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Fifteen minutes later, I stood on the front porch waiting for Tess. The front door opened, and Granny stepped out lightly, and gave me a direct look, one eyebrow raised. She wasn’t holding a shotgun or anything, but her look made it clear she had something to say to me. When the door swung shut behind her, she faced me, her thin arms crossed over her narrow chest, the pale dress she’d worn for the photos looking incongruous in place of her usual track suit.
“Tess says you two are going out for some sightseeing.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Don’t fuck with my granddaughter,” she said plainly.
Shock trickled through my chest like ice water. “Uh, no ma’am.”
“Don’t ‘no ma’am’ me. I know your type,” she said, pointing a bony finger at me. “Too big for your britches, full of yourself, maybe. Good-looking guy like you … well, you need to know that Tess is strong and smart and happy, just the way she is. And if you screw any of that up, you’ll have me to answer to.”
I wasn’t quite sure where this was coming from, but I tried to accept the warning and reassure this fierce old woman that I had no intention of hurting either of her granddaughters—not if I could help it. She still believed I was dating Juliet, as far as I knew. “Both of your granddaughters are incredible,” I told her. “I’m lucky to know them both.”
She eyed me then, crossing her arms again. “Well, you’ll have to pick one,” she said, and then turned on her heel and went back into the house.
Gran was just being protective, and I thought both Tess and Juliet were lucky to have her looking out for them. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, and I hoped I could get to know Tess and try to make my heart happy while keeping my agreement with Juliet—hopefully making both of our careers better.
I tried to shake the tension from my shoulders, swinging my arms as I waited for Tess, who appeared a minute later. Her hair was pulled back again, as it had been this morning, but now it was swinging behind her in a ponytail, with just a few tendrils around her face. She’d removed some of the makeup from earlier, and her cheeks glowed pink beneath those luminous eyes. My nerves stirred up again at the sight of her, my stomach flipping when she smiled at me. “Ready?” she asked.
“Definitely,” I said. I wanted to add something about how amazing she looked, how happy I was to get to spend some time alone with her, but I wasn’t sure I was completely off the hook for lying to her in the first place about Juliet. I decided to just be a good sightseer, go along for the ride and find out if the potential I felt could be something real.
“Did Granny say something awful to you?” She looked back toward the door.
“Not at all. She was just warning me that if I fuck with you she’ll kill me.” I followed Tess down the stairs to the driveway. She spun to look at me again, widening her eyes.
“Seriously?”
I lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “It’s good to have someone looking out for you,” I told her.
“Hey,” she said. “Do we need to take one of those guys with us?” She angled her head toward where Jack was standing, holding the chicken to his chest.
I shook my head. “They’re Juliet’s. I don’t need them and they don’t work for me anyway.” I lifted a hand to Jack. “Be back in a bit!”
He waved at me and Chessy let out a squawk. I heard him shushing her as I followed Tess.
As we walked toward the garage, which was a three-bay building set apart from the house, I dropped a hand lightly on Tess’s lower back, keeping pace by her side. She stiffened at the contact at first, and I remembered too late that she’d asked me not to touch her. I took my hand away, whispering, “Sorry.”
Tess shot a glance up at me, as if trying to read my intention in my eyes. “It’s okay,” she said, and I hoped she could see some part of the way I might feel about her on my face. The gesture had been natural, almost protective.
We climbed into her mini Cooper and she maneuvered us out of the garage and down the long driveway between the fields. I fought the urge to touch her again, but admired the way her leg flexed and moved as she drove, her muscles stretching the dark denim. Soon we were trundling down curving country roads, huge green trees leaning toward us from either side. The sides of the road were shadowy and dark, a dense verdant wood stretching out on either side of us, twisting with vines and low brush. “It’s so different from California,” I said, thinking aloud.
“Yeah?” Tess asked, smiling.
“You’ve never been?” Surprise lifted my voice. I’d have thought she would have visited her sister at some point. I liked the idea that maybe someday I could be the one to show her California for the first time.
“Nah. That’s Juliet’s thing. I’m happy here.” It was a simple statement, and I turned to see Tess’s face glow as she said it. “This is home,” she added.
I nodded, wishing I knew what that meant. Home. I understood the idea, the concept. I’d just never really had a home myself, never felt like I belonged anywhere enough to stay. “Must be nice,” I said.
“What?” Tess asked, swinging her gaze to mine and then finding the road again.
“Feeling so at home that you don’t want to leave,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had that.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“Out west. My dad traveled for work and got assigned to new territories a lot. We lived in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas for a while. A little time in California. That was when I ran away.” This wasn’t something I shared with a lot of people. I let the information out and watched for her reaction.
Surprise lifted her brows and turned her mouth into a tiny circle. “Ran away?”
