Page 26 of Easy On Me

Brows raised, Tyler eased back in her seat, spine pressed against the chair, creating space between herself and the table. “Mrs. Hatcher, all I’m doing is answering the phone and making appointments. It’s not exactly life-changing work.”

Grandaddy’s head shot up. “Honest work is honest work. Be proud if you do it well.”

Tyler’s left brow went even higher. I bit back a groan. She was never going out with me again. Damn it, Grandaddy.

After a moment, Tyler’s mouth twitched into the slightest of smiles. That smile was real, so my squirrelly gut unknotted a notch. “Mama Nancy would agree with you.”

“Mama Nancy?” Grandma prodded, an air of watchfulness around her.

Chin tilted, Tyler met her gaze. “My mother.”

Grandma’s whole body softened, her eyes lighting up. “Your mother. Of course. You know, honey, we should get together for lunch one day, the two of us. I want to know all about her.”

The stillness about Tyler made me nervous, driving home again that there was something here I didn’t know. Grandma knew, and I felt like that something was big and could blow up.

“Maybe.” Tyler smiled, a polite curve of her lips. She had a lot of different smiles, many of them not real. Elizabeth’s smiles could be fake, too, so I knew the difference. Elizabeth’s smiles were weapons, though.

Tyler’s false smiles rang more like shields.

Grandaddy watched the interchange, a slight frown carving a vee between his heavy brows. The old man was sharp and never missed a thing.

My brain insisted on trying to diag Tyler and figure out how Grandma knew her. It lay in the past, so it had to be school. Tyler had mentioned going to Chandler-Haynes a little while. I didn’t remember her, but I’d have been older.

Not to mention stupidly hung up on Elizabeth.

The atmosphere relaxed once our food arrived and we ate. It’s hard to be tense with buttermilk biscuits dripping with melted butter. Just sayin’. Grandma didn’t ask further questions of Tyler. Grandaddy was himself, a man of few words, often terse, but sharply wise. And Tyler slouched into her chair, relaxing inch by inch, quiet maybe, but I’d already gathered she just was sometimes.

From what I’d seen, her friend Maggie was the chatterbox.

After we finished eating, Grandaddy wanted to browse through the store – and the hardware place – and I grinned at Grandma’s longsuffering huff. I shook his hand and gave her a hug. “Gonna get her home. Some of us have to work tomorrow.”

Grandaddy growled something about working every day under his breath, and I swallowed a chuckle.

At the register, I tossed down a bag of strawberry licorice whips, knowing she kept them at her desk at work. She darted a look at me, a different kind of blush painting a strip of pink along her cheekbones. What was that about?

I restrained my curiosity until I had the truck pointed south on 19. Resting my wrist on the steering wheel, I relaxed into my seat. “Want to tell me what that was all about with Grandma?”

“Not really.” Silence hung a moment, then she sighed, a forlorn sound. “When I was fifteen and lived in the group home, I went to Chandler-Haynes. I was in her advisement group.”

“Yeah?” I’d had Mr. Davis for advisement, all four years of high school. And for four years I’d had to listen to his disappointment in me for not taking honors classes.

“She was nice.” Not looking at me, she picked at the outside seam on her jeans.

“She is.” One corner of my mouth quirked up. “Until you’re cutting up on stage.”

“I never had her class.” She turned to look out the window, still tormenting that seam. “I took reading and math support for my electives because I had gaps from changing schools so much.”

“Yeah.” The idea made my throat tight.

“Anyway, I wasn’t the best kid.”

I shot a rapid glance her way, only to find her dark hair concealing her profile. “Maybe it was more you didn’t have the best circumstances.”

Her shoulders lifted and fell in a dejected shrug. “I was mad a lot and not always polite. But she let me breathe.”

“She’s good at that.”

“So one of the senior cheerleaders got in my face one day because her boyfriend held the door for me at DQ and spoke.”