Page 23 of Marrying the Nanny

He did, setting it where Emma removed a chair to make space.

It was funny how they all went instinctively to the spots they had occupied as children, except he and Emma went for the same chair. There was only one on this side because of the swing.

“I thought you would take…” Emma’s voice died off as she seemed to read his reluctance to take the empty seat at the head of the table.

“Go ahead, Reid,” Glenda said gently.

It felt wrong. Very wrong. He didn’t look at his brothers as he took their father’s chair.

“How are things coming along for the service?” Glenda asked as they dished up.

“It’s under control.” Reid spoke because he’d been taking the lead on it. “I’ll MC, Logan is doing the eulogy, Trystan made a PowerPoint from a box of photos we found. Would you like to say a few words?”

“You’ll say what needs to be said.” Glenda sent a sad smile toward Logan. “It’s at the community hall?”

“Drinks at the pub after,” Logan agreed.

Glenda nodded. “And what of the house and the rest of the resort? Emma said you were hoping to sell everything to pay for Storm’s care?”

Emma kept her gaze on her bowl of stew. Reid couldn’t blame her for spilling her guts. Glenda was notoriously easy to talk to. Or rather, one way or another, she wormed out what she wanted to know.

“I know this will come as a shock, Mom, but Dad left a mess,” Logan said.

“Well, he never shied from starting something he had no intention of finishing,” she said with dry affection. “You’ll weather it.”

Classic Glenda, as quick and heavy-handed with her servings of optimism as she was with the mashed potatoes.

“That’s the thing, though. We don’t want to.” Logan was always more in-your-face with his mother than Trystan or Reid dared to be.

Glenda was unfazed. “You don’t have a choice, Logan.”

“Of course we do.”

“Do you?” Glenda looked to each of them.

Reid ran his tongue over his teeth, siding with Logan. In theory anyway. Everyone had choices. They were often crappy ones, and the choices you made ultimately defined you, so you had to be careful when you made bold ones.

He had tried the flat-out contradiction route with Glenda in the past, though, and had never found it particularly effective. She didn’t play fair. He had said, You’re not my mom. She had calmly replied, No, but I’m going to care for you as well as your mother would if she were able to, whether you want me to or not.

You couldn’t out-logic someone who spoke from the heart like that.

Reid cut a glance toward Emma, wondering how much she had told Glenda about the meeting in the lawyer’s office.

“Did you know that Dad went into debt when he gave us our graduation money?” Reid asked.

“Of course.” Glenda frowned absently. “I told him to.”

“Why?”

“You know why, Reid. You had your mother. You needed to be on your feet. I knew you would make something of yourself. I had faith in all of you. Wilf couldn’t very well give one of you an advantage without offering the same to the rest of his children. Could he?”

In the ensuing silence, the mechanical swing made little click-click-click noises, like the tick of a metronome.

She so didn’t play fair.

“We’re each looking at sinking that hundred grand back into this place to get it functioning again,” Reid stated, keeping emotion out of his voice, even though he was irritated as hell at having to pitch his personal goals straight out the nearest window. “If this were a different type of investment, one with better growth potential, we might park that money here until we retire, but it’s not.”

“So you have no intention of staying here to keep it going.” Glenda stabbed into her salad.

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