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But to his relief, the interior of Brenda’s house was nothing like that. It had an open floor plan and minimal furniture, with a light breeze wafting through French doors that opened onto a back yard terrace. The lawn back there was more of a wildflower meadow, and beyond that, a grove of quaking aspens and balsam fir stood guard.
As soon as he saw those aspens, he relaxed. He loved those trees and considered them to be very underestimated. They had so many uses, both medicinally and in terms of woodworking. You could make Balm of Gilead from the buds, eat the sap when it was running, even use the bark as sunscreen. Quaking aspens grew profusely all over Minnesota, but that didn’t make them any less special.
“I have more furniture than this,” Brenda said nervously. “But it kept getting in the way so I moved it to the garage after Granny moved out.”
“I like it.” He meant that sincerely, although he didn’t know why his opinion would matter. But she looked relieved.
“Too much furniture always makes me feel hemmed in. But my mother liked to buy things so our house was always filled with china cabinets and buffets and armoires and chiffoniers.”
She’d lost him there. “Chi-what?”
CeCe burst out laughing. “Oh my, he really is perfect, isn’t he?”
Galen cast a puzzled look at Brenda, whose face was slowly turning a bright pink.
“Stop that, Granny. Galen isn’t a prop.” She bent down to pick up the little white dog at her feet.
“Prop?”
CeCe lowered herself onto the couch, which was upholstered in sage velvet. “Her mother, my daughter, is an uptight B-word with a stick up her ass. In my day we would have called her a shrew, but today the kids would call her a bee-yotch. And they’d be right.”
He still didn’t understand. “How am I a prop?”
“Simple. Laney is coming to visit soon and we’ve been trying to cook up the perfect way to have a little fun at her expense.”
He looked at Brenda again.
“She always wants me to have a boyfriend, and I never do. So my evil genius grandmother thought it would be hilarious to invite someone who’s very much not what my mother would…I mean, she has a certain image that she would picture…and she’s very image-conscious and…” She trailed off, looking flustered. “This is just sounding worse and worse.”
Oh. So that’s what they were talking about. He fit the bill of a completely unacceptable boyfriend. His crush considered him so unsuitable that she could prank her mother with him.
He nodded at them both, not because he agreed but because he couldn’t think what else to do. Then turned and headed for the door. Thank God for his beard, because his face was burning with humiliation.
four
Brenda shot one angry look at her incorrigible grandmother. “How could you? You hurt his feelings.”
“Well, go after him then.” Prepping for a nap, Granny sank deeper into the low daybed that Brenda used as a couch. “He’s a kind person. He doesn’t deserve that.”
“But…you…ugh. If you hadn’t just been through a harrowing ordeal, I’d be really angry with you.”
Her grandmother shooed her away with a brushing gesture of her fingers. “Better hurry. He’ll be gone in a minute.”
“Did you do that on purpose, you evil mastermind?”
“Go!”
Brenda ran outside and down the path, catching Galen just as he was about to swing into the driver’s seat of his truck. “Wait,” she said panting. “Give me a chance to apologize. And to thank you.”
“No need,” he said brusquely, one hand on the door handle.
“Yes, there is a need. My mother and my grandmother have an ongoing…feud, I guess. Granny’s always trying to get Mom to lighten up, and sometimes she draws other people into her silly schemes and that’s not fair. I want to apologize for her, and also say that none of that was my idea or coming from me in any way. I would never do that to another person, especially you.”
He leaned against his truck and folded his arms across his chest as he frowned down at her, and once again she noticed how lovely his eyes were. Also, he was spectacularly fit. His arm muscles bulged against the ribbed fabric of his black thermal shirt. Sure, it was ripped at the collar, and had a smudge of green slime on the elbow. But it still looked insanely hot on him.
“Why especially me?”
“You rescued my grandmother,” she said simply. “She’s a handful, but she’s also the only person who really paid attention to me when I was growing up. I’d do anything for her.”
