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“But Grant does?”
“Well—”
“Don’t you dare go making excuses for him because I could use the same ones for Merrick. That man was not only kind but he’s smart and charming too. I was thinking—what if you tried to turn Grant around?”
“It’s not a bad idea,” I admitted, “but—”
“We can hit them from both angles? Maybe we can flip both of them.”
“But he’s not like Grant, Mama. He’s different. He’s … he’s … well, he’s just worse.”
“How so?”
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t know him.”
“Ha!” Mama pointed a finger at me. “Neither do I, so how about we give him the benefit of the doubt before accusing him of being anything but honest. Just like you did with Grant.”
“Mama—” I groaned.
“Don’t you Mama me. Two handsome men are waiting for dinner in the kitchen, and I’m not going to keep them waiting. Now, I expect you three to be on your best behavior. Do you hear me?”
Annoyed and suspicious, we grumbled our affirmatives.
“Good. Go on and set the table, and when you’ve got your faces put right again, come back in there and pretend like you’re having a good time.”
She turned on her heel and marched out before we could respond, and we followed, sharing looks along the way.
On entering the kitchen, the two men were nearly nose to nose and speaking too low to hear, but whatever it was, it was a challenge. They looked like a couple of panthers ready to decide who the alpha was.
They broke apart, shifting into easy smiles and relaxed shoulders so fast, it left me wondering if I’d seen the exchange right after all.
Daisy went for the plates, and Poppy delegated the rest to Grant and me. We filed into the dining room with our assigned wares and began to circle the table to distribute them.
“What the fuck?” Poppy finally said.
The room exhaled, and my sisters and I were whisper-talking all at once. There were speculations and suspicions thrown around. Grant said nothing.
“Most of all,” Poppy said, “why is he here?”
We turned to Grant.
With a sigh, he set a glass on the table “To check up on me.”
Poppy’s eyes narrowed. “Because you haven’t signed us.”
“It has nothing to do with you.”
We were quiet watching him with such scrutiny, I thought he’d buckle. But he got taller, bigger. Smiled in a way that was almost self-deprecating.
“He does this. We’ve been playing a power game for a long, long time. And he won’t just let me do what I came to do—he’s got to have an opinion about every little thing.”
“What’s he want with Mama?” I asked, my arms folded.
“I don’t know.” He said it half to himself, his brows nocking together. “But I’ll find out.”
The promise hung in the air for a moment before floating away as more guesswork between three sisters took its place.
And I hoped beyond hope that he kept it.
* * *
GRANT
I sat across from my father at the Blum’s long farmhouse table, staring at a stranger.
He was shaped like my father, with the same cool eyes and dark hair, the same square shoulders and cut of his body. But I’d never met this happy, charming man.
And here I thought I’d dodged him.
Should have known better. Maybe I did and didn’t want to admit it.
Conversation was as easy as his smile as he went on to Dottie about anything and everything.
And Dottie ate it up.
She had that sweet, doe-eyed look on her face, genuinely awed by him and frightfully aware of his attention on her. She was flushed and smiling, laughing and occasionally shy under his gaze.
She had no idea it was all bullshit.
Carefully, I kept my face in check, though Jo and her sisters were openly suspicious, assessing him with all the mistrust I was met with the first time I walked through the door. But through Jo, I’d won them over. Through Dottie, my father might be able to do the same.
The knowledge sent an echoing recoil through my guts. Not only because my father had no intention of carrying on any relationship with Dottie, but because I wasn’t supposed to carry on with Jo either. Yet here I was, sitting by her side, watching my father do exactly what I’d done with revulsion in the back of my throat.
We weren’t all that different, he and I. Everything I hated about him, I was, though whether it was by design or default, I wasn’t sure.
This wasn’t a new recognition. But it’d never hit me quite so painfully before.
Dottie laughed, touching my father’s arm as he told some story I’d never heard about riding camels in Dubai, and the rest of us pushed our roasted chicken and mashed potatoes around with our forks, watching him.
I’d left for a few hours in the afternoon to go by the farms I had left to sign with a new offer that included a substantial increase in their payoff, and this time, they all asked me to leave the contract with them.
