“That’s his greatest sin?” she asked. “Did he try to take your father’s place?”
He choked. “Guy never picked up a rod and reel in his life. Wouldn’t know what to do with a model car if it bit him. And he sure as hell doesn’t know his way around a brisket smoker.”
She reached over and took his hand, tenderly rubbing his knuckles, knowing the pain that digging deep and thinking about those memories caused. She got hit when she smelled a powdery perfume, or walked by a store in town where she and her mother had shopped, or made the mistake of looking into her parents’ room and realizing Mom wouldn’t be curled up on the settee in front of the fireplace, reading a novel.
“But, Josh, it’s not his fault that he’s not Pops. He’s who he is, and he really does love your mother. And, in his way, you. Isn’t that really all you can ask of him?”
He stayed silent, but threaded his fingers with hers.
“Have you ever asked him to go fishing?” she whispered.
He opened his mouth like he was going to laugh or argue, but then he closed it.
“So, no,” she guessed.
“He prefers a good cigar on the veranda with Gideon.”
“Does he invite you to join them?”
“Yeah, but I—”
The phone rang again. Josh’s hand tensed, the tautness running up his arm and making his jaw clench. Darcy didn’t say a word, but loosened her grip so that he could answer the phone if he wanted to.
It rang a second and third time, making Darcy bite her lip to keep from suggesting he answer. He knew what was right. He knew what he should do. He knew—
He jerked his hand away on the fourth ring and tapped the phone screen, and suddenly the dashboard lit up with the call on speaker. So he wasn’t just answering, he was sharing the conversation with her.
“Hey, Mal,” Josh said, his voice tense.
“Oh, Joshua. I’m so glad you picked up.” His stepfather’s voice filled the cab, making both dogs, who’d been sleeping in the back, sit up at attention. Stella barked once, but Kookie’s quick lick quieted her.
“I’m driving,” Josh said, probably to explain why he flat-out ignored the first call and didn’t return it. “What’s up?”
“It’s Gran.”
Josh sucked in a quick breath. “What happened?”
“Nothing…yet. But she’s fading and asking to see you.”
Darcy blinked in surprise. He’d talked about his stepfather’s mother, who was deep into her nineties and “forgetful”—which was probably the Bucking way of avoiding the word dementia. He seemed to lump her in with the rest of the family, not meriting any real discussion.
“Me?” he asked, confirming her suspicions. “She probably means Savannah.”
Now, that surprised her, making Darcy turn in her seat a little. Savannah?
“No, she specifically said you. She wants to see you. Has something to tell you before…” His voice grew thick. “She isn’t long for this world, Joshua.”
He blew out a breath, turning onto the street in Ambrose Acres where the brownstone was located. He also didn’t spare a look at Darcy, who he must have known would tell him he had to go. The woman was dying. And she was family.
But he’d make up some excuse, of course. He wouldn’t go back there unless Stella’s well-being was at stake. Which was stubborn and stupid and deeply disappointing. How could she fall for a guy who—
“I can be there tomorrow morning,” he said. “I’ll leave here at daybreak.”
Oh. Darcy felt her heart tumble around helplessly.
“She can’t see anyone until late afternoon,” Malcolm said. “It takes her the better part of the morning to be dressed and up.”
“Okay. I’ll be at her place around three.” He finally looked at her, his eyes filled with warmth and hope and something she didn’t dare name because it might be that four-letter word that started with L and ended with forever.
“Good, good,” Malcolm said. “We have dinner with the Hermans tomorrow night. Would you like to join us?”
“We’ll take a rain check.”
We. Darcy’s heart took another ride down a rollercoaster. Was he asking her to go with him? Or simply assuming she would because…we?
“You’re welcome to stay here,” Malcolm added.
“No, thanks,” he said. “Will you be at Gran’s tomorrow?”
“I’m tied up all day and it’s you she’s asking for, Joshua.”
He pulled into his spot and parked the car. “Then someone should let her know I’ll be there.”
“Thank you,” Malcolm said stiffly. “I admit I thought you’d say no.”
Josh held Darcy’s gaze and lifted his hand to her cheek as he responded, “No problem, Mal. It’s…what families do.”
She closed her eyes as the words hit. As sweet as anything he could have said right then. Maybe he was falling for her family, but if that softened his heart toward his own, then it was a good thing.
After he said goodbye to his stepfather, he leaned across the console and kissed Darcy for a long, long time. When he finally broke the contact, his eyes were still closed.
“Am I invited?” she whispered.
“You don’t need to ask. But Stella’s next treatment is tomorrow.”
“My dad will get her there and back,” she said. “Remember, we’re friends with dogs and families.”
Which, as he loved to remind her, was infinitely more complicated. And wonderful.
Chapter Twenty
“We’re not far from where I grew up,” Josh said as he exited the highway into the tony Myers Park section of Charlotte where Bernice Bucking lived, a good hour south of the mansion in Cornelius, but close to the hospitals and medical practices she needed.
“Really?” Darcy inched forward, glancing around at the tall pines and hills, instantly interested. “You lived around here?”
“Until I was twelve, we lived about half an hour east. Way east. On the proverbial other side of the tracks.”
“Can you take me there and show me the house?”
He swallowed, quiet for a moment. If he didn’t want to do that, why had he even mentioned the fact to her? Because he did want to take Darcy there. He wanted to let her deeper and deeper into his life. “Sure, if you want.”
“Do you visit often?”
“Malcolm’s mother or my old house on Doverdell Drive?”
“Both.”
He gave a shrug. “When I got my driver’s license, my house was the first place I went,” he admitted. “We’d been living at Buckingsh…” He stopped, shaking off the nickname, which was so tied up with his distaste for the family. “At Bucking Manor for four years, and I was itching to get back. I remember it being so small, I almost laughed.”
“Anything would be in comparison to that place.”
“Yeah, I guess. And I went once on the ten-year anniversary of Pops’s death. Not since, though.”
“Surprising, since you must be here to see your grandmother frequently.”
He threw her a look, not sure she quite understood his relationship with his grandmother. “I don’t come here frequently,” he said. “Gran is cut from Bucking cloth. Cold, distant, far above the masses. Savannah had a better relationship with her than I do, frequently helping her dress for events.”
“And maybe helping herself to Gran’s jewelry,” Darcy added.
He angled his head, not responding right away. “I’m not going to say I fully understood what Savannah might have been up to, but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that. She has—had—a good job and didn’t seem to need money. If she did, she never asked me.”
“Will your grandmother recognize you?” she asked.
“She’s not…” He stopped himself once again. “Yes,” he finished, knowing that reminding the world that Buckings were step family was wearing thin, at least with Darcy. “She’s not that forgetful, but she knows what’s going on. She’s sick, though. She has battled COPD
for years, which is no surprise considering she was a heavy smoker most of her life. She’s got bad arthritis, impaired vision in one eye from macular degeneration, and she had some heart issues about ten years ago. She’s almost ninety-five, so she spends a good part of her day in bed.”
“That’s less than ten years older than Gramma Finnie, and she practically runs up two flights of stairs.”
“They couldn’t be more different, as little old ladies go. For one thing, Bernice Bucking never met a person, place, or thing she couldn’t pass judgment on. Few mere mortals reach the bar she sets for perfection, although she has a surprisingly close relationship with my mother.”
“Then why doesn’t she live closer to Christine and Malcolm? Wouldn’t they take care of her?”
“She refuses to embrace the fact that she’s in her nineties and infirm. She insists on living alone, although I’m not sure the amount of nurses on staff qualifies as ‘on her own.’ She likes to give the impression she is strong and independent.”
“I like her already,” Darcy said with a laugh.
“You like my whole family,” he teased. “A hell of a lot more than I do.”
“I like families in general,” she said, peering at the elaborate gated entrance with the word Rosebay engraved in marble. “Holy cow, this is another wealthy area.”
“Her husband started Bucking Properties and built a sizable fortune. Malcolm inherited the company and took it to the next level, or six. Gideon will run it into the ground.” He shrugged. “Sorry. You’ll never make me like him.”
After being cleared by the guard, he drove through the wide, perfectly manicured roads of an exclusive neighborhood that catered to the elderly with big dough. The houses were almost all one story, mostly brick or columned stucco. Behind the perfect facades lived that handful of older folks who could afford the best health care, the nicest homes, and a way to go gently to the finish line.
Gran’s home was at the end of a cul-de-sac, a rambling red-brick ranch. Just cruising down the quarter-mile-long driveway lined with birch trees tightened Josh’s stomach a bit.
“You’re already tense, and we’re not even at the front door,” Darcy mused.
“How can you tell?” He hadn’t said a word about the churning inside him.
She reached over and tapped right under his jaw. “This little vein pulses whenever you have to talk to someone in your family. It’s your Bucking Artery.”
He laughed, reaching up to grab her hand and kiss it. “It bleeds green for money.”
“She’s ninety-four and dying. Why are you so uptight?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve seen her maybe twice in the last year, and both times she was pleasant enough. Pleasant being relative, of course, but the bite seemed to be gone from her.”
“She asked for you to come. Maybe she’s making amends for mistakes in her life. Give her a chance. She might slip you a million dollars with her granny kisses.”
He squeezed her hand. “Do you always see the best in people? Even when it isn’t really there?”
“I try to,” she said. “No one is all bad or all good. People have facets, and I try to see the bright parts. That’s something my mother taught me.”
He stopped the truck, killed the engine, and turned to her. “You would have liked my dad,” he said, always reminded of Pops when she talked about her mother. “He was the same way. Saw the good in people, made the best of bad situations, never quit trying.”
“Make me a promise,” she said softly.
“I’ll be nice to her,” he replied.
“Of course you will, because you’re a gentleman, like your father.” She inched closer. “Promise me that when we leave today, you’ll take me to where you grew up and tell me every single thing you can remember about him.”
“That would…” Take a lot of trust. “Not be very interesting for you.”
“I’ll be the judge of what’s interesting. Promise?”
He answered with a kiss that he intended to be quick and light, but she wrapped her fingers around his neck, tunneling into his hair. She flicked her tongue over his and made the softest whimper against his lips.
“Okay,” he said on a helpless laugh. “I promise. Anything else?” He kissed her again. “’Cause the answer will be yes.”
“And be nice to her.”
He was still smiling about that when a housekeeper let them in, offered them refreshments in a sitting room, and disappeared.
“Does no one in your life answer their own door?” Darcy cracked as she wandered to a fireplace mantel to look at pictures. “So which one is the evil stepbrother?” she asked.
He joined her and scanned the pictures of Bernice, George, Malcolm and his first wife, Amy, and several of Josh’s mother. There were a few of Brea and Gideon, and Josh’s high school graduation picture that, for some reason, made Darcy let out a little moan.
“She’ll see you now.” The housekeeper returned and gestured for them to follow, taking them through the main floor to a spacious wing where sunshine poured in, highlighting the finest workmanship on the floors, chair rails, wainscoting, and finishes of a Bucking-built house. A Malcolm Bucking-built house, not the corner-cutting son inheriting the business.
A white-clad nurse with dark hair and stern features stepped out to greet them as they reached a large solarium, introducing herself as Delia and speaking in hushed tones.
“Mrs. Bucking is awake, and lucid, but won’t tolerate company for very long,” she said. “But she’s happy to see you and Savannah now.”
Josh inched back at the mistake. “This is Darcy, not Savannah.”
The woman’s dark brows drew together. “She said…I’m sorry. She told me you’d be with someone named Savannah.”
“Understandable mistake,” Darcy said quickly. “It’s fine. And if you think it’s more appropriate…” She looked from Josh to the nurse. “I can wait out here so a new arrival doesn’t upset her.”
Before the nurse could answer, Josh put a firm arm around Darcy. “I want you to meet her,” he said. If anyone was going to help him see the good in this crusty old woman, it would be Darcy.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” the nurse said. “But remember, she’s drifting in and out of clarity. Whatever she says, humor her.”
“Will do,” Josh promised.
They passed through the final door into the queen’s chamber, where a massive wood four-poster bed took up a good portion of the room. On one side, barely big enough to make a lump under the covers, his white-haired grandmother lay still with her eyes closed.
“Bernice,” the nurse said. “Your grandson is here.”
“Stepgrandson,” she replied without opening her eyes. “The other one wouldn’t bother to grace my doorstep unless he thought it would change the will.”
Josh threw a quick glance at Darcy as if to confirm all he’d said, and her eyes widened in a silent response.
“Hey, Gran.” He stepped closer to the bed, still holding Darcy’s hand.
Her eyes opened quickly at the sound of his voice, the once blue faded to gray now, foggy, moist, and surrounded by parchment skin. “Where’s Savannah?”
“I really don’t know, Gran. This is Darcy.”
Toothpick arms pulled out from the covers, trying to push herself up to see. Just that much movement made her cough a few times, then sigh and lie back on her pillows. “I need to speak to Savannah.”
Could she seriously be that rude? “I’m not with Savannah anymore, Gran. We split up, and I don’t know where she is. I’d like you to meet Darcy Kilcannon, who—”
“I don’t want to meet Darcy Kilcannon,” she managed to bark. “I want Savannah Mayfield.”
He puffed out a breath and turned to Darcy, who had her bottom lip captured under her teeth as she backed away.
“I’ll just…” She pointed her thumb to the door. “Wait outside.”
“You’ll wait right here,” Gran ordered, the insistence in her voice ma
king her cough again.
“Gran, please.” Josh came closer. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring Savannah today.” A lie, but whatever. “But I’m here. And I’m happy to see you.” Another lie. “And Darcy means a lot to me.” Finally, the truth. “I heard you asked to see me.”
“Not true,” she said. “Or maybe I did and forgot. But when I heard it was you, I assumed Savannah was here to return the jewelry she, uh…borrowed.” She lifted thin white brows as if to say they both knew nothing had been borrowed.
“I can’t help you, Gran. I’m sorry that happened, though.”
“Not as sorry as your mother, who was supposed to get all that when they put me in the ground.” She pointed a crooked finger. “Which won’t be soon, and she knows it.”
“Maybe Savannah will come back,” he said. “In the meantime, please say hello to Darcy.”
Her crinkly old lips pursed, but she shifted her gaze to Darcy, scrutinizing her, or maybe trying to see through the fog of her age. “Hello. I’m sure you’re very nice. But I’d rather not get invested again, if you don’t mind. I don’t misjudge people often, but apparently I did in the case of your other girlfriend, Joshua.”
“You’re not the only one, Gran,” he said softly, earning a squeeze of his hand from Darcy.
“I liked her,” she admitted, sounding as ashamed of the fact as he sometimes was. “She showed up here every Monday at eleven o’clock to set up my clothes for the following week. Shoes, accessories, and jewelry, like a good lady-in-waiting, although I think they call them stylists now.”
Now that sounded more like the woman he knew, although Savannah had never told him this. Why not? Probably because he hated the Buckings so much, it would have ticked him off for her to be so nice to one of them.
A little more shame curled through him, making him let go of Darcy’s hand and step closer to the bed.
“Of course, I didn’t always get out of bed on bad days, but the fact that she came…” She turned her head, her wispy white hair brushing against the pillow. “Oh, I really judged her wrong. If she wanted money, she should have asked. I’d have given it to her.”