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Babs took a sip of her decaf. “The morning of the day you returned. I can’t believe I forgot to mention it to you. We’ve both been a bit scatterbrained.”
Scatterbrained or not, she’d already been married to Landon by then.
But Madelyn couldn’t have known about the wedding. And even if she did, and she’d mentioned it to Babs, her grandmother would have dropped the gauntlet and made her spill the details the minute she pulled up in Carol.
“And what did you and Madelyn talk about?” she asked as a bead of perspiration trailed between her breasts.
“We mostly spoke about music. She’d heard me play years ago when I was still with the Denver Symphony Orchestra. We had a lovely visit. I shared with her about my musicians’ retreat. It just so happens, we both love visiting New Mexico.”
“Uh-huh,” she grunted, but that couldn’t be all Madelyn wanted.
The matchmaker always had something up her sleeve.
“Isn’t it marvelous how she’s matched Libby, Charlotte, and Penny with their fiancés?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Madelyn simply adores the four of you,” Babs added.
Harper removed her tote from the hook but kept her back to Babs. “And she stopped over, out of the blue, and introduced herself?”
“Yes, she said she was in the neighborhood.”
Unlikely.
“Did she mention anything about matching me for a nanny position?” Her heart was ready to jackhammer itself out of her chest.
“No, she didn’t.”
Crisis averted.
She released a relieved breath. Maybe there was nothing to it. Penny, Char, or Libby could have mentioned Babs was home alone while she was in Las Vegas.
“But I asked Madelyn if there was a placement for you,” Babs added.
Dial up the jackhammer.
“Why?” she asked in a high-pitched opera voice that exploded from her throat when she got crazy flustered.
“Because you need a job. I’m not sure I know what you’re doing when I hear you singing and calling yourself Bonbon Barbie in your room, but I know you’re not teaching in-person piano lessons, and it’s not just that. You’re a young woman. You need to be out in the world, working on your music and finding your way, not living here with your grandmother.”
She turned and faced the woman who’d raised her. “I want to make sure you’re okay, Babs.”
Her grandmother got up and placed her empty mug in the sink. “I get around just fine, missy. And truth be told, you’re cramping my style.”
“I’m cramping your style?” she fired back. “Did my moving back in interrupt your three a.m. raves in the attic? It’s what Grandpa would have wanted me to do.” Along with making sure the house didn’t get repossessed, but she left out that part.
“Harper, even if my ankle hadn’t healed, I would be fine. You know better than anyone else that you can’t allow an impairment to hold you back.”
She did.
That’s what had inspired her foray into online music instruction.
She peered into the living room, and a soothing warmth welled in her chest as she took in the piano.
Her piano.
She pictured herself as a girl, feet dangling as she sat in the center of the piano bench with Grandma Babs on one side and Grandad Reeves on the other. Armed with a box of colored pencils, there was no stopping her.
