Chapter 3
THREE
Love means if you do something accidentally, they won’t like get mad at you.
Deputy Frankie Ramos knocked on my door ten minutes later.
“Ellie, open up.”
“Did you arrest him yet?” I asked even though I knew he hadn’t.
I’d been watching the whole scene from the window.
Frankie had arrived and proceeded to hold an animated conversation with the stranger, which ended up in said stranger retrieving a file folder from his car, digging through it and presenting Frankie with paperwork which then ended in Frankie laughing and giving him a friendly slap on the back.
Like they were besties.
“Just open the door, Ellie,” Cammie said from my bookshelf. “Do you really think Ollie has a grandson?”
I snatched up my phone. “I thought you were supposed to hang up when the police arrived.”
“Eh. It’s been a slow night, and I’m invested now.”
Frankie knocked on the door again. “Ellie, open the door. We need to talk. There’s been a…misunderstanding.” He cleared his throat. “It appears he does own the house.”
I ripped the door open and glared at Frankie. “He does not.”
“Well, he has some paperwork here from a lawyer that says he does. Says he’s Ollie’s grandson.” He held up a stack of papers. I glanced between it and the stranger, Ollie’s so-called grandson, who stood a few feet away, looking much too smug.
“Ollie didn’t have any children,” I said. Everyone knew that. Nothing happened, or didn’t happen, in this town without it being broadcast in every group text, phone tree, and most prayer chains. “So a grandson would be impossible.”
There. Logic. Take that, Mr. Smug Smugface.
“Ollie did have a child. My mother,” he said and somehow, impervious to all laws of nature, he looked even smugger.
Frankie took a step between us and directed his next comment to Gilbert Dalton. “Now, to be fair, no one knew Ollie had any family left. After his mother died, and that was when I was a kid, he was the last Holder in Two Harts.”
“Thank you.” Crossing my arms, I gave a curt nod. “So that’s settled. Make him leave now.”
“Except”—Frankie rubbed the back of his neck, looking slightly uncomfortable—“this paperwork here says otherwise.”
“It’s impossible. Ollie can’t just have a whole grandson no one knew about.” I snatched the papers out of Frankie’s hand and glanced at the pile. I blinked at the words right there on the top page identifying this…this man as Ollie’s grandson. “But how did this happen?”
“I really don’t have the time to give you a lesson on the birds and the bees,” Gilbert Dalton said.
I glared at him, wishing I had the power to slice and dice him with my gaze.
Unaware of my violent thoughts, he snapped the ends of his sleeves straight.
Adjusted his tie. Shoved his fingers through his hair.
Dark hair with the smallest touch of gray.
Glasses, too, and…Something in the back of my head niggled as I stared at him. Some weird sense that I knew him.
Narrowing my eyes, I pushed the paperwork into Frankie’s chest and stomped over to him, stopping within a couple of feet. It only took a second for it to click. “It’s you.”
“Who?”
“No. I mean, you’re…you!”
“Yes, I’m me,” he said and if a voice could sound like an eye roll looked, it was his at that moment. “And you are you. I’m glad we have that covered.”
“But you’re here .”
One dark eyebrow raised. “Right again. Is there another adult here we could talk to? Maybe a mature child? We seem to be having trouble.”
I huffed in frustration. “I mean, we met…or kind of met…at the restaurant earlier tonight.” A new realization dawned on me, and I turned to Frankie. “He’s stalking me.”
“Lady, what are you talking about?” The guy rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers as though a headache was coming on. It was a gesture I’d seen from my father a million times growing up. “I’m not stalking you.”
To be honest, I was a little annoyed he didn’t recognize me. I mean, I’d noticed him . Then again, I guess maybe the squirrel slippers and sweats were throwing him off.
“Earlier at the Texican, you were there, and I was there with a date, and you brought him tissues because he was…”
Recognition swept across his face. “You were with the crier.”
“His name is Curtis,” I said.
“Curtis the crier.” He smirked. “Makes sense.”
“Aw, another dud, El?” Cammie said from the phone I still had clutched in my hand. “Your man picker is definitely broken.”
I ignored her. “At least he didn’t follow me home and break into my house.”
He frowned. “He called you.”
“Who?”
“The attorney, Doug Carmichael.”
“He did not call…” But then I remembered getting that call at the restaurant. There had been a voicemail but who checked voicemails anymore? “How do you know that?”
“Because I was standing in front of him when he did it. I talked to him later and he said he left you messages.” With a curse, he put his hands on the top of his head and began to pace.
Three steps, turn, three steps, turn. Repeat.
“He gave me a copy of the key. He said it wouldn’t be a problem if I showed up, that you’d get the voicemail, and it would be fine.
” He muttered more to himself than to me.
“Who said what?”
He pointed a finger at me. “You are definitely a problem.”
“I’m a problem? I was minding my own business. I wasn’t bothering anyone. You”—I poked him in the chest—“burst in my house and became the problem.”
“I rang the doorbell. I knocked. I called out. No one answered.”
“I am definitely here.”
“I needed to get back home to Austin. It’s a long drive. Like I said, I rang the doorbell, I knocked.” He paused in front of me. “No one answered.”
“Okay, now.” Frankie appeared at our side. “I think we need to take a deep breath.”
“He came into my house uninvited. He could be a serial killer. Even now, he might be working on his recipe for pickled people feet or something. He could be figuring out the proper way to cut me up and?—”
“I am not going to eat your feet,” he said. “I’m more of a rib guy anyway.”
“Hilarious,” I said.
“He really is Ollie’s grandson, isn’t he?” Cammie said from the phone, sounding incredulous. “Is he single? Is he hot? He sounds hot.”
“Seriously?” I glared at the phone. “Why are you still on the line?”
“I don’t know. You haven’t hung up yet. I thought you wanted me here,” Cammie said.
“Well, I’m hanging up now.”
“Fine. But maybe take a photo of him and text it to me.” She hung up before I could reply.
Gilbert Dalton held his hands out like he was trying to calm me and maybe himself at the same time. “Look, I didn’t mean to scare you. I did ring the doorbell and knock. I thought it would be okay to come in. I just wanted to see the inside. In hindsight, that might not have been my smartest idea.”
“I could have been naked,” I blurted.
Silence. Then, “I said I was sorry. The lawyer called you. He contacted me later to say he’d called you two times and left messages. Said you weren’t great at returning calls right away, but you always got his messages. Check your voicemail. Please.”
“I’m not doing any such thing.” But it’s exactly what I did.
Because the lawyer wasn’t exactly wrong; I wasn’t great at remembering to call people back.
I pulled up my voicemail, stabbing at the phone with more force than necessary.
There were actually three voicemails from the attorney.
I played the last one I’d received today at fifteen minutes after five o’clock.
“Hello, Ms. Sterns, this is Doug Carmichael, Ollie Holder’s estate attorney.
I’ve been trying to reach you. Didn’t really want to do this over a voicemail, but…
Mr. Holder’s grandson, Gilbert Dalton, appeared today right after you left.
I’d been trying to reach him for months, but he never responded so I assumed he wasn’t interested.
But, well, he is. You’ll remember we talked briefly about him also being named an heir and… ”
The message kept going but I was no longer listening.
I dropped my arm, the phone dangling in my hand, the tinny sound of Doug Carmichael’s voice still ringing out.
Vaguely, I remember hearing something about the attorney trying to contact a possible relative, but he hadn’t seemed all that concerned, so I hadn’t been either.
And to be totally honest, I’d barely heard anything after the first bit of news he’d given me.
All I could do now was stare at the man in front of me.
He looked nothing like Ollie. For instance, he was a good eight inches taller with all that thick dark hair and distinctly non-caterpillar-like eyebrows over dark-blue eyes.
I took in the square jaw, the five o’clock shadow, the sharp cheekbones.
Except…the pinched, mulish set of his mouth sparked recognition. There, that expression. That was Ollie.
My heart pounded. I wiped a sweaty palm on my pajama pants and shivered, even though it wasn’t at all chilly. When I spoke, my voice was more of a croak. “You’re Ollie’s grandson.”
“Now she’s getting it.” He crossed his arms. “I’m not here to cause trouble, but it was a three-hour drive to get to the attorney’s office in Houston and I figured since I was only forty-five minutes away from Two Harts, I should stop by.
From what the attorney explained, we have some decisions to make. ”
My stomach clenched. “What decisions? We are not making any decisions. We will talk to the attorney and straighten this out. That’s what we’re going to do.
” I channeled my inner beauty queen. Shoulders back, head high, I marched back to the front door.
Once there, I twisted around. “You can leave now.”
“Excuse me?” He stomped toward me. Frankie flanked his side, having to practically skip to keep up with Gilbert’s long strides.
“You’re not coming in my house.”
“My house.”
“I think it technically belongs to both of you,” Frankie said.
We both ignored him.
“Have you lived here for the last three years? Was it you who pulled up the pink carpet from the bathroom floor? Did you spend hours of your life painting or convincing Ollie that getting Wi-Fi wasn’t going to mess with his brain waves or that having a copy of every single electric bill since nineteen sixty-nine wasn’t really necessary?
” I leaned toward him, my voice rising with each word.
“This isn’t just my house; it’s my home. ”
He glared; his jaw ticked. The heated silence between us was one tiny spark away from a full-on inferno. “Fine. I’ll leave.”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
“Great.”
“But Monday, we talk to the lawyer.”
I stuck my hands on my hips. “Sure.”
“Then you won’t be able to stop me from coming in.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said.
“We sure will.”
I couldn’t help but notice it sounded more like a threat than a promise.