Читать книгу A Perfect Love - Lenora Worth, Rachel Hauck - Страница 9

Summer blinked. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard you right? Did you say you own this house now?”

Mack Riley nodded, shifted his feet, let out a long sigh. “I bought it fair and square about a month ago.”

Summer blew at the wispy bangs slanting across her face, one hand on her hip as she wondered whether just to let him have it and get it over with, or wait and attack her father instead. “Fair and square? Fair and square? Yeah, I’ll just bet my father sold it to you fair and square. How in the world did he get them to agree to this?”

Mack stepped closer, holding his hands out palms up, as if to protect himself. Which wasn’t a bad idea right now, by Summer’s way of thinking. “Your grandparents seem happy with the arrangement. In case you haven’t noticed, this house is old and in great need of repair, and…well, your grandparents are in about the same shape.”

She advanced. “And just who are you to be telling me about my own grandparents?”

He stepped closer, no fear in his eyes. More like defiance and that resolve she’d seen earlier. Which only made Summer even more mad.

“I’ll tell you who I am,” he said. “I’m about the only one around here who does know about your grandparents. You see, I talk to them on pretty much a daily basis. Your father and mother call every now and then, and you…well, you said yourself you haven’t seen them or talked with them since your uncle’s funeral. So that leaves me. And believe me, I think they are better off in that retirement village. At least there, they’re among friends and near qualified people who can help them.”

Summer couldn’t believe he was standing here preaching to her! “Oh, well, excuse me. Since you obviously know so very much about my shortcomings, and since you are such a saint for watching over my grandparents, I guess that gives you every right to just bully them out of their home.”

“I didn’t bully anybody,” he retorted, his voice low and full of frustration. “I liked the house and knew it was where I wanted to live. So I bought it.”

“Fair and square, of course.”

“Yes. I made them a good offer and they took it. It’s that simple.”

Summer stomped to the truck to get her duffel bag. “Oh, there is nothing simple about this. This…this isn’t right. But then, I should have known a man in cahoots with my wayward father wouldn’t understand the implications of something so horrible.”

“Hey, hold on,” Mack said, taking the bag right out of her hand with surprising ease. “I’m not in cahoots with anyone. I just moved here and needed a place to live. So I bought this house from your father. End of story.”

Summer tapped her platform sneaker against the aged wooden steps of the house, her blood boiling just like the radiator on her car had been doing earlier. She could almost feel the hot steam coming out of her ears. “Oh, I think there is much more to this story, and I intend to find out the whole truth.”

Such as, how had her father become the spokes-person for her grandparents, and if the house was in such bad repair, why hadn’t James Maxwell forked over the funds to renovate his in-laws’ home? It just didn’t make any sense. But lately, nothing much in her life had made any sense.

She turned and headed to the house, then stopped, hitting a palm to her forehead. “Silly me. I can’t stay here now. Not with you.” Then she plopped down on the steps and looked up at him. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

Mack had never seen a more dejected sight. A beautiful, uptown blonde in worn jeans and strange shoes, sitting on the broken steps of a hundred-year-old farmhouse, her eyes brilliant with tears she refused to shed, her expression bordering on outrage, and…her hands trembling slightly as she dropped them over her knees.

All of his protective instincts surfaced, reminding him that he’d come here to find some peace and quiet, not get tangled up in a family squabble. But he had to help her, even if she was fighting mad at him, and the world in general. If for no other reason than to get her off his doorstep.

Thinking she didn’t look so bad sitting there, however, he said, “Look, you know there’s plenty of room in the house.”

“I can’t stay here with you,” she repeated, gritting the words between her clenched teeth. “First, I’d rather eat nails than do that, and second, this is a small, old-fashioned town. I wouldn’t want my grandparents to hear any rumors.”

“I admire your stand,” Mack said, daring to sit down on the bottom step. “But even if you did want to stay here, the house is being renovated. There’s very little furniture and the plumbing is barely working. I’m not even living here full-time myself right now. How about you get a room at that motel out on the highway?”

“How about that?” she said, hitting her hand on her knee. “Great, just great. I look forward to a visit home and I get to stay in some fleabag motel. That should help my burnout and stress level a lot.”

Mack could recognize all the signs of her type-A personality. She was a live one. And she looked just about ready to explode into a doozy of a meltdown. The dark circles under her pretty eyes only reminded him of a time when he’d felt the same way. But he sure didn’t know how to help her. Or maybe he was just afraid to help her.

Then Mack lifted his head and glanced over at her. “Hey, what about your parents’ house? They’re in Mexico, last I heard. Won’t be home all summer.”

Summer groaned, laid her head in her hands. “Go to my parents’ house? Oh, that’s just peachy. I hate that overblown facade of a house. All that modern art and fake-rustic country-French charm? Like I want to stay at that overpriced country club of a house!”

“It’s a nice house,” Mack said, thinking it had probably set her parents back a cool million, at least. “And it’s safe—”

“Oh, I know all about the gated community and the exclusive homeowner’s policy, and the golf course and the country club. My mother fairly gushed about it…last time I bothered to talk to her.”

“What is it with you and not talking to your relatives?”

She laughed, the sound bubbling up in her throat like a fresh waterfall hitting rock. “I guess my grandparents didn’t let you in on all the family history, after all. We’re a bit…estranged, my parents and me.”

“Oh, yeah? And why is that?”

Summer pushed at the thick blond hair cascading around her face and shoulders. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because they never had any time for me when I was growing up, so now I make it a point never to make any time for them.” Then she gave him a hard glare. “And besides, that’s none of your business.”

He knew he was heading into deep water, but he didn’t get it. “Your parents seem like nice folks. The times I’ve been around them—which is few, I’ll admit—they seem to be happy and fun-loving. I wish I had their kind of carefree energy.”

She gave him a harsh frown. “And I wish they’d use some of that fun-loving, happy, carefree energy on staying in one place. Just once, I wish they’d settle down and actually notice that they have a daughter.”

“You have issues, don’t you?”

“More than you can imagine, buddy.”

“So what are you gonna do?”

She kept staring at him long enough to allow Mack plenty of time to get caught up in the blue of her eyes. “I want to see my grandparents, make sure this is really what they wanted.”

“It is, I promise.”

She jumped up, pointed a finger in his face. “I don’t believe in promises, understand? I’ve been promised so many things that didn’t work out, it’s sickening.”

“Well, I keep my promises, and I’m telling you, Jesse and Martha are doing better than ever.”

“I need to see them,” she said again, her voice going all soft and husky. “I can’t explain things with my parents—it’s a long story and it’s something I have to come to terms with. But…I can tell you that I love my grandparents, and I came home to see them. So can I please just do that, go and see them?”

That gentle plea melted Mack’s defenses with all the slow-moving force of butter meeting honey on a biscuit, and he knew he was a goner. “Want me to take you to Golden Vista?” At her puzzled, raised-eyebrow expression, he added, “The retirement community where your grandparents live.”

“Golden Vista? That just sounds depressing.”

“It’s a nice place. I think your father invested heavily in—”

Summer shot around him, her long-nailed fingers flailing out into the air. “Oh, I get it now. My father invested in this fancy retirement home, so he’s just making sure he covers his assets, right? By forcing my mother’s parents to go and live there? He just gets lower than a snake’s belly with every passing day.”

Mack didn’t know how to deal with so much bitterness and anger spewing from such a sweet-looking mouth. Although there was a time when he’d been the same way, he reminded himself. But not anymore. “I don’t think—”

“I’m not asking you to think,” she countered. “Just give me a ride to this…Grim Reaper Vista.”

“It’s Golden Vista,” he said, hiding a grin behind a cough. At least she was entertaining—in a Texas twister kind of way.

“Whatever. Just get me to my grandparents. I’ll handle things from there.”

Mack could only imagine how this bundle of blond dynamite would handle things.

Not very well, from the looks of her. There was sure to be a whole lot of fallout and carnage left along her pretty, pithy path.

Just one more thing for him to worry about.

One more thing he really didn’t need to be worrying about right now.

“So this is Golden Vista?”

At Mack’s nod, Summer looked around at the rows and rows of compact wood and brick apartments set against the gentle, rolling hills of East Texas. “It looks like some cookie-cutter type of torture chamber or prison.”

Mack grinned over at her, which only made her fold her arms across her waist in defiance. She didn’t want to like him. In fact, she refused to like him. He was the enemy.

“It’s not a torture chamber and it’s certainly not a prison,” he said as he guided the truck up a tree-shaded drive. “The residents here aren’t in a nursing home. It’s called a retirement village. It’s a community, completely self-contained. And very secure. It has lots of benefits for people like your grandparents, looking for a place to retire.”

“I’ll just bet. Retired, as in, shuffleboard in the morning and bingo in the afternoon. My grandparents are probably bored to tears!”

“I’m telling you, they love it,” Mack replied. “They can come and go as they please, and Jesse and Martha do just that. They have a new car—”

“Courtesy of my generous father, I reckon?”

“Uh, yes. It’s a sturdy sedan.”

“And I guess they just love it, too, right?”

“They seem to. I see them gallivanting all over town in it.”

“My grandparents do not gallivant.”

“Oh, yes, they do.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot you know more about their lifestyle than I do, because I haven’t bothered to keep up with them.”

“That about tells it like it is,” he said, but he held up a hand at her warning glare. “Look, as you so sweetly pointed out, it’s none of my business, your relationship with your folks. I can only tell you what I’ve seen in the last few weeks since I moved here. They were lonely and they’re getting on in years. That farmhouse is kind of isolated out there on the edge of town. I’ve visited them several times since I moved into the house, just to let them see how the renovations are coming along, and they seem very content at Golden Vista.”

“I can’t picture that,” Summer said, remembering how her grandfather loved to plant a big garden, just so he could give his crop away to half of Henderson County. And her grandmother—she loved to cook and quilt, can vegetables and sew pillows, make clothes and crafts. How could she do all those things cooped up in some cracker box of an apartment?

Summer dropped her head into her hand. “I just have to talk to them.”

Mack stopped the truck, then pointed toward a huge, park-like courtyard in the middle of the complex. “Well, there they are, right over there.”

Summer looked up to find a large group of senior citizens milling around in Hawaiian shirts and straw hats. Tiki torches burned all around the festive courtyard, while island music played from a loudspeaker. The smell of grilled meat hit the air, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

“What in the world?”

“It’s a luau,” Mack said. “They have these theme parties once a month. Last month, it was Texas barbecue, and I think next month is Summer Gospel Jam—”

“I’ve heard enough,” Summer said, opening the rickety truck door with a knuckle-crunching yank. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this mess.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mack said, his grin widening.

“Do you find this humorous?” Summer asked as they met in front of the truck.

“Kinda,” he said, then he turned more serious.

Probably because she had murder in her eyes. “I’d advise you to stop grinning.”

He did. “You don’t like change, do you?”

She lifted a brow. “I can handle change just fine, thank you. What I don’t like is when people manipulate my perfectly respectable, God-fearing grandparents. Especially when it’s my own parents.”

“I don’t think they were manipulated,” Mack said as he pulled her toward the feisty-looking group of old people. “I think they just got tired of the upkeep on the house and farm, and they decided to relax and have some fun.”

“It’s just horrible,” Summer retorted, not buying his explanation at all. “You’re laughing about a situation I find very serious.”

“Well, maybe you just take things way too seriously.”

She stopped, blocking his way toward the party. “My poor, hardworking grandparents are trapped in this…this one-foot-in-the-grave travel stop. And I refuse to believe—”

“Summer? Is that my sweet baby, Summer?”

Summer stopped in midsentence, then turned to stare at the stout woman running…well, gently jogging…toward her. “Memaw?”

“It’s me, suga’. Land’s sake, we didn’t know you were coming for a visit. C’mere and give your old granny a good hug.”

Summer took in the hot-pink flamingoes posed across the wide berth of her grandmother’s floral muumuu, took in the bright yellow of the shiny plastic lei draping her memaw’s neck, then glanced down at her grandmother’s feet.

“Memaw, are you wearing kitten-heeled flip-flops?”

“Ain’t they cute?” Martha Creswell said as she enveloped Summer in a hug that only a grandmother could get away with. “And take a look at my pedicure,” she said as she wrapped her arms around Summer. “My toenails are sparkling—Glistening Party Pink, I think the beautician called it.”

Her grandmother’s tight-gripped hug just about smothered Summer, but the sweet, familiar scent of Jergens lotion caused tears to brim in Summer’s eyes. She pulled away to smile down at her petite grandmother. “Oh, Memaw, what have they done to you?”

“Not a thing,” Martha replied, laughing out loud. “Honey, I’m fine, just fine. But wait until you see your grandpa, sugar. He’s been on that new diet, don’t you know. Trim and slim and wired for action.”

“Wired for action? Papaw?” Summer had a bad feeling about this whole setup. A very bad feeling.