Page 5 of Kiss Me Now
“But I—”
“But nothing,” Miss Lily said. “You don’t want to hurt an old lady’s feelings, do you?”
I sighed. “You’re not playing fair.”
“Child, you lost this argument the minute I mentioned Mary’s roast and you know it. Now go on and get ready for supper.”
I conceded defeat and gathered up my garden tote, the squash resting inside on a pile of green beans large enough to keep me fed for three meals in a row. I gave Miss Lily a warm smile and Ian a polite nod and headed back to my place.
Unlike the upscale neighborhood in McClean where I grew up, the properties here on the outskirts of town weren’t separated by fences or even perfectly manicured hedgerows. It was as if people in the country each had enough land that they didn’t feel the need to stake it out down to its last inch. The open yards allowed Miss Lily and me to wander between each other’s homes freely, and it was one of the things I liked best about Creekville: everyone seemed to feel this way. Chances were when the kid across the street finished mowing his half-acre lawn, he’d glance around to see if any neighbors’ grounds needed attention and cut it for them without a second thought.
I walked into the kitchen and unloaded my tote into the waiting wooden bowl on the counter, giving the pile of fresh string beans and squash one last look of longing. Mary’s roast might be the only thing that could tempt me away because cooking up my small harvests had become one of my favorite parts of the day. Making small talk with strangers...not so much, however good I’d been at it in my old life.
Still, Miss Lily had issued her orders, and I would obey her because she was the grandmother I’d always wished I had, and I could appreciate her even if Ian the Idiot could not.
Chapter Three
Ian
Iwatched Brooke go, analyzing my reaction to her. I’d been startled by her appearance. It’s not that I’d expected her to dress the part in sunglasses and a trench coat, but neither had I expected the fresh-faced prettiness of a woman straight out of one of my mom’s Land’s End catalogues.
I should have. My training was better than that. Sometimes corruption advertised itself in the faces of people who had indulged themselves too long in hard living. Rich foods and expensive drugs made for soft bodies and worn faces. But far more often, the most corrupt people were the ones you didn’t see coming, the kinds who looked unassuming and ordinary. Pleasant, even. It was what made them so dangerous.
“I’m so glad you came,” Gran said again, squeezing me around the waist, and I returned the love.
“Me too, but how did you know I was coming?”
She smiled up at me. “Grandma instincts are as good as motherly ones about things like this. Now come on into the house. Let’s get you settled, then you can tell us all about the capi-dullover dinner.”
I grinned at Gran’s unrepentant disdain for the nation’s capital. She’d always said the only thing more useless than a square tire was a politician. I couldn’t disagree, but the very consistency of their self-absorption and naked thirst for power enabled me to make a very nice living, so viva la politicians, the more craven, the better.
We returned to the house, and I inhaled deeply as we stepped through the French doors into the large, open room she called the “gathering room.” The familiar scent of gardenias, soft but distinct, wafted to me. I didn’t know if the house smelled like Gran or vice versa, but I could never smell gardenias without it transporting me straight back to this room. It was the figurative and literal center of the home, where our family gathered at Thanksgiving for every minute that wasn’t spent in the formal dining room feasting on the spread Mary cooked up. We all lounged in the gathering room while the grandkids played at one end, the sports fans watched football at the other end, and everyone else spread on the sofas and comfy armchairs in between, laughing and catching up. Ithadbeen too long since I’d come to visit.
“It’s been too long,” Gran said, echoing my identical thought. How did she do that? “But I’m glad you’re here. Now run up and put your things in your room while I check on dinner.”
I fetched my weekend bag from my BMW convertible. It had been forever since I’d taken it for a joyride. I spent most of my time driving a sensible hybrid painted a color somewhere between beige and silver, the perfect car to blend into any neighborhood. The BMW was my gift to myself three years ago on my thirtieth birthday, a luxury for when I was on my own time, but I’d had so little time to put any mileage on it that it looked brand new.
