“It’s just a plant,” Jay assured lightly. “So don’t get your hairnet in a knot.” He let go of Arabella’s hand and dashed up the steps, leaning down to drop a kiss on the woman’s tanned, lined cheek. “The plant was just an excuse, anyway.”
“I thought it was a special occasion.” The words escaped Arabella without thought and she saw the raised-brow look that Jay’s grandmother sent him.
“It is.” He beckoned Arabella closer. “Gran, this is Arabella Fortune. She delivered the newest addition to your indoor jungle. Arabella, my grandmother, Louella O’Brien.”
Arabella hurried forward, extending her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. O’Brien.”
Jay’s grandmother’s hand grasped hers in return. Not only were her fingers longer than Arabella’s, they were more darkly tanned and much more calloused. “Another one of those Fortunes, hmm?”
Arabella’s gaze collided with the amusement in Jay’s. “I don’t know about that,” she demurred. “But...related. I just moved here from New York.”
His eyes glinted. “You’ve decided to stay, then?”
She felt like steam might be radiating from her skin, but she kept her eyes from shying away. “The odds are beginning to look up.”
His grandmother cleared her throat noisily.
Arabella flushed and belatedly released the woman’s hand. She pushed her fingers into her back pockets and glanced over her shoulder. “Jay was showing me your garden, Mrs. O’Brien. It’s amazing.”
“Yes, it is,” Louella agreed matter-of-factly. “Do you garden?”
Arabella shook her head. “I couldn’t even keep the succulent a friend gave me last year alive.”
“No matter what people think, succulents can be touchy. Come out here tomorrow. I’m making cuttings and a new batch of jam.”
“Arabella has a job, Gran. At Petunia’s—”
“Posies,” Louella finished. “I can read well enough.” She flicked the embossed card that was tucked among the potted plant’s glossy leaves. “And I happen to be well aware that Petunia’s shop isn’t open on Sundays.” She gave Arabella a look. “Churchgoer?”
Only if one counted Christmases and Easters. “Umm—”
“Ten sharp,” Louella said, as if that settled it. “Jay? A word?”
Something in his gaze flickered, but he nodded. “Be right back,” he told Arabella before following his grandmother inside the house.
They closed the door after them, which only increased Arabella’s sudden sense of awkwardness. She stepped off the porch again, reaching out to steady the plant that was propped on the flat rail when it wobbled.
“An excuse or a special occasion,” she murmured, placing it more squarely on the rail. “What are you really?”
The plant provided no answer and she turned away, moving back over to the first row of bushes. She glanced over her shoulder, but the door to the house was still closed.
Maybe Jay’s grandmother was warning him not to get involved with one of those Fortunes.
The sun was getting higher in the sky and hotter and the faint buzz of insects seemed like summer music. Maybe when she found a real job and started looking for a place of her own, she should look for one that had space for a tiny garden. Growing something outdoors might be easier than keeping a container succulent happy on a windowsill in her bedroom.
She glanced back at the house. Door still closed.
She told herself there wasn’t any reason to be concerned. If Jay’s grandmother were warning him not to get involved with one of those Fortunes, then why would she have invited Arabella to come back the next day for cuttings?
From between the slats of the window blinds, Jay watched Arabella disappear into the shade of the potting shed. “She’s just a friend, Gran,” he insisted for the third time and his grandmother made a third, disbelieving snort in response.
“I’ve been able to read your mind since you were knee-high to a grasshopper.” Louella set two glasses on the round serving tray she’d pulled from a cabinet. “I can read it now, too.” She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a glass jug of homemade lemonade. “You’re interested in that girl.”
He spread his hands, exasperated. “So what if I am?”
“Goin’ to tell her the truth, then?” She added the jug to the tray and turned back to the fridge.
Jay felt a faint pain start up inside his head. He’d been on the verge of telling Arabella the truth in January when they’d first met. But a lot of time had passed since then. Time for him to get even more settled into the routine of Jay Cross. Time for him to get further away from the man he’d been. But the further away he remained, the more interest kept growing to flush him out. “Eventually.”
His grandmother gave him a look as she pulled a tray of ice from the freezer.
“Probably,” he amended.
She said nothing. Just filled the two glasses with the ice, her lips compressed.
“Maybe,” he tried again.
“I knew you were waffling!” She peeled the plastic lid off an old metal coffee can and removed several cookies from inside. She spread them on a flowered plate and added it to the serving tray along with a few of her fabric napkins that she kept in a drawer.
“And you don’t approve.”
She slid her finger between two slats in the window blind the same way he had and peered through the narrow slit. “She’s a pretty girl.”
Arabella was a lot more than pretty, but he wasn’t going to argue the point.
“Not like that other one.” The slats snapped together again.
He didn’t have to ask who she meant. Louella had never pretended to like his ex-girlfriend. And Tina had never pretended to like Louella. The only thing Tina liked about Jay’s background was that he came from Texas.
In her opinion it gave him a sort of credibility.
Not that he’d recognized that at the beginning. In the beginning, he’d been totally taken in by her.
“You ought to be happy about that,” Jay said aloud. “Arabella being different than Tina.”
“I am.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
His grandmother picked up the laden tray and pushed it into his hands. “You’re a
