Page 6 of It Runs in the Family

My cousins had tried to get me to date again, but Leon had been my third boyfriend in five years, and all three had hurt me in some way. The last had just been the worst. I’d always judged my mother for her choices in men, and I’d been foolish enough to think I was smarter, but mine hadn’t turned out much better. The first guy turned out to be a raging alpha bro, only he’d hidden it at first. Then he’d gradually started spouting his belief that women belonged in the house and were meant to serve their men. When I’d call him out on it, he’d tell me I couldn’t take a joke. Then, at a party while I was with a group of women, I overheard him telling his friends that he’d been conditioning me to become a trad wife—following all the steps—and it was going well. I marched over, dumped a beer on his head, and asked him how well it was going now.

The second had started out better, but his friends and partying had become his priority. Still, like a fool, I’d stayed. Most twenty-two-year-old guys in Mesquite County weren’t exactly responsible, and I didn’t have great role models.

But then he’d found out about my visions and had slowly started taking advantage of me. It all came to a head about seven months into our relationship. One night, he got drunk and asked me to have a vision of who would win a football game so he could place a bet. When I refused, he took a swing at me, only missing because he was too drunk to keep his balance. He chased me through his house, blocking both the front and back doors. I’d locked myself in the bathroom while he banged on the door, trying to break it down.

I’d nearly called Garrett to come save me, but I was too embarrassed. Instead, I’d crawled out the tiny bathroom window and landed hard on my ass. My tailbone was bruised, but my bruised pride hurt worse.

The third breakup had been the hardest. While the first relationships had each lasted less than a year, I’d been with Leon a year and a half. He had a good job as an electrician and didn’t blow his money on beer and video games. And he’d accepted my visions, rarely asking me to have one, and even then, they were benign—like whether he’d have a busy day at work. I’d started to think about building a life with him, and we’d begun to talk about moving in together … until I had a spontaneous vision of him hooking up with another woman.

Still, a vision could change, so I’d told Mary Ellen and Ava, and they proposed we pull some surveillance. I called in sick at the Stop-n-Go one night, and we followed him … right into Pamela Bergman’s lips.

Sure, I could spot the dangerous men—my second boyfriend excluded—but it turned out I was no better at judging a man’s character than my mother.

I hadn’t dated since.

Granny set one of the glasses in front of me. “Why are you really here with Rita’s baby?”

Her question was to the point but not mean. When some people met my grandmother, they were thrown by how direct she could be. After living with my mother and all her schemes and lies, I appreciated my grandmother’s honesty, no matter how it was delivered. Maybe that was why the two of us got along so well.

“Honestly? I woke Rita up last night when I called looking for Selena, so I offered to take the baby this afternoon so she could get a long nap.”

“Why were you lookin’ for Selena?” She lowered onto a chair with a grunt. “What’s that girl done now?”

“I had a vision of her.”

“Of Selena?” She made a sour face. “Was Billy part of this? What’s that boy up to now?”

“He didn’t do anything.” Then I reconsidered and added, “That I know of. It was a customer that came in around about one-thirty this morning.”

“At that gas station.” Her lips twisted with disapproval. “You know I hate you workin’ out there all by yourself at night. You’re too smart to be wastin’ your life workin’ there. When’re you gonna get a real job?”

I cringed but kept my gaze on JJ’s face. His dark eyes were locked on mine as he continued to drain the bottle. “It is a real job, Granny. And I guarantee you I make more money than Rita does at Walmart.”

“Walmart,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Rita was born to work at Walmart. It’s like God was doling out her brains and decided she was destined to be a cashier, but you…” She leaned closer and cupped my cheek.

I looked up at her in surprise.

“Iris, you were destined to do something great.”

If you had told me a pod person had replaced my grandmother, I would have believed you. Granny wasn’t prone to sugary encouragements. There was nothing soft about her, but then again, her husband had been struck by lightning in their farm fields, leaving her with six kids between the ages of ten and two to raise by herself. She’d kept farming and raised her kids and many of her grandkids. The softness had been beaten out of her decades ago.

“I have no idea what I would do, Granny. I don’t have any training, and most jobs in this town are the dead-end kind.”

“It’s not too late to go to college. Garrett did.”

Garrett was the only cousin to continue his education past high school, and he hadn’t even gone until he was twenty. He’d earned an associate’s degree in criminal justice, which had landed him his job with the sheriff’s department.

“That’s a pipe dream, Granny.” JJ was sucking hard on an empty bottle. I wrestled it away from him and propped his chin on my shoulder as I patted his back. He whined his disappointment at having the bottle taken away. “I’m twenty-six years old. Can you see me livin’ in a dorm? And even if I could get over my age, I could never afford it.”

“You don’t have to live in a dorm.” She held my gaze, an unusual seriousness covering her face. “I have money.”

I violently shook my head. “Granny. No.”

“I should have insisted when you were in high school. I offered, but I didn’t push you hard enough. You wanted to go. You were accepted to Texas A&M. You had financial aid.”

I’d planned to go after graduation, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave Selena, not in her nearly catatonic state, although I hadn’t told anyone else that. I’d just said I’d changed my mind, and no one had thought a thing about it.

“Granny, that’s in the past.” I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not one to dwell on regrets. What’s goin’ on?”