“Of course.” Her words caught as she stacked empty glass platters. “Wh-why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know, except you’re collecting everyone’s dishes but ours.”
“Right.” Elizabeth set the dishes down, then reached for a napkin to wipe deviled eggs off her hands. “What can I do to?—”
“Come on, Beth.” Will walked by, taking her by the arm. “I need a cornhole partner.”
“Oh, okay.” As much as she loved cornhole, she was a bit distracted by the arms and eyes and presence of Ryder Donovan.
“I see Will brought in a ringer,” Pops said, standing at the game with his partner, Grant Hanson from Dorsey. “Well, well.”
“Blame yourself, Pops.” Elizabeth picked up the square green bags. “You taught me.” But to Will she whispered, “I’ve not played in a long time.”
“You still throw the best flop of anyone here.”
During her high school summers, the cousins cut her no slack as she learned, so she practiced. And got good. But it’d been a minute.
Will lined up on the opposite side of the board with Grant Hanson. Elizabeth stood next to Pops.
“I knew teaching you would come back to bite me. Watch out for her, Grant, she’s almost mastered the flop.”
“Almost?” Elizabeth grinned.
It was determined Pops would throw first. He bent slightly forward, jiggling his bag in his hand and, with a quick flick of his wrist, landed his famous slide shot, crowding the hole to prevent her from scoring.
“Got a question for you, Beth,” he said as he threw his second bag.
“I know your head games.” Speaking of which, Elizabeth had to push thoughts of Ryder out of hers. “They won’t work on me.”
“Why are you going? To graduate school?” He airmailed his third bag, landing in the hole.
She glanced at him with a spark of irritation. “Not going there, Pops.” She winced as he almost holed his fourth bag with the flop shot. “Someone’s been practicing.”
Grant praised Pops while Will shouted strategy to Elizabeth. Stepping up, she was about to throw her first bag when Pops said, “I think you should take the Dorsey CFO job.”
“I don’t.” But he’d rattled her. Her first toss, an air mail, missed and slid off the board.
“That’s okay, Beth. You got this,” Will said.
“Did you know I went to Harvard after Vietnam?”
Elizabeth peered at Pops, jiggling her second bag. “You what?”
“I went to Harvard,” Pops said.
“Will, did you know Pops went to Harvard after Vietnam?” she asked.
“He mentioned it. Beth, less arm, more wrist when you throw.”
Elizabeth’s second air mail landed on the edge of the board. But at least she was on the board.
“I had no business being at Harvard,” Pops said. “I didn’t have any scholarly interest. I was just doing it because my pride wanted a Harvard diploma hanging on my wall. After all, I’d been in a war no one really wanted to fight. I survived. I was a man.” Pops paused as Elizabeth tossed her third bag. A slide that just touched the rim of the hole. “But deep down, I knew I wanted to take over your great-grandpa’s business here in Hearts Bend.”
“So you quit?” Elizabeth held onto her final toss. “Where was Granny in all of this?”
“Pregnant with your Aunt Barbara, working to help pay the rent on our dinky apartment. Meanwhile, I was skipping classes and playing pool at a local joint. One evening, as I pretended to study, I looked out the window to see my pregnant wife slipping on the icy sidewalk as she walked home from work. She was carrying a sack of groceries. The food went everywhere. I ran down to help her, stopping dead in my tracks when I heard her crying.”
Elizabeth made her final throw. Finally, her airmail toss landed in the hole. After tallying the score, Pops and Grant were up four points.
