“I have time.” She wanted to know what he had to say.
The shop had outside tables to take advantage of South Florida’s divine weather. Kate ordered a matcha latte and Reid had a tall black coffee. He wouldn’t allow her to pay for theirs or even her own.
As soon as they sat down, he said, “I want to apologize for today. Grans put on her ‘timid old lady’ act. In spite of her age, she is the least timid person on the planet. The truth is that right now she’s very angry at me.”
“About where she lives?”
“Yes! You’re perceptive.”
“I just imagine telling Aunt Sara that she should move into an old folks’ home. Bombs would go off.”
“So you do understand. Last night she and I had another big argument. I want her to live with me but she refuses. She says I have to move my entire business and all my employees here. Can you imagine how much that would cost?”
“Give me some numbers and in twenty minutes I can give you a spreadsheet.”
He laughed. “It’s too much! But Grans won’t bend. She refuses to leave Lachlan. I don’t know how to solve this. We were going to talk about it more today, but...”
“I invited myself,” Kate said.
“You were a welcome break in the tension. Sorry I talked so much, but if I’d let Grans say anything, she would have had no qualms about bringing up our personal problems in front of you.”
Kate was sipping her drink. “Why won’t she leave?”
“Ah,” he said. “That. The grave of my grandfather is here. She says she owes him and that someone must remember him and be with him forever—or as long as she lives, that is.”
“True love,” Kate said.
“I guess.”
Kate didn’t know how to ask what she wanted to. Aunt Sara would have blurted it out. “You said your grandmother was widowed early.”
He gave her a look so intense that Kate turned away.
“You know how he died, don’t you?”
“Billy did mention the Lonely Laird story.” She didn’t add that they knew of Reid’s connection to James Lachlan.
Reid took his time answering. “I guess it was bound to come out. Grans and I don’t talk about it.” He took a breath. “Yes, my grandfather, Reid Graham, the first of that name, was hanged for murder.”
She wanted to know more but how did she ask without being invasive? “Premeditated?”
He gave a half smile. “I don’t think any of us Grahams are that clever. My father, the second Reid, managed to get through law school and pass the bar, but he didn’t win many cases.” He paused. “All I really know is what Grans told me. It’s purely one-sided and I have no idea if it’s true or not.”
“I’d like to hear any version.”
“Of course my grandfather was innocent.”
“I wouldn’t have thought otherwise.”
“Okay,” he said. “There was a bar fight and a man was killed. Same old story.”
Kate tried to keep the look of surprise off her face. A bar fight? A man killed? Was it the same murder she’d overheard Barbara speak of years ago? It didn’t make sense that it could be the same one, but still... “You wouldn’t by chance know who was killed, would you?”
“Tom Skellit. Grans told me the name. According to her, he was a drunken lout, and he deserved to be killed.”
“Hanging for an accidental death seems harsh. Wouldn’t it have been manslaughter?”
“That is the part Grans is most angry about. She said it was all James Lachlan’s fault.”
