Page 27 of Grumpy

Margery held her ground, sitting tall as she turned her face away from her son.

When Grumpy spoke next, it was low, dark. Held an edge that would have scared Kelly if she didn’t trust him so much. “You and Nadine were close. She listened to you, she trusted you. If you told her something like what you told Kelly, she would have listened to you.”

The accusation was clear, the line drawn in the sand.

“You had your hip surgery right after Tanya and I got married. I was stationed in Texas, and you only came down twice. Otherwise, I traveled up to you alone. Tell me, Mom, what did you tell her? Because I know damn well that it wasn’t me in those pictures.”

It took Kelly a second to remember what pictures Grumpy was referring to, the proof his ex-wife had used to divorce him.

Again, Margery said nothing. But there was an underlying explanation in the tightness of her expression that made Kelly believe that she knew something about those pictures.

“Who was the woman at the hospital?” Kelly asked her. “You told me that she and Grumpy were involved, that he was sleeping with her before the explosion. Everyone here knows that was a lie. Who was she?”

Margery threw her chin up in the air. “How should I know? Some trollop shows up to my son’s hospital room and she expects me to just let her in?”

Kelly thought back to that moment, and shook her head. “You’re lying. You recognized her. The way the two of you were together, there was a familiarity there. You know exactly who she was.”

Margery turned her narrowed eyes on Kelly. “You sure grew a backbone the moment I was out of the way. How long did it take you before you came knocking on my son’s door after I left?”

Kelly gave her a cruel smile. “You mean after he kicked you out? He messaged me the second you were out the door. I believe his words were ‘ding dong, the witch is dead’.”

“Jesse!” Margery scolded.

Guilt filled Kelly at unintentionally throwing Grumpy under the bus, but he squeezed her hand, reassuring her.

“I want the truth, Mom. Who was at my room and why did you tell Kelly I was sleeping with her? You know nothing about my love life, outside of the woman I almost married and the woman I did marry. So why would you assume that this woman was someone I was sexually involved with?”

Grimm leaned forward on the table. “Watching you people talk to this woman is driving me insane.” He pushed his phone, screen up, across the table at Grumpy. “Keys pulled the hospital footage. This is the cleanest picture he could get of the girl. He’s running facial recognition now.”

Kelly and Grumpy looked down at the phone together. Kelly immediately recognized the young woman with black hair, though she’d only seen her at a distance before. From the background, this picture was taken as the young woman entered the hospital, before she met up with Margery and started crying.

Grumpy let go of Kelly’s hand and carefully lifted the phone between his two. Kelly felt the stiffness in his body, his mood change. It hinted at anger, but his expression as he stared down at the young woman looked almost reverent.

“Who is she?” Kelly asked softly.

Grumpy licked his lips. “My daughter. She’s my daughter.”

* * *

Maddie. Little Mads. His Mad Pie. All grown up—and here. In Mount Grove. Or she had been six months ago. What was she doing here? Was she okay? Why had she come? Why hadn’t anyone told him? What did she think after him not reaching out all these months?

“That, that woman,” his mother spat, clearly wanting to use another word and smartly deciding against it, “is not your daughter.”

There’d only been a few times in Grumpy’s life when he could honestly say he was in shock. His divorce was the big one, but also the gloomy day when Steel and Jenna confessed her illness that they’d been hiding from the club and then the godawful night of Pumpkin’s motorcycle accident and Scar’s supposed death. He’d been too drugged in the hospital to count his own injuries. That had been sort of a progressive shock, the club and doctors feeding him bits of information at a time.

But learning his daughter had been in Mount Grove, his mother knew, and she hadn’t told him? That went beyond shock. It went beyond anger, beyond disappointment. He’d put up with a lot from his mom over the years. A part of it was guilt, he knew. A child raised to feel guilty for having ever been born.

Margery Bell loved him. He knew this, and he did not doubt it. But that love came with strings, conditions. Guilt and obligations. His injuries had shaken both of them, scared both of them. Grumpy couldn’t fault her overbearingness when he’d almost died, though he would admit that he’d allowed it to go on far too long. Especially if she believed she was going to move into his house without even talking to him first.

Lying to Kelly was one thing. It wasn’t forgivable, but it was…understandable, believable even. Margery had always butted in where she didn’t belong. In fact, the only reason she likely hadn’t been more involved in his marriage was because of her hip replacement surgery.

But hiding this? His daughter from him.

Beyond unacceptable. Beyond unforgivable.

His body hurt. Even with the soup Ruth had kindly made for them, his mouth felt dry, like he’d swallowed a handful of sand. His jaw ached, his back thrummed, and his false eye wept as if a dam had broken in his soul.

“Get out.”