Page 20 of A Summer Mismatch
“And you, young lady, step away from my grandson!”
She whipped around to see another man storming toward them. He wore a blue-striped shirt with dark pants held up by suspenders, and the angry expression on his face matched Grandpa’s.
“Wait.” Logan held up his hands toward both men. “There’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Do you know who this is?” Suspenders man asked Logan, his expression furious as he motioned toward her grandpa. “Horace Rees. Logan, you were huggingHorace Rees’sgranddaughter.”
This was bad. She didn’t know why, but it was. Her heart raced in that uncomfortable way it did whenever confrontation was afoot. She moved a step away from Logan and toward her grandpa, and wished she could just keep stepping away until she got in her car and got as far away from here as she could.
Logan looked a little paler than he had a moment before. “Logan?” she whispered. “Who is this man?” But she had a terrible, terrible feeling she already knew.
“My grandpa.” He visibly swallowed. “Smitty Byrd.”
She closed her eyes. Julia had grown up hearing Grandpa Horace complain about Smitty Byrd every chance he got. Whenever Smitty had a commercial on television. Or a billboard they passed. Or if his company made the news. All. The. Time. If ever there were two sworn enemies on this earth, it was Horace Rees and Smitty Byrd.
Grandpa Horace snagged Julia’s hand and tugged her arm. “Come on, Julia.”
Smitty Byrd stepped in front of Logan, blocking him from Julia’s view. “It’s time to go, Logan,” he said firmly.
Julia let her grandpa pull her toward the bungalow, turning to find Logan’s worried gaze following her. A small crowd had gathered—a dark-haired, stunned older woman holding a small dessert box, plus Polly, Harry, and Don. Grandma Winnie stood on the porch looking like she was on the verge of tears.
“You can’t trust a Byrd,” Grandpa Horace lectured angrily. “They’ll lull you into security with promises of friendship just to betray you. Smitty probably set this up to get under my skin. The audacity of that man.”
Grandpa didn’t seem to need to hear Julia talk, only to get out his own anger as they walked toward the house.
She didn’t know the details of their feud, only that they’d once been business partners, and a falling out had led to them forming two different, competing construction companies.
“Logan wouldn’t go along with something like that,” she insisted.
“That’s what Byrds do.” He squeezed her hand gently, lovingly as they got to the bungalow. She turned to see Logan stop at the stoop of his grandparent’s bungalow, just three houses down. It was too dark to know if he could see her too, but she imagined their eyes meeting in the dark. “It’s not worth the heartbreak.”
“Heartbreak?” She tore her gaze from Logan’s. “We’re not dating, Grandpa. We just met.”
“Good. We’ve averted disaster then.” He patted her cheek. “Cameron’s asleep on the couch. I’ll get him up and help him to your car.”
“Thanks, Grandpa.”
Grandma stood in the kitchen with a hand over her heart as she stared at the floor. Her phone sat on the table, lighting up with one text after another.
“Are you okay, Grandma?” Julia rushed forward, and Grandma looked up at her.
“Oh, I’m fine. Just tired of all this.”
Julia gave her a hug, realizing how frail her grandma felt. “Maybe we all need a good night’s sleep.”
“If only that would solve this problem. It’s been decades, and they were both very successful, yet neither man can let it go.”
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what she was apologizing for. That Grandpa was still angry at Smitty? That’s she’d been hugging Logan and stirred up all this trouble for her? All the things.
“No, I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of the Smitty-Horace Hurricane.”
“It was a little intense.” To put it mildly. One moment she was hugging Logan, reveling in opportunity to touch those beautiful muscles, thinking that maybe Grandma wasn’t so wrong about the bird-luck theory. Then the next moment, she was like one of those overturned trampolines floating in a lake the day after a storm, unsure how in the world it got there.
Grandpa passed the kitchen, helping a sleepy Cameron to the car, and Julia grabbed her keys, purse, and her clothes from earlier to follow. Grandpa helped Cameron get buckled, then walked around to hold open Julia’s door while she slid into her seat and turned the keys.
“Stay away from Smitty’s grandson. No matter which way you shake it, he’s bad news.”
Julia didn’t want to stay away from Logan. The very thought of it made her insides tumble around like shoes in a dryer.
