Read Tara Holloway 03 - Death, Taxes, and Extra-Hold Hairspray for Free Online

the full story of the revenge of the birds.
    She shook her head. “That kind of thing could only happen to you.”
    “I know, right?” I seemed to be a magnet for freak accidents.
    “What’s Brett going to think?”
    My recurring injuries didn’t just cause me physical pain, they were a sore spot between me and my boyfriend, too. Fortunately, he was volunteering tonight on a Habitat for Humanity project so I’d be able to put off sharing the news a bit longer. “Brett’s not going to like it. That’s for sure.”
    “Especially when he finds out you can’t have sex for ten days,” Ajay added.
    My head snapped his way. “What? You didn’t tell me that at the clinic.”
    Ajay shrugged. “I’m telling you now. That cut was deep. You can’t risk straining the stitches. No physical exertion. That includes sexual activity.”
    Nick chuckled beside me as he took a sip of his beer. I shot him a frown.
    Christina turned to Nick then. “How’d you know how to handle a rooster?”
    Nick rested his bottle on the table. “My parents were farmers. I was in 4-H as a kid and a member of Future Farmers of America in high school.”
    I knew Nick had been raised a country boy in a small town outside Houston and that his parents had been farmers, but I hadn’t realized he’d once planned to follow in their footsteps. “What changed your mind about becoming a farmer?” I asked.
    He leaned back against the booth. “My mother and father weren’t too happy about my plans. They wanted more for me and insisted I go to college. I decided to major in business because I thought it would help me run a successful farm later on.” He took a draw from his beer before continuing. “When it came time to graduate, I realized I could either spend the rest of my life breaking my back to merely eke out a living or I could get a cushy job with some fancy corporation and make four times as much money, maybe buy a new car and a high-def television.” He shrugged. “The decision seemed pretty simple.”
    “So?” I asked. “Which fancy corporation did you go to work for?”
    He offered a sour grin. “Ever heard of a company called Enron?”
    “Dude.” Ajay cringed in sympathy. “Bad choice.”
    “No shit, huh?” Nick chuckled again, though this time it was mirthless. “’Course hindsight’s twenty-twenty. I had no idea what was going on there. I wasn’t much more than a kid when I started, just one of the office grunts. I worked in payroll and employee benefits so I didn’t get any inkling of what was happening until it was too late. Lost all of my stock, every cent I’d put toward retirement.”
    “That sucks,” Christina chimed in.
    Nick looked away for a moment, then turned back, his jaw set firm. “The worst of it was that my parents had invested in Enron, too, as a sign of their support. They lost more money than they could afford to lose. The bank ending up taking their farm. When I landed the job with the Treasury Department, I moved them up here to Dallas to help them out. My dad couldn’t take it. It was too humiliating for him. He said he should’ve just let me be a farmer and none of it ever would have happened. He had a massive heart attack a year later, dead before he hit the kitchen floor.”
    Whoa. Nick had been through a lot. My heart broke for him. Clearly, he felt responsible for what happened even though there was no way he could have foreseen how things would turn out. But when I put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him, he instantly shrugged it off. I pulled back, surprised and, admittedly, a little hurt.
    “Sorry,” he said, apparently noting the wounded look on my face. “Didn’t mean to throw myself a pity party. Must be the beer talking, making me all soft and girlie.”
    “Speaking of soft and girlie,” Ajay said, “it’s time for Christina and me to go.” He gave her an exaggerated wink.
    Nick and I sat in silence for several moments after they left. He’d exposed his vulnerable side