Fall Guy (A Youngblood Book), Reinhardt, Liz [best free ebook reader for pc .TXT] 📗

grandson? Did you hit it off after you two disappeared at the art show?"

I'm listening to my grandmother's questions without really hearing them and looking at the stark writing on the thick vellum card she left on the side table for me: You were right. About everything. And I don't expect another chance. But you deserve an apology. These are the beginning. I love you.

I force the sugared-up tween hopping from foot to foot in my secret heart to cut her happy dance short.

I've heard Winchester Youngblood's promises before. And I know exactly why reading this one breaks my heart all over again.

He actually believes he can keep his promise.

Even if it's not possible.

"They must be from Kieren," I lie. Gramma's head whips up and she studies me with slitted eyes, icy blue and deeply suspicious.

"I know you're lying like a rug, sweetheart." She takes out a vase and begins a complicated, studious process of arranging each long-stemmed, fragrant bloom. "I don't like seeing that gorgeous face in a frown. Spill the beans."

I pick up a piece of a deep green, broken leaf and twirl it between my fingers.

"Was my mother always so weak?"

It seems like I've changed the subject, but I'm only asking questions to support the Winchester Youngblood case that's gone to court in my head. Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time knowing if I'm on the prosecution or the defense. Or maybe I'm the judge? Or jury?

Or executioner?

Gramma takes a deep, flower-sweet lungful of air and plumps the blossoms in the vase.

"Yes." My grandmother is only rarely so direct. And never so brief.

I wait for more, but when no more comes, I ask, "Did you think she'd be a terrible mother?"

"She's not," she snaps, her silvery bob swinging around her chin as she jerks another flower with enough force to snap the stem.

She puts the discarded tulip to the side, the creamy petals bright with a single stripe of orange in the center. I run my finger over the color, ashamed at speaking ill of my own mother, and understanding my grandmother's fierce loyalty.

Family loyalty that turns a blind eye to all evils? It's part of my birthright and one reason it was easy to be with Winch despite his yo-yoing family obligations.

"I apologize." I pluck the petals off the tulip, leaving the tall, exposed pistil naked in the center, and whack the side of the desk with the torn flower. "I know my mother tried to be better."

Gramma's fingers still over the flowers in the vase.

"I wish that was the truth." She braces her hands on the marble tabletop, her gold rings clicking the surface. "Your mama was a lovely girl. Lovely. But she wanted what she wanted. And she wanted things to be easy."

My grandmother looks at me, her light eyes swirling with hurt I can't fully understand. "You can't have it both ways. If she was going to marry your daddy, it was going to be work. I told her that. And, the thing is, your mama wasn't cut out for work."

Her sigh starts deep in her chest and inverts her shoulders. "I'm not passing judgment. Your granddaddy and I were prepared to set her up for a life of leisure and ease. We knew our child well and wanted her to be happy, have a happy life. She would have done well with a nice young man from a good family. One of our choosing. But...she was stubborn. And it just broke her world apart when things with your father didn’t work the way she anticipated."

I've already had my wrist slapped for speaking against my mother, and I understand. My grandmother loves her fiercely, which is probably part of the reason my mother has always gotten away with such awful behavior; her own mother is always on hand to sweep her problems up, and her daughter has always known how to stand on her own two feet.

"So, you think it's better to be with someone who makes sense? Not necessarily someone you love, but know is from a different world?"

The coolness seeps out of her eyes and she goes back to work making the already gorgeous flowers into something harmonious, true art.

"I think your mother should have married someone who made sense. I think your parents couldn't overcome all the difficulties true love seems to come booby-trapped with. But the two of us?" She winks at me. "Well, we're cut from a different cloth altogether."

I inch closer, until the smell of fresh flowers mingles with the heady, rich scent of my grandmother's perfume. "Did you want to marry someone who didn't make sense?"

"Good Lord, what kind of question is that?" Gramma exclaims, her mouth quirked in a half-smile. "Your fool of a granddaddy still doesn't make sense, and that should be obvious to a smart girl like you."

She lifts her eyes from the petals, and they shine with a young dreaminess. "He was so far on the wrong side of the tracks, no one even warned us away from each other. A romance between me, the daughter of one of the oldest, richest families in Savannah, and Lee Early? Even the thought was a joke, and that's how he wooed me. No one from my life or his could wrap their head around the idea of the two of us together, so we went unnoticed practically under their noses."

"But...I don't understand? Granddaddy is famous. The Early name is famous. Everyone knows him. Everyone is afraid of him!"

My grandfather is every inch a perfect Southern gentleman and respected businessman, and I remember back to the night of the party with Jace. All Winch had to do was say my grandfather's name, and Jace disappeared without a word of argument.

"Well now they do, love." Gramma's smile is every shade of triumphant. "But it's fifty years since we met and started building our life together. The world is a different place now, and we're completely different people. Back then, I had a hard time convincing him