“I know what you were thinking with the other incident,” I said. “Let’s talk about what you were doing with my grandmother watching Ida Bell.”
She sighed and dropped her head to the couch arm.
“I’m thinking that y’all are sitting there with your thumbs up your asses, and nothing is being accomplished,” she grumbled. “Sorry that I wanted to make sure that your sister knows your grandmother before she dies!”
“Whoa,” I said as I stopped, placing one of my hands on her knee. “She’s not going to die.”
She was going to die.
But maybe if I spoke it into existence, she would live forever.
Out of my entire family, Grams was my favorite.
I loved Sawyer so much it hurt to think about him not here one day. But Grams? It would be like having a slice of my heart and soul forcibly ripped away, never to be found again.
She was my one supporter over the last decade of my life when Nettie wasn’t around. My one and only true confidant that never judged, never pushed, and never, ever let me down.
“Not today, perhaps,” she agreed. “But she definitely doesn’t have much longer to live. And, just sayin’, but if I didn’t get the chance to meet and know Margery, I would be so pissed.”
She had a point but…
“She’s really close to the man she calls her father.” I hesitated. “And I don’t want Margery hurt.”
“You hurt her by not sharing about Ida Bell,” she pointed out. “She literally spent the last how many ever years dealing with Felicia, thinking that she had the worst granddaughter in existence. And literally, Ida Bell is awesome, and it’s not fair to keep them away from each other, Bart.”
“Don’t call me Bart,” I grumbled as I dug my thumb into her arch. “And we had a breakthrough today.”
“You did?” she asked, pulling one foot away and shifting the other into its place.
“Yeah,” I answered. “Apparently, Gail saw you driving out of the estate like a bat out of hell with Grams, and made a phone call.”
“Your dad has the place bugged, doesn’t he?”
“To the nines,” I promised. “She called Felicia, and the two of them talked for a solid twenty minutes. My mother charged Felicia with getting you out of my life. Then, when she was done with that order, she called Kurt and asked him to start looking into your financials. I’m sorry, but she knows about the baby. Kurt pulled your bank statements and saw a charge for the doctor’s office. He then hacked into the doctor’s office patient portal and found everything.”
The foot in my hand tensed. “We knew it was only a matter of time.”
I swallowed hard, panic slowly rising inside of me.
“Boone.”
I resumed the massaging, but my heart wasn’t into it anymore, which she knew.
She pulled her foot away, then shifted up onto her knees and crawled into my lap. I didn’t hesitate to maximize the opportunity she’d just given me.
I hugged her tight, burying my face into her throat, and said, “I don’t want her to know.”
Both of us stayed still for a long moment before she said, “We’re doing this the right way, Boone.”
I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against Nettie’s.
A small bump against my abdomen had me squeezing my eyes tighter.
“She fucked up, though,” I said. “When she found out you were pregnant, she admitted on the camera feed that she wants you dead. Even told Kurt to handle it ‘how he saw fit.’”
She clutched at my neck. “Maybe they can arrest her.”
“They can,” I agreed. “Dad’s already turned the video over to the FBI agent handling the case. She’s actually working on an arrest warrant now.”
