Chapter 30 #2
That knocked him out of whatever mindspace he’d been in, and he waggled his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. But I guess I should change too?”
Thirty minutes later, they parked in Grandmother’s driveway. Both of them were dressed in what most people would call business casual but what Grandmother would consider to be right on the edge of loungewear.
To Bronwyn’s surprise, Grandmother wasn’t in the house. She sat in a wheelchair beside her flower garden. Sebastian, poor kid, stood guard a few feet away.
After Mo helped her from the Jeep, Sebastian acknowledged her presence but didn’t move from his post.
Mo scanned the surroundings, then nudged her toward her grandmother. “I’ll stay back. I won’t listen in. If you need me, give me a signal.”
Bronwyn didn’t argue. Mo’s presence on the property might be enough to send her grandmother to her not-so-early grave.
It wasn’t until she knelt beside her grandmother’s wheelchair that she realized she had no idea what signal she would use if she needed Mo. Oh well. She’d wing it.
“Grandmother?”
Grandmother Pierce looked at her and nodded approval. “I knew you would come.” Her voice had a gurgly quality to it that Bronwyn suspected did not bode well for her continued presence with them. “Do you know who tried to kill you?”
“Not yet. We’ve barely had time to breathe since it happened. But we’re working on it.”
“By we, I assume you mean you and that Quinn boy?”
“Yes, ma’am.” In for a penny, in for a pound. “He saved my life.”
“I heard.” She studied Mo where he now stood, beside Sebastian. “It looks like he took more than a bullet for you. What happened to his pretty face?”
“You think he’s pretty?” And why was that the part of the observation she’d focused on?
“The Quinn men have always been attractive. Catherine Quinn says it has nothing to do with appearance and everything to do with the fact that for the most part, she raised good men.”
“Do you agree?”
“Hard to disagree when my own sons have turned into lecherous pit vipers and few would call them handsome at this point.”
Ouch.
“The board plans to try to fire you.”
Leave it to Grandmother to get right back to business. She’d probably be trying to run the show from her funeral. “They will do what they will do. I will do what I must.” The words were true enough, but Bronwyn hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.
Grandmother nodded a few times, and Bronwyn wondered if she’d fallen asleep. But then a bony hand reached out and grabbed her arm. “Get the bylaws. Study them. Be prepared. This isn’t over. I’ve made provisions.”
“Grandmother, what provisions have you made?” This cloak-and-dagger stuff was more than she had the patience for. She needed answers, not vague assurances.
But she wasn’t going to get them today. Grandmother’s cough started suddenly and continued so long that Bronwyn feared she might pass out.
She looked at Mo and with one glance, he turned to Sebastian, spoke a few words, and ran to the door of the house. When it opened, he spoke to the butler on duty, then returned to his spot by Sebastian.
Moments later, the day nurse dashed out the door and into the garden.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Pierce. I’m Janelle.
” She carried a mask attached to a small oxygen tank.
“Now, Mrs. Pierce, when you talk too much, you start coughing.” Janelle settled the mask over her grandmother’s face. “Let’s take you back inside.”
She unlocked the wheelchair and pushed it toward the back door where a newly constructed ramp allowed easier access to the home.
“Do you need any help, Janelle?” Bronwyn asked.
“No, ma’am. Will you be coming inside?”
“No. I need to go. A moment, please.” She stepped in front of the wheelchair and leaned toward her grandmother. “I’ll do what you said. You rest.”
She didn’t tell her she loved her. She didn’t touch her. They weren’t a touchy-feely family. That was okay. Although, now that she thought about it, she craved a certain amount of physical contact. Maybe it was because she’d had so little of it growing up.
Mo joined her then, and they stood side-by-side as Janelle pushed Grandmother into the house. When they were back in the Jeep, she didn’t say anything. She drove back to Mo’s place and parked the car. Even though he must have been curious about what was said, Mo didn’t pry.
She appreciated that more than she could articulate.
By mutual consent, they walked to the firepit and sat in their chairs. It was warm but not miserable, a perk of living in the mountains in the summer. They had scorching days, but this wasn’t one of them.
Bronwyn finally steeled herself enough to speak. “My grandmother told me she’d made provisions.”
“Provisions?”
“Yep.” She kicked her feet up on the firepit rim. “Oh, and that I need to study the bylaws.”
“For The Haven?”
“Yes.”
“Seems wise. She’s not my favorite person, but no one could ever say she wasn’t a sly fox.”
Bronwyn stared across the firepit toward the property she owned on the other side of the river, and memories flooded through her.
They’d played here as children. Splashed in the river.
Played hide-and-seek in the trees. Their land wasn’t heavily forested, but there were more trees than bare patches.
Cal and Landry’s house was so deliciously nestled into the trees that it felt like someone had planted a house seed and it had grown up right along with the woods.
“Did I tell you Landry tried to sell me the land back?”
If Mo found her abrupt change of subject surprising, he didn’t let on.
“I told her I’d buy it back from her if she needed the money, but otherwise that she should keep it and sell it back to me when Eliza’s ready to go to college. It will be worth a lot more then. It’s not like I need it.”
Mo eased his wounded leg up to the firepit rim beside hers. “Cal told me. He thought it was brilliant. Landry was offended that you would think she would take advantage of you that way.”
“Landry is an incredible artist, but her business sense is nonexistent. She’d give everything away if she could.”
Mo nodded in agreement. “I’ll be right back.
” He disappeared into his house for a few minutes.
When he emerged, he carried a laptop and two bottles of water.
“Here.” He handed her a water. “Aunt Carol texted me and told me I needed to hydrate. Something about blood loss. I don’t know.
I don’t care. But if I have to, you have to. ”
He resumed his seat and opened his laptop. “Please keep talking. I’m listening. I’m running down a hunch.”
She didn’t say anything. Not out of any spite or grouchiness. Not even because she doubted that Aunt Carol would approve. It was simply that she didn’t want to disturb him. If he had a hunch, she wanted him to chase that thing down and beat it into submission.
And my, my, hadn’t her thoughts turned vicious today.
She sipped her water, studied her land, and listened to Mo do whatever he was doing on the computer. After a few minutes, he tapped her arm. “You’re being awfully quiet. Everything okay?”
She gave him a look.
He held up his hands. “Okay, okay. I get it. No. Everything is not okay. Your family is imploding, your grandmother is scheming from her deathbed, and don’t think I’ve forgotten about Bob the super-friendly bodyguard who wants to date you. Or Peter Brown who is a lying scumbag if ever I saw one.”
She had to laugh at his concise recitation of the facts. “Precisely.”
“But, given the amount of consternation that level of chaos should be contributing to your mental clutter, one would conclude you would have plenty to converse about.” Mo grinned at her. “And yes, I did include all that alliteration on purpose. I couldn’t help it.”
She tilted her water bottle toward him. “Well played, sir.”
He gave her an expectant look.
“You’re working. I’m processing. I’m . . .” She dropped her head and confessed, “I’m enjoying that we’re sitting here together, and we don’t need anyone to help us communicate.”
Mo’s grin was straight out of her childhood. Rare, mischievous, and devastating. “But we aren’t communicating. I’m working, and you’re not saying anything.”
She took another sip of water. “I think we’re communicating just fine.” She wanted to slap her hand over her mouth. What was wrong with her? Was she flirting with him?
Based on the way his grin went from devastating to surprised, she thought maybe he’d taken it as flirty, regardless of how she meant it.
“I’ll concede that nonverbal communication is something we excel at.
” He spoke the words without looking away from his computer, but then he turned those big blue eyes on her and winked.
“But if we’re going to share what we enjoy, then I should tell you that I’m enjoying hearing your voice.
I’ve always loved the way your mind works.
But I can’t read it. You have to tell me what’s going on in there. ”
Couldn’t he?
As if in answer to her unspoken question, he continued. “Okay. Sometimes I can come close to reading your mind. And it’s cool that we can still communicate without words.”
She agreed.
“But it’s been a long stretch without words, so for now at least, I prefer the words to the silence.”
“Fair enough. I’m staring at my land, and I’m wondering why you haven’t built on yours. Do you have plans? Ideas?”