrupting the customers. You need to leave.”

“No!” Neely Kate shouted. “She’s the one who came in here, riling things up. We were here first.”

An older man stepped out from the back room, a phone pressed to his ear. “No need to make them leave, Opal. I called the police, and Officer Ernie is on his way.”

I tugged on her arm. “Neely Kate, we need to go. Now.”

“No!” She turned to me, her eyes blazing. “It’s not right, Rose! If we leave, we’re lettin’ her win. Again.”

She had a point, but I had no doubt that the Henryetta police would be here in a matter of minutes. The gloating look on Hilary’s face was almost enough to make me stand in solidarity with my friend, but I was a firm believer in picking your battles. Plus, if Hilary knew about J.R.’s blackmail material, I didn’t want to provoke her.

I grabbed Neely Kate’s shoulders. “Don’t think of it as letting her win the war. Think of it as letting her win the skirmish.”

“Listen to your friend, Neely Kate,” Hilary said, pretending to look at her nails.

The look in Neely Kate’s eyes was murderous.

Grabbing her hand, I dragged her toward the door as sirens sounded in the distance. “Neely Kate, you can’t hit a pregnant woman. Let’s go. Now.”

She stopped resisting me and allowed me to shove her into the truck. After I got in and pulled out of the parking lot, Neely Kate turned to me in dismay. “But I didn’t get my ice cream!”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll drop you off at the Burger Shack. But first we need to find Joe.”

“What on earth for?”

“To keep us out of jail,” I said, cringing at the sight of the flashing lights pulling into the parking lot we’d just left.

Chapter Fourteen

I grabbed my phone. “Joe,” I said as soon as he answered.

“Rose,” he groaned. “I can’t spare the manpower to be chasin’ after Neely Kate’s cousin.”

“This is something else.”

He groaned again. “What on earth did you and Neely Kate do now?”

His attitude ticked me off. “It wasn’t our fault, Joe Simmons! You need to teach your girlfriend some manners.”

“My girlfriend?” A second passed before he groaned yet again. He was really on a roll. “She’s not my girlfriend. We are not together.”

“I’d love to discuss the current status of your relationship, but I’ll look it up later on Facebook and see if your relationship status says ‘it’s complicated.’ Right now I need you to get your baby momma to call Officer Ernie off Neely Kate.”

“What happened?” I heard the alarm in his voice.

I told him everything . . . well, everything except for the fact that she’d insinuated she knew J.R.’s secret.

“You girls lie low for a bit, and I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.”

I parked in the lot next to the Burger Shack and let Neely Kate run in for her ice cream, and then I took her to Maeve’s and texted Joe to let him know where we were. I knocked on her front door, wondering how she’d feel about the two of us showing up on her doorstep, but Mason’s mother was thrilled.

“I thought we’d drop by and check on you,” I said, feeling a tiny bit guilty that I hadn’t done so sooner. “I hope we’re not interrupting anything.”

She ushered us inside. “Don’t be silly. You’re always welcome here!”

Maeve gave Neely Kate a quick tour, and I was impressed by how put together everything already looked. “I can’t believe you’ve practically finished unpacking,” I said.

“It’s a small house, and I’m not one to sit idle.”

I knew that from all the time she’d spent cooking and cleaning at my house.

“I was about to make a cake if you girls want to come sit with me.”

We helped her make a red velvet cake and dinner too. I texted Mason to tell him we were eating at his mother’s house. I worried about leaving Muffy all alone, but I didn’t want to venture out onto the Henryetta streets until Joe gave us the all-clear. The last thing Neely Kate and I needed was another almost-arrest.