Page 29 of Brutal Mate

Unlatching the heavy white-painted wooden gate, she slipped through and closed it behind her. As she walked across the yard, she barely dared to breathe, her heart hammering in her chest.

Even before she made it up onto the porch, she heard a dog barking. The sound made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

At the door, she paused, her hand raised to knock. Was she really about to do this? Was she really about to meet her grandmother for the first time ever while running away from her son and all he had put her through?

It didn't seem real. In a way, it didn't seem right.

But before she could knock or change her mind and turn around, she heard the click of the door handle. It was far louder than she might have expected, and when the door opened, the dog’s barking was so piercing it hurt her ears.

She squinted, fighting the urge to cover her ears.

“Hush, Moses!” the woman at the door instructed, wafting a dish towel at a gorgeously fluffy liver-and-white collie dog. “Mo! Enough!”

It was only when the dog whimpered and grew quiet, dropping down onto its belly with its chin on its paws, that the elderly woman turned to Miley and said, “Yes? Can I help you?”

Tears immediately sprang to Miley's eyes, and the urge to throw herself into a grandmother's warm embrace was almost uncontrollable. She had to shove her hands into her jeans pockets to stop from doing so.

The woman's hair was gray streaked with white and pinned back in an octopus clip at the crown of her head. Like Miley's hair, it was all thick curls, and for the first time Miley saw where her abundance of hair had come from.

“Grandma Peters?” she gasped past the lump in her throat. It was all she could think to say.

Confusion darkened the woman's green gaze. Yet another thing Miley appeared to have inherited from her.

“I'm sorry, dear, I don't have a granddaughter,” the woman said, though the sadness in her gaze suggested she wished differently.

“Grandma, it’s me, Miley,” she said, praying she had the right house. What if she had come all this way only to learn her grandmother had also passed and some other random old lady was now living in her house?

But the woman reached up and clutched the silver cross hanging around her neck. “Sweet Mary, mother of Jesus!”

Miley bit back the urge to laugh. Her father had always told her that his mother was a big religious nut, but to hear her speak in such a way was funny. It didn’t sound all that devout to her.

“Oh, Miley!” the woman exclaimed then, and before she knew it, Miley was getting that big old grandma hug she had hoped for.

She melted into the woman's arms, feeling warm and safe for perhaps the first time in her life. The smell of fresh baked goods and bread was all over the woman, and it wafted from inside the house, too.

“Oh, sweetheart, come in out of the sun and I'll pour you a glass of fresh homemade lemonade,” grandma said, urging her into the house. “I just picked the lemons myself this morning.”

Miley smiled, tears still pricking her eyes as she was guided over the threshold. Yet, the second her foot touched the hardwood kitchen floor, Moses bounced up onto his feet and started to bare his teeth.

He snarled angrily at her, barking as if warning her not to take another step.

“Oh, shoo! Off with you, you mangy old man!” Grandma ordered, grabbing the towel from where she had draped it over her shoulder. She whipped it at the collie, hissing through her teeth until he finally backed off.

“Don't mind him, he's your grandpa's dog. I had a mind to get him gone years ago, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it.”

“I'm sure he's just being protective,” Miley said, though she couldn't help but feel it was something more than that. She usually loved dogs, but just looking at this one made her skin crawl.

It was the itching of her wound under the bandage that Lauren had put on for her that distracted her.

“Come now, sit at the table and I'll get us some lemonade and biscuits,” Grandma instructed, and Miley did just that.

She dropped down at the circular table with such relief she couldn't help but sigh aloud.

“What brings you all the way from Nightstar, sweetie?” Grandma asked, placing a glass of lemonade in front of her.

Miley gulped. She only realized she had closed her eyes when she was forced to open them and answer her grandma's question. “I was looking for a change of scenery for a while.”

She shrugged.

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