“Which is why Cleo will oversee the renovations,” my gran declares.
She shakes her head. “No, Helen, this is your home. I can’t make these decisions for you.”
My grandmother waves her hand in the air. “You know what I like. Anything you aren’t sure about, bring to me. But the small things, the thousands of decisions that happen with projects like these—I trust you.”
Cleo drags her teeth over her bottom lip. “Okay.”
“How long will this take?” I ask.
All three of them snap their heads toward me. “At least a month, more likely six weeks,” Samuel says.
“Which means ten,” Cleo mutters.
Samuel runs a hand under his jaw. “You’re right.”
Not being afraid to call someone out on their bullshit gets added to the list of her qualities I enjoy.
“My team will arrive in the next thirty, and we will get started,” Samuel declares, rising from the sofa. “I’m going to walk the first room through another time. Do you want to join me, Cleo?”
“Why, will you get lost?”
Sassy. Another quality. Samuel grins his trademark panty-melting one, making Cleo’s gaze shutter. “She might be here for those irritating questions you’ll have a hundred times a day,” my grandmother snaps. “But she is not eye candy, nor does she work for you. Find your own way to the bedroom. Cleo will be busy the rest of the morning.”
Samuel’s grin falls from his face. Duke eyeballs him from the rug. He’s deciding if he can eat him yet.
“Of course, Mrs. Alderidge, my apologies.” He sweeps past me and disappears deeper into the house.
“I was thinking of popping into town and getting some lamb for that slow cooked recipe you like,” Cleo says to my gran.
Her head snaps up from the plans between them. “Why?”
Cleo’s gaze darts to me before skittering away. “A nice meal to celebrate your grandson being home?”
She phrases it like a question. It’s also a lie. “Take said grandson with you, please. He’s starting to clutter my home.”
Cleo climbs to her feet. “I can find my way around town and to the butchers.”
“I’m aware.” I press my lips together to contain the laugh. Good luck trying to argue with Helen Alderidge.
“So I’ll go alone.”
“Like you, my grandson is hiding. Perhaps, as you are unwilling to confide in me, you might find solace in each other’s mutual secrets.”
I’m not surprised that she’s worked out that I’m hiding. But I am hoping by the time the cause is revealed, I will have dealt with it.
Cleo rises to her feet and locks eyes with me. “Fifteen minutes. If you aren’t ready and in the car, I’ll leave without you.” She rushes out of the room and heads to the pool house.
My grandmother raises a brow. “What?” I ask, folding my arms.
“Don’t interrogate her.”
I quirk a brow. “You have a woman living with you who is concealing her identity, and that doesn’t worry you?”
“Yes, but not for the same reasons as you. That girl is terrified, not malicious. She needs patience, not bullying.”
“And you think with patience, she will tell you why she’s hiding?”
“No, I think with patience she might stop being scared. She’s already come so far in the month she has been here. If you undo that, we are going to have a problem.”
