“She’s good at that. Covering well, I mean.” Absently, I scratched my cheek.
“She’s outside,” Paisley said quietly. “She says she’s picking the perfect place to build a garden.” She hesitated then finished it out. “She also says she’s moving in with you because she thinks you’re lonely.”
My stomach constricted to the size of a marble, and I had to take a moment to collect myself. “That’s not true,” I said after several beats.
“Oh, I know. You’ve told me stories about your mother.”
“She’s only here to get what she thinks she can get from me, and then she’s going to leave again,” I replied dully. “She’ll pretend she’s doing it for my own good and that she wants to give me breathing room. In reality, something better will come along. It will have a penis.”
Paisley’s expression was laced with sympathy, which only made me feel worse. “I’m really sorry.”
“You don’t have to be.” My affect was flat, but it was a protective measure. It was simply how I reacted when my mother was … well, my mother. “I know who she is. I am not blind to her faults. When she showed up here, I knew exactly what was on her agenda.”
“And what’s that?”
“She researched the Landings, figured out only people with money could live here, and then put two and two together with the golf courses and guessed there would be single men of a certain age in the neighborhood. I’ve barely seen her since that first day. She’s been having meals with the new friends she’s met since then.”
Paisley nodded. She looked torn. “Do you want me to kick her out for you?”
That made me laugh. “No.” I shook my head. “She’s not staying. If I try to kick her out, though, it will turn into a thing. She’s a narcissist. She’s great at painting herself as a victim. It’s easier to let things run their course where she’s concerned.”
“Well, I’m sorry I was silently cursing you.” Paisley looked as if she wanted to say more, but she didn’t.
I snickered. “I’m sure I deserved it, in your head.”
“Not really. You’re a pretty good boss.”
“Yes, well, I’m still sorry. You can take the rest of the day off as a reward for having to do my mother’s bidding.”
“I have a bunch of emails to answer.”
I waved her off. “Take the day. If my mother is in the yard, now is as good of a time as any to have a little chat with her. As I said before, I’ve barely seen her. I think it’s best that we talk about a few things.”
Paisley touched her tongue to her top lip. I could see that she was mentally biting it. Instead of saying whatever it was she wanted to say, however, she nodded. “Okay. I’ll message you later. If you need me?—”
I shook my head. “It’s fine. This is hardly my first rodeo with my mother.”
“Right. Well, email anyway, even if you just want to send me an annoying meme.”
“I might take you up on that.”
MOM WAS IN THE BACK WITH A YARDSTICK—where had that even come from?—when I took my coffee outside through the back door. She talked to herself, muttering things I couldn’t quite make out, and then smiled over at me when she realized she was no longer alone.
“You’re up.” She was full of faux brightness. “I thought you were going to sleep the entire day.”
“I had a late night.” Then something occurred to me. “You weren’t home when I got here anyway.”
“No, I was out.” The smile she sent me was enough to make me wary. She was definitely up to something. “Rufus took me for drinks at one of the bars on the property.”
That threw me. “Here? At the Landings?”
“He has friends here. He introduced me.” She rubbed her hands together in a way that told me she was up to no good. “They’re all very successful friends.”
I had a choice here. I could listen to her plot and not say my piece, or I could shut this down. When I was younger, I would have put up with her nonsense. The older I got, however, the less prone I was to going out of my way to make things easier for her.
“We need to talk,” I blurted before she could continue.
Her eyes went wide. “Are you pregnant?”
