Grady leaned back again, his face relaxing incrementally. "Glad we had this chat."
"Honestly," I told him, "I don't think you need to worry about it."
He huffed a laugh. "Why's that?"
"If I did something to hurt her, I'm pretty sure your sister would castrate me with a hot knife before you could lay a hand on me."
Instead of breaking up the tension, Grady shook his head a little bit. "You've got a lot to learn about her, Haywood."
"What do you mean?"
Grady stared out the window and smiled. "She's probably ready to kill me for being in here talking to you."
"Is that why you picked a table by the window? So she could see us as she drove out?"
His grin was unrepentant. "I might risk jail time for her, but she's still my sister," he said by way of explanation.
"As I don't have siblings, I'll have to take your word on that."
Grady stood, gathering his things and giving one more look out the window. Inside my gut was a gnawing sense that I didn't want him to leave, that I should use this time to pick up information about her, because, for all intents and purposes, she'd flipped my life upside down. And I still felt very much like I didn't know her.
"Before you go," I said, "just tell me one thing I should know about her. The last thing I want to do is hurt Grace."
He took a moment to think about that, still studying me as he did. It was strange to see so much of Grace in her brother's face, because he was taller, broader, and didn't look feminine in the slightest. But she was there, in the tilt and color of the eyes, the line of the nose, and the shade of hair.
"Grace is all heart. When she feels, she feels big. Bigger than most people. So, if she loves you, she'll love you harder than anyone you've ever met." He smiled. "Same goes for hurt. It won't break her, because she's got a backbone made from steel, but she'll feel that hurt so much deeper than you think."
A valuable nugget, but one I still wasn't sure what to do with.
Those were the extremes, love and hurt and the byproducts of both. Eventually, I might learn that for myself. How she loved, how she hurt, and what came after. But there was no point in jumping past all the steps in between.
I stood and shook Grady's hand. "Thanks. I appreciate your honesty."
He nodded. "Leave it to her to turn Green Valley on its head, less than a week after she got here."
I was still chuckling about that when my phone started vibrating. I pulled it out and sighed heavily when I saw J.T. MacIntyre flash ominously across the screen. Absolutely unwilling to have a conversation with him within earshot of anyone sitting in that bakery, I ducked out the door and walked around the corner of the building.
"J.T., what can I do for you?" I answered, mentally girding my loins.
"What the ever-loving hell did you do to my daughter?" he yelled. "She missed a meeting, and I find her sniffling and sobbing into her pillow, going on about you breaking up with her? You broke up with her?"
His booming voice was loud enough that I had to pull the phone away from my ear. I pinched the bridge of my nose before I answered.
"Sir, as hard as this is for me to say to you, I'm still gonna say it. What happens between me and Magnolia is not anything that I need to explain to you."
"Oh, ho, you wanna bet, boy? You don't get to break Magnolia MacIntyre's heart and not have to answer for it, you little shit."
Much like his daughter, J.T. couldn't fathom a reality where things didn't pan out the way he planned.
"J.T.," I said, "I'm not going to recap our relationship issues with you. She and I talked for a long time today, and while I'm sorry I hurt her feelings, I think that this is for the best, for both of us. And I think Maggie will come to see that too, once the surprise passes."
"You arrogant prick," he whispered. "And here I had big plans for our families coming together." J.T. clucked his tongue, and I had to grit my teeth. "Do you know who you're messing with right now?"
Oh, I was aware. And with the patience of a saint, I listened as he railed into me. As he reminded me of my place in the mental hierarchy that he'd assigned to his worldview. Naturally, he was at the top of the Green Valley food chain, because in J.T.'s mind, he wielded far more power as the chamber of commerce president than he did in reality.
But he was still a client, and it behooved me to keep my mouth shut and not tell him where he could shove my foot. And at the core of it, I knew where this stemmed from. You couldn't be a good lawyer without learning how to ferret out the truth of why people did what they did.
J.T. loved his daughter.
In his eyes—flawed though they may be—she hung the moon and stars, and he'd destroy both without blinking if they did anything to make her unhappy.
Which is why I kept my mouth shut, and let him unload on me.
"Have you ever seen her like that? Huh? Crying. Snot everywhere. Hair a mess. Wouldn't leave the couch."
A pang of guilt lanced through my gut. Yeah, Maggie had been more upset than I anticipated. I thought she'd be sad, a little surprised. But I knew where it was stemming from. It was the out of control feeling that it gave her. It was a life change that happened outside of something they'd planned for. Definitely something she hadn't anticipated.
"Sir," I interrupted when he started in on the loss of our future children.
