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“No offense,” she told him, “but I’ll take the bad day of a rich lawyer over the bad day of a poor maid anytime.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he said. “You’ve never had to draft a prenuptial agreement for your step-grandmother.”
At that moment, the girl at the counter called out their order, and he slid from the booth, leaving Patience to wonder about his answer. Writing some document hardly seemed a big ordeal.
Stuart returned a few minutes later with a tray laden with food. The smell of fresh beef made her stomach rumble. Grimy location or not, Al’s did have good burgers.
She waited until they’d divided the burgers and French fries before picking up the conversation. “How is writing a prenuptial so awful?” she asked him. “It’s not like unclogging a toilet or something.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you met Grandma Gloria.”
“Harsh.”
“Not harsh enough,” he said, biting into his burger.
So Patience wasn’t the only person Stuart had issues with. Maybe he didn’t like outsiders in general. Or was it only women? “She had to have some redeeming quality. I mean if your grandfather loved her...”
“Grandpa Theodore wanted her. Big difference.”
“She must have wanted him too,” Patience replied. She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to defend this Gloria person, unless it was because exonerating Gloria might improve her own standing in his mind.
“She wanted Duchenko money.” There was no mistaking the venom in his voice. “And she went after it like a heat-seeking missile. Didn’t matter who she got the money from, or who she had to hurt in the process.”
Like who? The way his face twisted with bitterness made her think he was leaving something out of the story. It certainly explained why he had issues with her befriending Ana.
“This Gloria woman sounds lovely.”
“Oh, she was a real peach. Did I mention she turned thirty-four on her last birthday?” he added abruptly.
“Thirty-four?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Hasn’t your grandfather been dead for...”
“Ten years,” he supplied. My grandfather died ten years ago.”
Making Gloria...ew. Patience wrinkled her nose at the image.
“Exactly. And now I’m stuck dealing with her for the rest of eternity.”
Patience took a long sip of her cola. His comments had opened the door to a lot of questions, about many of which she had no business being curious, and yet seeing his frown, she couldn’t help herself. “Ana doesn’t talk much about her family,” she said. “Other than you, that is.
“Unfortunately, there wasn’t much love lost between Ana and Grandpa Theodore. From what I understand, they stopped speaking to each other around forty or fifty years ago. People were shocked when she traveled to his funeral. She told them it was only out of respect for me.”
“Wow.” To not speak to your sibling for decades? She couldn’t imagine going more than two or three days without talking to Piper. “That must have been some fight.”
“True. I asked Ana once, but all she said was Grandpa Theodore stole her happiness.”
“How?” Ana seemed like one of the happiest people she knew.
“Beats me. I remember my father grumbling once that he wished my grandfather would make things right this one time, so whatever happened was his fault. Unfortunately, unless Ana decides to open up, we might never know.”
“Your poor dad. Sounds like he was stuck in the middle.”
“For a little while anyway. He uh...” His eyes dropped to his half-eaten meal. “He and my mom died in a car accident when I was fourteen.”
“Oh.” Patience kicked herself for bringing up the subject. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
Time didn’t mean anything. There was nothing worse than having the ground yanked out from under you, leaving you with no idea where you belonged, what would happen next, or who would catch you if you fell. The teenage Stuart would have held in the pain, put on a strong face. She could tell by the way he held himself now, closed and protected.
Just like her. No one should be forced to grow up before they’re ready.
Again, it was as if she’d spoken her thoughts out loud, because Stuart looked up, his blue eyes filled with a mixture of curiosity and gratitude. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say you grew up earlier than I did.”
His words twisted around her heart. If only he knew... For a crazy second, she longed to tell him everything, thinking that he, having been in her shoes, might understand. Reality quickly squashed her fantasy. He’d never understand. The two of them came from two different worlds. Rich versus poor. Clean versus dirty. Sitting here, sharing childhood losses, it was easy for that fact to slip her mind.
