Wyatt stared after the girl as if she’d just trudged off into enemy territory without a weapon and expected Wyatt to follow. He seemed almost frozen. Linc leaned down, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Have I told you what a good boy you’ve been tonight?” Wyatt’s only response was a shuddery sigh and a slight shift of his lower body. “Let’s go say hello to your grandmother and then we’ll get out of here and finish what we started this morning.”
Wyatt made a low noise, almost like a groan. “You better mean it,” he muttered before wading into the crowd after Charlie. Linc followed behind at a reasonable distance. That’s what he told himself, anyway.
It wasn’t that Wyatt didn’t love his grandmother. He did, as much as a person could love somebody they hardly knew. She was the closest thing to a human one was likely to find swinging in his family tree. But Violet Dufresne was what Charlie liked to call a ball-buster. She was old and half blind and sat in a wheelchair that looked like she’d pulled it straight from the attic of a horror movie. Wyatt could count on one hand the number of times he’d had more than a passing conversation with the woman since birth. His mother and grandmother didn’t speak, though Wyatt didn’t know why. He assumed whatever had happened was his mother’s fault. Eugenia was a handful even on a triple dose of Xanax.
When he caught up to Charlie, she sat crouched beside his grandmother’s wicker wheelchair, her hand clutching Violet’s gnarled fingers and laughing at something the woman said. Wyatt had no idea why Charlie loved the woman so much. They’d only met twice, but they looked like old friends. Maybe his grandmother was senile and thought Charlie was somebody else? Maybe Charlie was a bit senile too.
The woman looked much like an aged version of his mother, only her silver hair was caught up in a complicated configuration of swoops and waves all decorated with a garish ruby hairpin. Wyatt and his mother both favored Violet in skin tone and eye color, but everything about his nana was brittle, including her personality.
He leaned down and kissed her cheek, and she didn’t so much pat his cheek as slap it. “Well, if it isn’t my missing grandson. I thought maybe they’d shoved you in a home as well and absconded with your trust fund.” Wyatt’s eyes went wide, and Charlie giggled. She wasn’t wrong, but people surrounded them on all sides, people who would like nothing more than to gossip about Wyatt and his family.
Judge Ansel Abrams stood beside his grandmother. He was one of his father’s golf buddies. An evangelical with an agenda. His father’s favorite kind. “Yes, Wyatt. We thought perhaps you were doing a stint in rehab and your father was too embarrassed to tell us,” the man joked, shaking his empty highball glass.
Wyatt’s stomach churned, but he plastered a phony smile on his face, turning to his grandmother. “I’ve been busy with school, Nana. That’s all.”
Ansel's eyes glinted in the glow of a hundred chandeliers. “That’s funny. Justine said she hadn’t seen you around campus in almost a year.”
Justine was a pointy-faced little snitch. “Your daughter is a Tri-Delta. I’m not much for Greek life.”
“Coulda fooled me,” Violet muttered, looking Linc up and down with a knowing glance that made Wyatt’s sweat.
Before he could think of a decent reply, Ansel's wife joined them. She was a middle-aged woman wearing a foundation two shades too dark and a yellow dress that made her complexion sallow like she had a medical condition. “There you are. I swear, there was a line for the ladies’ room almost out to the lobby. Some of those crazy feminists made it into the hotel, I think.”
“Why do you say that?” Ansel asked, peering over his shoulder as if a feminist might lurk just behind him.
“Well, the woman in the stall beside me was wearing the most masculine shoes. I think she might have been a lesbian.”
“Oh, do shut up, Martha. Wearing sensible shoes doesn’t make a woman a feminist or a lesbian any more than wearing that hideous yellow dress makes you a goddamn banana,” Violet snarked, shaking her head. “I swear with women like you, I don’t know why my mother fought so hard to win the right to vote.”
Had anybody else had the audacity to say such a thing, Martha Abrams would have had a full-on meltdown and banished them from the ballroom, but his grandmother still wielded a great deal of power, even half blind in a wicker wheelchair. “Really, Violet. I’m just saying, some of those women out there were holding signs about their right to kill babies. That will never be okay in the eyes of God.”
Violet cackled. “If only your mother had chosen that road, dear.”
“Nana!” Wyatt choked.
She gazed at him, expression droll, waving a hand. “What? It’s a joke.”
It wasn’t a joke and everybody standing in that circle knew it. “Some people don’t understand your humor,” Wyatt said, attempting to diffuse the situation.
“Abortion isn’t a joke,” a voice said from behind him.
An icy finger of awareness slid along Wyatt’s spine, a metallic taste flooding his mouth. Martha’s eyes got big, and she grinned over Wyatt’s shoulder. “Victor! You made it.”
The man in question brushed against Wyatt to get to the Abrams, shaking hands with Ansel and brushing the barest hint of a kiss on Martha’s cheek. She touched her face like Victor Osborne was Harry Styles and she would never wash her cheek again. Victor was no Harry Styles. He was older than Wyatt’s father by at least ten years and his gut flounced over the waistband of his suit, buttons straining to contain his girth. He’d slicked back his thick silver hair in a half-assed attempt to cover the bald spot he hoped nobody would notice. Maybe nobody had noticed, nobody but Wyatt who’d spent weeks looking at that spot on the top of that man’s head as he’d knelt between Wyatt’s legs…
Victor’s gaze found his, a slippery smile spreading across his thin lips. “When Monty said Wyatt would be here, I knew I had to drop everything, especially when he said he was bringing his new girlfriend.” He turned his smile on Charlie, offering a hand to help her to her feet. She took it, grimacing when he brushed his lips across her knuckles. “You must be Charlemagne.”
“Charlie. Yes. Who are you?”
“Victor Osborne. Light of God Ministries. I believe I’ve met your father.”
Charlie’s gaze jerked to Wyatt, her mouth falling open. Wyatt didn’t know what his face was doing, but he had lost control of his ability to function. Whatever expression he carried was enough to have Charlie looking at him like he was two seconds away from passing out. Maybe he was. His palms were sweaty, but he was cold all over. The lights overhead seemed to blur above him.
“Wyatt, baby. Are you alright?” Charlie’s voice seemed miles away.
It took a Herculean effort for Wyatt to open his mouth and say, “Dizzy, too much champagne on an empty stomach, I think.”
“Why don’t you let me help you to the restroom? Splash some water on your face,” Victor volunteered.
