Page 31 of Kiss Me Now
“No. I have too much to do. Go away.” I wasn’t dumb enough to put any faith into a so-called “apology” by someone who’d ambushed me with ugly accusations on the pretext of a “getting to know you” dinner.
“House stuff? I’ll talk while I help. Open up?”
“No, thank you. Now please leave before I call the sheriff.”
“I really am sorry, I promise. I’d like to explain what went wrong and make it up to you.”
Yeah, right. “If the sheriff doesn’t scare you, maybe your grandmother will. Should I call her?”
He hesitated, leaning his head against the doorframe for a second before turning to meet the doorbell camera eye to ... lens? “No, don’t do that. I need to confess to her myself.” He took a step toward the steps but paused again. “I really am sorry, Brooke. I was wrong about you.”
Then I watched him leave until he was out of camera range.
Well.
He sounded like he meant it. Maybe I should have let him in?
But then I remembered his smooth charm through the first part of dinner last night before he’d sucker punched me.
Nah.
Good riddance, Ian Greene. He’d return to the city on Sunday, and I’d get my garden and Miss Lily back.
Chapter Eleven
Ian
Gran watched me walkinto the parlor without a word, her cocked eyebrow telling me she was waiting.
“Brooke doesn’t want to talk to me,” I told her. “I don’t think she’ll come out to the garden again until I’m gone.”
“You want to tell me what all this is about? You take a phone call in the middle of our conversation, disappear next door, and come back looking like a kicked puppy. And Brooke Spencer wouldn’t kick a puppy even to save her life. So what’s going on?”
“I’ve been kind of an idiot,” I admitted, collapsing to the sofa next to her. “A big one. I was worried she was trying to prey on you because you’re ol...” I trailed off when her eyebrow rose even higher. “Because I saw some red flags,” I amended. “So I started digging into her background, and on the surface, what I found confirmed my suspicions.”
Gran’s look shifted to incredulity. “You investigated myneighbor? What iswrongwith you?”
