Page 21 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire
“Ugh.” I shudder. “What kind of person thieves from rescued donkeys, for God’s sake?”
“You’ve always had good instincts. And you were right about me staying here too.” He eases himself into a chair at the round table for two in the corner.
“You certainly didn’t think so when I first suggested it.” We almost had our first ever real fight. But I wasn’t going to give in. “Even though you knew as well as I did that you wouldn’t rest or do your exercises properly if you were at home. You’d have wrecked all that good surgery by running around after the animals, or slipping in the mud or bashing a shiny new knee on a water trough or something.”
“It was only you agreeing to take charge that changed my mind.” He reaches for the pack of playing cards in the center of the table. “With you there I know I can rest easy. You’re the only person who knows that place like I do.”
“And loves it like you do.”
He gives me that open, loving smile that says his mind understands mine, and mine understands his. Will there ever be another man on the planet who does that?
My stomach clenches at the realization that this is theperfect opening for me to ask the question I’ve been putting off since I got here.
I take a deep breath and nod as I sit opposite him. “So, why didn’t you tell me how much trouble it’s in?”
“Trouble?” He says it like he has absolutely no clue what I’m talking about.
“Financially,” I clarify.
“Oh.” He makes apfftsound and waves his hand, dismissing it as nothing. “Everything’s fine.”
“Everything is not fine, Grandpa. I’ve looked at the books.”
“Just a blip. Donations are always down in the winter.” He presses his hand onto the table to try to ease himself up, but winces and sits back down.
“Do you need something?” I ask.
“Was just going to get us a drink.” He rubs his right knee and flinches again.
“I’ll get it.” I steel myself to dip my toe into the delicate water. “But do you think maybe we should start to consider selling to one of those two asshole developers?”
“Absolutely not.” Now he looks at me like I just told him Waldo broke a leg. “Though, to be fair, we don’t know the second one is an asshole.”
“Only because we haven’t met him. They’re all the same,” I say. “The last time developers swept into Warm Springs, they ruined the other side of town with all those ugly townhomes. And weren’t Polly from the produce store’s parents screwed over by one of them?”
“Yup.” His head drops.
Grandpa was good friends with Polly’s dad, who passed away not long after the first round of new development.
“I hate the thought of selling as muchas you do,” I say. But regardless of how it breaks my heart and makes me want to throw up, I have to be sure Grandpa’s clear about the consequences of his decision. “I just wonder, you know, if it isn’t the practical solution.”
“Practical, my royal ass,” he says.
And I can’t help but smile.
“We’ve always managed before, and we will manage now.” He slides the cards from the box. “We have to choose our own adventure, remember?” His eyes fill up as he repeats Grandma’s life motto. “And I think you and I both chose this one a long time ago.”
“Okay.” I swallow past the lump in my throat.
I can’t push this conversation any more this evening. But I can’t see a way out of having to revisit it another time.
I get up and give his shoulder a squeeze as I pass him on my way to the kitchenette. “Drink, then, Gramps?”
“The brandy’s in the cabinet over the sink,” he says, “if you’d like to join me in a wee snifter and a quick game before you go.” He taps the cards on the table to level the edges.
My heart swells at the tradition. No matter how long I go between visits, Grandpa and I always play blackjack. When my parents were teaching me to read and write, Grandpa taught me blackjack—I don’t think I even knew how to add up to twenty-one, I probably just put down random cards. My main memory of it is how much we laughed as we played at the table in the kitchen, while Grandma cooked dinner.
As I grab two short tumblers from the shelf, an image of the matching pair in my kitchen cabinet in Chicago pops into my mind. And it dawns on me that I haven’tgiven a second’s thought to my life there since Miller showed up.
