People were silent for a moment before people began to shout at Farrow to tell them some story about a filibuster he’d taken part in during the nineties and the old man jumped into his story without waiting another moment.
I stepped backward, ignoring the pointed looks shot at me by the other guys, and followed in the direction Lennon and her grandmother disappeared into.
It wasn’t hard to find them. They were sitting in the kitchen, Lennon’s grandmother dabbing at the probably ruined white dress with a dishtowel. I hovered just outside of the doorway, out of sight and unsure if I should intrude on them yet.
“Did you have to pick barbecue sauce, sweetheart?” Bunny Holloway was asking sardonically as she rinsed the towel again. “I spent weeks looking for this dress for you.”
“Sorry,” Lennon said sheepishly as she leaned against the counter and hung her head, watching her grandmother work. “I panicked.”
Bunny was silent for a moment, the silvery strands of her hair falling into her eyes as she gave up completely and tossed the towel onto the counter. “Well, dresses can be replaced I suppose. Now, why did you feel the need to dump a bowl of marinade on yourself in front of all of those people?”
Lennon looked at Bunny as if she’d grown a second head. “Grandma. Those people were treating me like a prized calf upfor auction. Might as well have thrown myself onto the grill to be served up at the buffet with the way they were talking about me.”
“Oh, Lennon, you know they didn’t mean anything by it. They’re boastful old men trying to outdo each other and ingratiate themselves to your Grandpa. It’s the same song and dance as usual.”
“Yeah, well, it’snotusual for the vice president to make comments like that about me,” Lennon pointed out, her tone wobbling as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I didn’t like it.”
Bunny let out a long sigh and I watched as she flipped around to lean against the counter next to her granddaughter, drawing Lennon’s head down until it rested on her shoulder.
“You know your Grandpa just wants what’s best for you, right?”
“And that’s Frank Delano and his pack?” Lennon asked incredulously, her nose scrunching with distaste.
Bunny huffed a dry laugh. “I never said he was right, sweetheart. Your grandfather is nothing if not a complicated man. He might think that Delano can take care of you and that he’s the best one to step up and ask to court you.”
Lennon reeled back away from her grandmother. “So he asked? And no one told me? What the hell, Grandma!”
“No one told you because your mother’s already told him no, Lennon,” Bunny said, unruffled by Lennon’s sudden outburst.
“Oh.”
“Oh is right. She wants you to pick the pack that’s right for you, and so of course, my lovely husband got it in his head that maybe putting Delano on the same campaign trail would, ah,ingratiateDelano to you. I can assume that didn’t work?”
I held in a snort at that. Delano had hovered everywhere we’d gone until the bus broke down and he’d taken a flight to Atlanta rather than hanging back to wait for the tire to be fixed.
That definitely hadn’t won him any favors in Lennon’s book nor in any of my team’s.
Dallas was outward with his hatred for the vice president, but I could tell the other two felt about the same about the plastic-smiling politician that we’d been saddled with for the first leg of the election tour.
“No. Definitely not. He’s toooldfor me,” Lennon said with a shudder.
The older woman’s laugh was bright. “I told Farrow you would say that, sweetheart, and he said‘what does age have to do with it?’”
“You should pick what feels right in your head,” Bunny tapped Lennon’s temple, then her chest, “and what feels right in here. Trust those instincts of yours, Lennon. I know modern society spends so much time teaching omegas to ignore those instincts but there’s a reason they developed in the first place thousands of years ago.”
“I’m not really looking for—” Lennon began but her grandmother cut her off.
“I think you should probably wait to speak on that until our guest listening in shows himself.”
I stiffened, surprised at being found out by the older woman.
For a split second, I debated tucking tail and running back outside. Maybe I could pretend that I hadn’t heard a thing. But something told me that there wasn’t a chance in hell that Bunny Holloway was going to let me get away with that.
Embarrassed, I finally took a deep breath and stepped into the kitchen.
Chapter Fourteen
Maverick stood sheepishly in the doorway of the kitchen, his hands buried in the pockets of the linen pants he was wearing. Linen pants that seemed about as out of place on the alpha as the buttoned up blue polo that looked like it was two seconds away from choking him.
