Page 8 of The Fix-Up

“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 toreach 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.Thatwas 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.”

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