“Your name is on the sign taped to your table.”

Oh, right.

“I’m Nils Raand,” he said curtly, “the local representative of Uniworld Food Corporation.”

No wonder he was hostile. “Then I don’t need to explain my petition, because you already know about your company’s criminal treatment of their animals.”

“Excuse me, Ms. Knight, but I must lodge a protest. We do nothing criminal to our animals. Everything is FDA approved. Check your facts before making false accusations.”

I jabbed a finger at one of the photos. “So you’re defending the practice of injecting cows with hormones to increase milk production, regardless of the cost to animal or human life?”

His gaze didn’t move from my face, but I could see the tensing of his jaw, even though his tone remained eerily calm. “I did not come here to debate the issue with you. I came to ask you to put away the petition.”

I folded my arms. “Well, I’m not going to do that.”

Raand stared unblinking, as though he was trying to figure me out. “As you wish,” he said at last, “but consider yourself warned.”

“Warned? What is that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged, as though to say figure it out, while his chilly gaze flashed, you don’t want me to explain. Then he turned and walked away.

“You can’t sue me,” I called. “What I’m doing is guaranteed by my First Amendment rights.”

He didn’t look back.

I pressed my lips together and glared a hole in the back of his crisply ironed shirt. I hated bullies, and Nils Raand was nothing more than a bully in chic clothing. Too bad for Nils, bullies didn’t scare me.

CHAPTER TWO

With a huff, I turned toward my niece. “Do you believe that guy? What a jerk.”

“Totally. But you were awesome, Aunt Abby. Way to tell him off.”

“Thank you, Tara.” At times like that, I was almost glad I’d suffered through nine hellish months of law school. If only it hadn’t ended by my being booted out.

To show that Nils Raand’s threats hadn’t bothered me in the least, I picked up the clipboard and the candy bowl and went back to the aisle to round up more signers. A half hour later, I proudly displayed my petition to my niece. “Twenty-five new signatures. Not bad, huh?”

Tara glanced up from her cell phone and gave me an impish smile. “I’ll bet I can get twenty-five more.”

“You’re on.”

“Okay, and in return you’ll buy me a Barrow Boys T-shirt before the concert?”

“You got it.”

Tara grabbed the clipboard and stood in the center of the aisle, calling, “Heart-shaped red jelly beans! The best jelly beans in the world, right here at Bloomers-booth six, aisle one-and they’re totally free. Sign the petition and get your… Uh-oh.”

At the sight of a pair of stocky security guards striding toward us, Tara scooted around the table and got behind me. The guards wore black baseball caps, dark gray pants, thick black belts, and light gray shirts with patches on their shoulders that said SECURITY. They stood directly in front of me, shoulder to massive shoulder, looking as large and threatening as a pair of rabid rhinos. I was surprised they weren’t smacking the palms of their hands with nightsticks.

More bullies. Great. My day was complete.

One guard placed his huge paws on the table and leaned toward me, nodding at my clipboard. “Looks like you got a petition there. That what it is? A petition?”

Stupid questions deserved smart-ass replies. “If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.”

“You want to hand it over?” He hitched his belt up over his belly and glanced around as though looking for an audience-or making sure there were no witnesses.

I pulled the clipboard toward me. “No.”

“You tell them, Aunt Abby,” Tara said, still crouching behind me.

“Know who sponsors this here Home and Garden Show?” the second guard asked, dipping a meaty fist into the candy bowl and fishing out a handful of packages.

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh yeah? Who?” Clearly he thought he had the upper hand.

“Why? Don’t you know?”

Behind me, Tara snickered.

The guard’s chipmunk cheeks reddened with embarrassment. He straightened and looked around at the other booths, a thumb hooked in his belt about where a gun holster would rest. “Seems like this little lady don’t want to cooperate.”

The first guard, taking the same stance, also glanced around. “Seems like it to me, too. Seems like her lack of cooperation could cause a problem here.”

“I was thinking that very thing myself,” his partner answered, speaking to the ceiling.

Realizing their conversation wasn’t going to get any deeper, I waited until their gazes drifted back in my direction, then said testily, “It’s Uniworld, okay? I get it.”

“What was that?” Guard Number One asked, cupping a hand around his ear. “Did I hear someone say Uniworld?”

His partner, watching people come up the aisle, began speaking out of the side of his mouth. “So tell me, little lady. You think it’s polite to go around bad-mouthing the nice people letting you advertise your business here?”

Nicepeople?

“Give me a break,” I said. “I’m paying Uniworld a hefty fee for this space. Do you think it’s polite of them to sell dairy products loaded with hormones? Do you want your family drinking milk that could cause serious health issues down the road? How do you look in a bra? Because you’ll need one when you start to grow breasts.”

“Okay, here’s how it is,” Guard Number One said, leaning on his paws again, as the other guard discreetly felt his chest for signs of growth. “Stop with the petition and you get to stay at your booth. Otherwise, we show you the door. Got it?”

Hugging the clipboard against my chest, I scowled at him.

“I said”-he leaned closer, bathing me in onion breath-“do you got it?”

“Fascist bullies!” Tara shouted suddenly, jumping to her feet. “Stop harassing my aunt!”

“Hey,” the guard said to her, holding up his palms, “calm down, there!”

Tara wasn’t about to calm down. Now she had a cause, too. Climbing onto our table, she cried, “Hey, everyone! Look at the big apes Uniworld sent to harass my aunt! Harassment!”

“Get her down from there,” the first guard said to me, looking ready to spit nails.

“Help!” Tara cried as the second guard reached for her. “Kidnappers! Call the FBI!”

“No one is kidnapping you,” the guard said, trying to smile as a gathering crowd looked on. “You wanna come down off that table, please, little missy?”

“Make me!” Tara yelled, and began to chant, “Fascist bullies!”

The first guard snarled at me, “You stop her now or I’m gonna haul the both of you off to the security office while I call in the cops.”

Yikes. That was publicity I didn’t need. “Tara,” I said, “stop. You’re not helping.”

“They wouldn’t dare hurt us, Aunt Abby,” she called. “We have witnesses. Hey, everyone! Come look-”

“Tara Kathleen Knight, come down at once!” a voice from the aisle called.

Tara froze as my mom elbowed her way to the front to give her granddaughter her most glacial glare. “Come down this instant, young lady.”

Tara climbed down meekly. Maureen “Mad Mo” Knight was not to be disobeyed.

“Now, then,” Mom said, using her steely teacher’s glare to gaze from me to the security guards, “what’s going on here?”

“These men want me to hand over my petition,” I said, showing her the clipboard.

Mom looked it over. “I see,” she said thoughtfully, then turned toward the guards. “How did you hear about this petition? Did someone complain?”

“Yeah, we got complaints,” the first guard said smugly.

“Complaints from whom?” Mom asked, looking quite smart in her tan wool coat trimmed in brown leather, brown slacks, and brown boots.