Page 15 of Overbooked at Dragon's Landing

I hated leaving my mates, but it was time to deal with the lawyers. Dread filled me as I walked into the office—not because I was signing paperwork or that I thought there would be any surprises but because it made it real. It made her really gone.

The appointment itself barely took an hour. From there, I had to bring everything to the bank to deal with transferring her accounts over. Then I went back to the B&B to get my mates. My plan had been to go to the house on my own, but the closer it got to time, the more I realized that I really needed their support. And I was willing to ask for it.

I sent them a text message asking if they wanted to come with me. Immediately, they replied with a yes and that they’d be ready. As I pulled into the parking lot, both of them were sitting on the front porch waiting for me. Me. How did I get so lucky?

They bounded straight into the car and climbed right in. We took off on the short ride to her place.

“I haven’t been there in a while—too long.”

I turned down the road to her house, Craig at my side, Ralph behind him.

“I was kind of a shit grandson like that.” The confession just fell out of me.

Craig squeezed my thigh. “You said she came here after your parents died. You were mourning, and she moved. That’s a lot all at once. It doesn’t make you a bad grandson. It makes you a person with feelings and needs. And from what little you’ve told us about her, she not only understood that—she respected it.”

“Thanks.” I put my hand over his. “I needed to hear that.” Far more than I realized.

I pulled into her long dirt driveway and wound my way to her house. It looked just like it had the last time I was here. It was objectively cute, something you might find on a postcard.

I turned off the ignition. “Thanks for coming with me.”

Ralph grabbed my shoulder. “Always.”

I climbed out of the car and was hit with how different the air was since the last time I was here. My grandmother’s scent was long gone. When I pushed open the front door, though, remnants of her scent were still there, along with the staleness of a house being locked up. The first thing we did was walk around and open all the windows.

There was a lot in the house. My grandmother had been a lover of all things yard sales, and it was evident in every corner, nook, and cranny. Some of it I recognized. Some of it was new. Hardly any of it was anything I would have gotten for myself.

“Hey, is this you?” Ralph picked up a picture from one of the bookshelves. It was of me as a baby in a buggy.

“Yeah. My grams used to say, ‘You were so cute. What happened to you?’”

Ralph laughed. “She sounds like someone I would like.”

“She was someone everybody liked.”

We walked through the house, turning on faucets, flushing toilets, testing lights, all the things I’d been told, making sure everything was running correctly. It was. Then, I went out the back door to check the state of the garden.

The grass might as well have been a hayfield. I was going to have to take care of that sooner rather than later. It was one of many tasks already on my to-do list.

The wind shifted, and I smelled a cat. That was weird. My grandmother didn’t have a cat. At least she never mentioned one, but I could hear it purring in among the hay that had taken over the backyard.

I bent down and made thepsstpsstsound—the universal language of humans who didn’t know how to talk to cats.

But out they came—a cat with three legs.

“Aren’t you adorable?” I scratched behind his ears. “Were you friends with my grams?” The cat purred. I took that as a yes. “Well, it’s good to see you.”

When I went back inside, the cat followed me.

Craig was looking at my grandmother’s wall of pictures. Some were of landscapes, but most were family—my mom as a child, her wedding to my dad, my graduation. All the big events.

“She kept her family close,” he noted.

“She did.”

“Hey,” Ralph called from the next room. “Someone’s coming up the drive but not in a car. I don’t know what that is.”

When I got there, I realized I didn’t either. It was a cross between a four-wheeler and a golf cart. On it was Gram’s neighbor, Barb. I had only met her a couple of times, but there was no mistaking that woman. She was pushing eighty, had bright-purple hair, and let nothing get in her way—ever.

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