Disappointment throbbed everywhere, as if I could feel my heartbeat in my face and my fingers and my toes.
I inched into the room.
She gasped and pressed her fingertips to her weathered face when she saw my appearance. “Oh my, child . . . what on God’s green earth happened to you?”
Instantly, her face went red with anger.
“Tell me he didn’t get to you.” She limped my way, hostile rage pulsing free. If I was looking for an army, the old woman was an entire fleet.
She’d had her own share of battles and wars, and she might be broken down, but she was stronger for it. I hadn’t hesitated when I’d shown up at her door asking her to be strong for me four months ago.
“I swear on all things holy that I’m not gonna let him get away with it. I’ll string him up so fast he won’t know what hit him.”
The last had become a rumbled threat.
Blowing out a breath, I tossed my clutch to the couch and pulled off the teardrop earrings she’d let me borrow. As if looking pretty was gonna make a lick of difference. “You know he has better ways of getting at me than making me bleed.”
Well, at least not the parts that were exposed.
“Then what happened to you?” She searched my face with her blue, aged eyes.
I shook my head. “I fell.”
Her brow rose, digging for more, knowing there was a whole lot more to the story than I was letting on.
My grandmother knew me better than anyone.
I huffed out a breath of concession and let my shoulders sag. “Reed was there. I took off the second I saw him. Just as I was getting to my car, I felt someone behind me. I started running, afraid it might be him.”
Except, I hadn’t really thought that, had I? It was that energy zapping like electricity through the air that had sent me running for my life. The feeling that if that stranger got too close, he was going to trip me up, have me falling into something that my shattered heart would never survive.
Oh, and trip I had.
Worry had her gnawing at the inside of her lip. “Did Reed see you there?”
Sinking down on the edge of the loveseat, I bent over into a huddle and started rocking, like that motion might keep all the pieces together. “No. I don’t think so, but I’m sure it’s gonna get back to him that I was there.”
Or more importantly, what I was there sniffing around for.
I looked up at her. “It was stupid going there. I knew better. Should have known he’d show up to an event like that. What in the world was I thinking?”
She moved to cup the side of my face.
There were few people as tender and fierce as my grandmother. So staunch and understanding.
The woman had held me up in my darkest times, and she also didn’t hesitate to knock some sense into me when I was being crazy.
She brushed her thumb across my cheek. “You went there because you’re brave enough to show your face. Making a claim that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to fight that monster. That he doesn’t scare you and you aren’t going to back down.”
A puff of discouragement blew from my nose. “And the second I saw him, I went running.”
She grinned. “Galas aren’t meant to be battlegrounds. You were gathering ammunition. It wasn’t time for the attack.”
A grin played around my face.
Only my grandma.
She lifted my chin higher, forcing me to look at her. “And believe me, sweet one, this is a battle that will be worth fighting. It’s one worth getting torn up over. One that’s worth every bullet and every scar. One you’ll fight to the bitter end.”
I stared up at her, hope a blister of energy glowing firm in my chest. Pulsing and pushing. “I won’t stop, either, Gramma. Even if it costs me everything, I won’t stop.”
“That’s right. Because the important things in life are worth everything. Everyone’s fight is different. But believe me, it’s always a fight. And we fight for what’s most important to us.”
Fear and hope swung like a pendulum inside me.
“But what if I lose?” I could barely choke out the question, the idea of it something I couldn’t entertain.
“You won’t, sweet thing, I promise, you won’t.”
“I’m scared,” I told her, my admission floating into the dense, brittle air. I didn’t want to confess it. To put it out into the atmosphere.
I wanted to cling to her belief in me. Cling to the idea that I was brave and a fighter.
But the truth was that I was terrified.
Each day that passed, it just got harder and harder when he didn’t back down. I’d thought he’d eventually concede. Decide it wasn’t worth it to him. But I should have known better, the way his giving up would look, the man refusing to have his perfect reputation tarnished.
What bullshit.
Gramma squeezed the side of my face with her bony hand, and still it felt like the most comfortable thing. “It’s okay to be afraid. The times I’ve fought hardest in my life are the times I’ve been most scared. Only because I was afraid of losing. And that’s what makes us fight all the harder.”
I set my hand over hers, pressing her closer, savoring the warmth. The comfort she’d always given. “I love you. So much. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
She sent me a grin. “Well, you’d probably starve. We could start right there.”
A shot of laughter escaped me. “Are you telling me I’m a bad cook?”
She cocked a brow. “What I’m telling you is that you’re a terrible cook.”
“So much love, Grams. So much love,” I said, voice wry.
She chuckled. “Well, we all have our strengths. It’s not your fault that you could burn the house down tryin’ to boil a pot of water.”
I feigned a gasp. “I take offense to that. I’ll have you know I’ve been told I make a mean pot of mac and cheese.”
She patted my arm. “I’m sorry, sweet thing, but this is where that delusion needs to end. Only thing a person can do is choke that rubber down and hope they don’t up and die trying. You’re lucky you have me around.”
A pout formed. “How’d I spend my entire life with you in the kitchen and not learn a single thing?”
“Like I said, we all have our strengths. I filled your belly to show you my love. Tucked you in at night.”
“Read me stories,” I supplied, my heart pressing full at the memories.
“That’s right,” she said.
“That was my favorite,” I told her, wistfulness winding its way into my tone.
She brushed back the hair matted to my forehead. “And you show yours by writing them.”
My throat clamped up. Overcome. Love and adoration and gratitude threatening to spill out.
She cleared her throat and inclined her head. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. You’re a sight.”
She led me into the kitchen. She went to the sink and turned on the water. When it warmed up, she ran a cloth under it and then pulled out a stool from the small table in the center of the old kitchen.
“Sit.”
“Bossy,” I told her.
“Don’t you know it.”
“That I do.”
She’d been as strict as they’d come when she’d been raising me, but not even close to clipping my wings, the woman always there believing that I could go soaring.
When she dabbed the cloth on my face, washing off the blood and the dirt and the tears—so softly, so gently—I almost felt like that same little girl she’d taken in when I’d lost my parents.
My mind drifted back to the day that she’d tended to me in this exact same spot when I had scraped my knee after falling off my bike.
I wondered if she were remembering the same thing because the hint of a smile played around her mouth. “Let me see that knee. Looks like you did a number on it.”
I gathered the fabric so she could get a better look. It wasn’t all that hard to do considering the dress was shredded, a rip running up the opposite side of the one where the slit was actually supposed to be.
Damn dress.
Gramma whistled low. “Look at those gams.”