Page 11 of Dahlia Made A List

I bit back a growl. “No.”

“Well, shoot.”

She marshaled the others toward the sink, passing her glasses to a woman who looked remarkably similar to my tenant in Number 26. My eyes narrowed in on Grams with fresh suspicion.

She arched a white brow back, daring me to give voice to the obvious setup. The overhead light danced off the blue stripes in her white hair. What the fuck?

“That old sign must be out in one of the barns near Easy’s place,” she said.

I grunted. I doubted the neon sign existed, out at Easy’s place or anywhere else. But I was the good grandson, so I bit my tongue.

“I’ll give Easy a head’s up that you’ll be out there one of these days to look through the barns on that side of the property.”

I tipped my chin. No mention of the papers sitting smack in the middle of the table behind me. No mention of the real reason Grams tricked me into dragging my ass out here to her farm tonight. But still, I waited. I wanted my damn drive-in.

The lines fanning Grams’s eyes crinkled and an instant later she broke into a smile that promised nothing but trouble. Just in case I didn’t recognize the danger, thunder rumbled down from the heavens outside. Grams’s smile settled into a devious grin as she met my gaze.

“You’ll give Dahlia a ride home, won’t you, Wy?” She fluttered her hand in the direction of Dahlia Whitcombe. “What with the storm and all.”

Asking me was just a formality. I slanted a look to the woman I’d last seen standing on the balcony of my property, hair whipping in the wind, wild eyes promising retribution. She’d changed her clothes again. She wore jeans now. Snug and showing off long legs and a sweet handful of an ass. Sensing she was under discussion, she turned to join my grandmother in standing beside the kitchen table.

I grunted. “Expect you to look these papers over, Grams. Millsy fixed her ‘typo.’ No reason not to sign.” She nodded, acknowledging the presence of the contract more than giving me her agreement to sign. I shot a look at my tenant. “You don’t like driving in the rain?”

“I don’t like driving at all.”

“How’d you get all the way out here, then?”

“Rideshare.”

I grunted. “Becca or Les?”

“Les.” She smiled.

Grams spoke. “Neither of them will come out this late, especially in the rain. Les has school and his mom takes away his keys at nine. Becca doesn’t drive in storms, says the Mother is cleansing the earth and she can’t interfere.”

Dahlia’s blue-gray eyes widened.

Minerva stepped closer to the younger woman, a hand on her arm. “Not to worry, Dahlia. Wy will take you home.”

“Let’s get going, then.” I slid around the table, cutting through Grams’s curious crowd, and out to my truck. From inside of the house, the murmurs and noises of Dahlia saying goodbye reached me, but I didn’t slow my pace.

After a long couple of minutes, she finally stepped out of the front door. A gust of wind lifted her long hair, shining almost white under the glare of Grams’s landscape lighting. Between the awkward stiffness in her walk and the way she clawed her hands around that bag of hers, she looked ready to bolt into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains instead of climb into the cab of my truck. Lucky me.

Grams trailed behind her, eyes pinning me with one of her trademark bossy looks. “You take care of Dahlia, Wy. And I’ll get those papers for you.”

The hair at the back of my neck prickled. Felt like Grams was stacking up an ultimatum, but I wasn’t in the mood to nag the details out of her. I motioned to Dahlia. “C’mon, then. Before the rain breaks and you get soaked.”

She clambered down the stairs and I swung the passenger side door open. Wordlessly, she scrambled up into the seat, her jeans cupping her heart-shaped ass like a second skin. I sucked in a deep breath and unclenched my fists to slam the truck door closed behind her. Ignoring my grandmother’s watchful look from the porch, I strode around to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel.

The rain hit before I turned out of Grams’s drive and onto the street. Dahlia sat beside me, her fingers tight around the strap of her bag. As we made our way along the dark country roads, the only sound in the truck was the swishing of the wipers, the staccato rhythm of the rain, and the heavy thunder.

“I spilled a bit of sangria on my jeans,” she blurted. “But your grandmother has cream-colored furniture.”

I blinked out the windshield. “Yup.”

“Now your truck smells like a day-old fruit cocktail.”

Mostly it smelled sticky sweet. Reminded me of ripe summer days out on Beckley Lake. The scent of wild honeysuckle filling the air as I chased behind my cousins along the path to the water, soaring over the lake on a tire swing, and counting lightning bugs as the sun went down.

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