Chapter Six
Jase
A wave of red flushed Tyler’s neck, creeping up to her face. That blush wasn’t the pretty one that spread from her breasts to her cheeks when I made her come apart, either. No, this fiery conflagration screamed hot and uncomfortable.
Her gaze darted away from Grandma, and she stared across the Lowes parking lot before her throat moved in a swallow. Shoulders straight, jaw rigid, she turned her head to fix her deliberate smile on Grandma. “Hello, Mrs. Hatcher.”
Grandma studied her face, then reached for her hands. Tyler’s flinch, so infinitesimal anyone else would miss it, had me moving to check Grandma. Boundaries were one of Tyler’s things, and I’d guard them.
But she was letting Grandma touch her, clasping both of Tyler’s hands while her gaze roved Tyler’s tense features.
“Oh, honey, you need to call me Louella. Mrs. Louella if you need to. But none of this Mrs. Hatcher business. We know one another too well for that.” Grandma winked. “Oh, Tyler, I’m so glad to see you.”
The last few minutes felt like stepping on clay and finding it still wet and slippery, throwing me a little off balance.
“Feel like I’m missing something.” Grandaddy adjusted the brim of his hat.
“Lewis, this is Tyler.” Still holding her hands, Grandma tugged Tyler to her side. “Honey, this is my husband Lewis. He’s a bit of a grouch, but don’t let that put you off.”
I bit back a grin. There was a story here. Wasn’t she just full of surprises?
Grandma turned to me, her eyes wide and pleased. “Tyler is your new girlfriend.”
First time anyone had used that term for her, but I liked it.
“Yes, ma’am.” I slanted a quick smile and a wink at Tyler, who was now pale, her eyes a little blank. I laid my hand at the small of her back and flexed my fingers in reassurance. “If she’ll have me.”
Her gaze darted to mine, eyes big and dark with . . . something, an emotion I didn’t recognize. Almost like she’d cry but whatever the memories sparked were too deep for tears.
Off-center, for sure, when I was accustomed to her brash assurance. Protectiveness rose, a heavy weight dead center of my chest. With my palm, I nudged her closer to me.
“We better get a table. The dinner rush is starting.”
That was all Grandaddy needed to hear. As he hustled Grandma toward the entrance, I hung back a few steps, keeping Tyler anchored to my side.
“Not going to tell you to relax,” I murmured near her ear. “But I wish you would.”
She scoffed, a small sound reeking of mortification. My girl was mortified.
By my grandma.
Whatever they shared, it wasn’t a good memory for Tyler for sure.
I drew her to a stop on the sidewalk. “We don’t have to stay.”
She flicked a glance up at me, mouth set in unhappy lines. “It’s your grandparents.”
“They know me and see me on the regular. I’m not asking you to stay where you’re uncomfortable.”
Emotions flickered over her face, so quick I couldn’t parse them all. She peered at the double doors Grandma and Grandaddy had just walked through. She squared her shoulders. “I’m fine.”
I snorted.
She glared.
“Look, I’m not stupid. I know what it means when a woman says I’m fine.”
“I’m sure you do.” Arms crossed, she wrinkled her nose, dripping disdain.
“Because my mama says it to my daddy just like that and he calls it out as bullshit every time.” I rolled my neck, tension holding the muscles with merciless hands. “Elizabeth didn’t hesitate to tell me when something wasn’t to her liking.”
That earned me an incisive look. “Including you.”
“Including me. Never could satisfy her, so I stopped trying. But we’re talking about you. You are obviously not fine. Grandma threw you, and if this is going to be an hour of discomfort for you, we’re not staying.”
She stared up at me, lips parted. I cocked an eyebrow.
One breath later, she surged up to kiss me, gripping my shoulders.
Flattening my hand at the base of her spine, I pressed her into me, soaking in her warmth and softness and strength. After another hard kiss, I tilted my head toward the doors, where Grandaddy had reappeared and watched with a longsuffering scowl.
“You’re gonna get me in trouble. That man does not like to wait on his food.”
Her small snort of a laugh puffed across my chin. “So that’s where you get it from.”
“I’m a paragon of patience.” I ignored the slight tremor in her voice because she’d want me to.
“Now I know she’s your grandmother, I know where you got those five dollar words from.”
Grandma had taught drama for years at Chandler-Haynes, and I’m sure her presence expanded my vocabulary. But Mama read all the time and she talked to me – I was an only child so who else was she going to talk to?
I shrugged and nudged her toward the entrance, where Grandaddy still waited. Bet Grandma was at the table, fussing because he’d come to look for us. “Hey, working with my hands doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
Sure enough, Grandma waited at a four-top near the back. I didn’t need to look at the menu because I always ordered the meatloaf, so I used those minutes to watch Tyler. I caught Grandma and Grandaddy examining me a couple of times, too.
Once our orders were in, Grandma folded her hands on the table and leaned forward with a soft, genuine smile. “Tyler, honey, tell me about yourself now.”
That now hit. If there was a now, there was a then, and that meant Grandma knew something I didn’t. Not sure I liked that – I wanted to know everything about her, and I’d developed a possessive streak about her a mile wide.
Tyler smiled, polite, a little distant. “I’m a receptionist at Coney Ford.”
Grandaddy moved a pin on the peg game, his attention on the wooden triangle, but I knew he was listening to every word.
Grandma’s smile widened, her features softening with pleased pride. “I bet you are wonderful with customer service.”
Brows raised, Tyler eased back in her seat, spine pressed against the chair, creating space between herself and the table. “Mrs. Hatcher, all I’m doing is answering the phone and making appointments. It’s not exactly life-changing work.”
Grandaddy’s head shot up. “Honest work is honest work. Be proud if you do it well.”
Tyler’s left brow went even higher. I bit back a groan. She was never going out with me again. Damn it, Grandaddy.
After a moment, Tyler’s mouth twitched into the slightest of smiles. That smile was real, so my squirrelly gut unknotted a notch. “Mama Nancy would agree with you.”
“Mama Nancy?” Grandma prodded, an air of watchfulness around her.
Chin tilted, Tyler met her gaze. “My mother.”
Grandma’s whole body softened, her eyes lighting up. “Your mother. Of course. You know, honey, we should get together for lunch one day, the two of us. I want to know all about her.”
The stillness about Tyler made me nervous, driving home again that there was something here I didn’t know. Grandma knew, and I felt like that something was big and could blow up.
“Maybe.” Tyler smiled, a polite curve of her lips. She had a lot of different smiles, many of them not real. Elizabeth’s smiles could be fake, too, so I knew the difference. Elizabeth’s smiles were weapons, though.
Tyler’s false smiles rang more like shields.
Grandaddy watched the interchange, a slight frown carving a vee between his heavy brows. The old man was sharp and never missed a thing.
My brain insisted on trying to diag Tyler and figure out how Grandma knew her. It lay in the past, so it had to be school. Tyler had mentioned going to Chandler-Haynes a little while. I didn’t remember her, but I’d have been older.
Not to mention stupidly hung up on Elizabeth.
The atmosphere relaxed once our food arrived and we ate.
It’s hard to be tense with buttermilk biscuits dripping with melted butter.
Just sayin’. Grandma didn’t ask further questions of Tyler.
Grandaddy was himself, a man of few words, often terse, but sharply wise.
And Tyler slouched into her chair, relaxing inch by inch, quiet maybe, but I’d already gathered she just was sometimes.
From what I’d seen, her friend Maggie was the chatterbox.
After we finished eating, Grandaddy wanted to browse through the store – and the hardware place – and I grinned at Grandma’s longsuffering huff. I shook his hand and gave her a hug. “Gonna get her home. Some of us have to work tomorrow.”
Grandaddy growled something about working every day under his breath, and I swallowed a chuckle.
At the register, I tossed down a bag of strawberry licorice whips, knowing she kept them at her desk at work. She darted a look at me, a different kind of blush painting a strip of pink along her cheekbones. What was that about?
I restrained my curiosity until I had the truck pointed south on 19. Resting my wrist on the steering wheel, I relaxed into my seat. “Want to tell me what that was all about with Grandma?”
“Not really.” Silence hung a moment, then she sighed, a forlorn sound. “When I was fifteen and lived in the group home, I went to Chandler-Haynes. I was in her advisement group.”
“Yeah?” I’d had Mr. Davis for advisement, all four years of high school. And for four years I’d had to listen to his disappointment in me for not taking honors classes.
“She was nice.” Not looking at me, she picked at the outside seam on her jeans.
“She is.” One corner of my mouth quirked up. “Until you’re cutting up on stage.”
“I never had her class.” She turned to look out the window, still tormenting that seam. “I took reading and math support for my electives because I had gaps from changing schools so much.”
“Yeah.” The idea made my throat tight.
“Anyway, I wasn’t the best kid.”
I shot a rapid glance her way, only to find her dark hair concealing her profile. “Maybe it was more you didn’t have the best circumstances.”
Her shoulders lifted and fell in a dejected shrug. “I was mad a lot and not always polite. But she let me breathe.”
“She’s good at that.”
“So one of the senior cheerleaders got in my face one day because her boyfriend held the door for me at DQ and spoke.”