“I think you and I will get along just fine.”
“How was your flight?” Emma asked as Sean relieved Cat of her luggage and began herding them toward the exit.
“Uneventful, which is never a bad thing.”
When they made their way through the parking lot, the first light drops of rain were falling, so Sean put her luggage in the backseat of the truck and Emma climbed in after it. Cat was impressed when he took her elbow to help her into the passenger seat before closing her door and going around to his own side. He was a nice boy.
“So you have family around here, Sean?” she asked when they were on the highway, heading north.
“Yes, ma’am, I do. My aunt and uncle live about fifteen minutes from…home, and I’ve got four cousins and their families nearby.”
“Oh good. I can’t wait to meet them all.”
He turned his head and gave her a quick glance before looking back to the road, and she wondered why it would come as a surprise his fiancée’s grandmother would want to meet his family.
“They’re always pretty busy,” he said, “what with all the kids and everything, but I’ll see what I can do. Maybe a barbeque or something soon.”
It was a little over an hour’s ride, giving Cat plenty of time to not only listen to Emma’s constant chatter about the house and work, but to feel the anxiety in the truck. Her granddaughter’s voice was a little too chipper. Sean’s fingers kept tightening on the steering wheel, then he’d flex them and relax, but they’d tighten again. She’d almost think they’d had a fight before her arrival, but there wasn’t any anger simmering between them. Just nervousness.
Cat stopped worrying about them when Sean turned onto the driveway and drove up to the beautiful old house she’d called home since she was a young bride of nineteen. She and John had borrowed down-payment money from his father to buy it when she got pregnant, expecting to fill it with a large and noisy, but loving, family.
They had no way of knowing at the time Johnny would be their only child or that the two of them would end up spending several years rattling around the place alone until tragedy gave them Emma. The girl had not only brought joy back into their lives, but had breathed life back into the house.
It was the joy Cat chose to remember as Sean hopped out of the truck and jogged around to open her door. She smiled when he offered his hand to help her down. And she watched as he did the same for Emma.
Her granddaughter hesitated for only a second, but Cat didn’t miss it. Then she put her hand in Sean’s, clearly flustered, and hopped out of the truck. Her feet had barely hit the ground before she pulled her hand away and turned to grab the luggage.
It was going to be an interesting month. Cat wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but she knew one thing for sure—whatever they were up to, Emma and Sean hadn’t been sharing a bed and a bathroom for the last year.
Sean didn’t think it was going too badly…until Emma set a steaming glass dish on a trivet in the middle of the table. It was a casserole. One with tufts of little green trees sticking up out of some kind of sauce.
Broccoli. He hated broccoli. Loathed it.
“Chicken divan,” Emma said, and only an idiot could have missed the note of pride in her voice as she put her hands on her hips, oven mitts and all. “It’s my best dish—okay, my only real baked dish—so I made it as a welcome-home meal.”
Cat smiled and Sean forced his lips to move into what he hoped was a similar expression. A woman who was sleeping with and living with and planning a future with a man would know he didn’t like broccoli. And it was his own damn fault for laughing off her suggestion he write an owner’s manual of his own.
She served him first, maybe because he was the fake man of the house, plopping in front of him a steaming pile of perfectly good chicken and cheese ruined by the green vegetable. He smiled at her—or maybe grimaced—and took a sip of iced tea.
He could do this. He’d survived boot camp. He’d survived combat and the harsh weather of Afghanistan. He could survive broccoli. Probably.
“It looks wonderful,” Cat practically cooed, and Sean’s stomach rumbled. Whether in hunger or protest he couldn’t say.
Emma, of course, flushed with pleasure at the compliment. With a few wisps of hair framing her pink cheeks and her eyes sparkling, she was beautiful. Not beautiful enough to merit eating broccoli, but beautiful enough so he watched her for a minute as she served herself and sat down across from him.
Then he made himself look back to his own plate. He’d given his word he’d make this charade work and Cat wanting to know why Emma fed her fiancé his least favorite food wasn’t a good way to start.