Page 46 of Lead Me On
Jane shook her head. “Come on, Chase.” She walked toward the door, but Olive put her hand on Chase’s arm to stop him.
She waved him closer and Chase leaned obligingly down. “Don’t bring her home knocked up.”
“Oh… God. Okay.”
He lurched away while she smiled serenely.
Jane grabbed his arm and hurried him toward the door. “What did she say to you?”
“She told me not to knock you up.”
“Good Lord.”
Chase couldn’t stop himself from laughing. “Your grandma’s a hoot.”
“That woman is not my grandmother.” As they emerged into the parking lot, the wind hit them like an unfriendly hand. Swollen clouds gathered on the horizon.
“She’s Big Mac’s mother?”
Her eyebrows rose in exasperation. “She was married to Mac’s father for about nine months before he died. Then she just never went away.”
“She doesn’t have any kids of her own?”
“Oh, she’s got a son, but he doesn’t speak to her anymore.”
“Why?” he asked, shocked that a man would do that to his mother. He’d give anything to have his mom back.
“Grandma Olive told her son that his wife dressed like a blind whore.”
“Ouch.”
“Which might have been forgivable if she hadn’t announced it during a toast at their wedding reception.”
“Yikes.” A horrible thing for the old woman to have said, but Chase found himself snorting with laughter.
Jane’s lips were pressed tightly together, but he could see that she was about to burst out laughing herself.
“You have to admit she’s pretty funny.”
“All right,” Jane answered. “I’ll give you that. But the woman made my life a living hell when I was a teenager.”
Chase tried to imagine Grandma Olive in the same room with young Dynasty Alexis and shuddered. It would not have been a peaceful pairing. “Well, she likes me,” he said proudly.
Jane sent him a sideways look as he opened his truck door for her. “I guess Mac’s tattoos have finally worn her down. A few years ago she would have ordered you to go scrub that nonsense off your neck or get out of her sight.”
“I take it Grandpa didn’t have any ink?”
“No,” Jane said. Her eyes glittered with mischief. “But she’ll go on and on about what a nice round bum he had if you ask her.”
“She would not!”
“Au contraire.She says you could bounce a quarter off it. Tight as a drum and perfect for gripping.”
Chase slammed her door, then shot her a glare when he slid behind the wheel. “If I think of Grandma Olive the next time a woman digs her nails into my ass, I’ll never forgive you.”
She finally let her laughter free, and it was a beautiful thing. Rich and husky and full of naughtiness. Damn, she was sexy. But he still couldn’t reconcile her with that troubled young girl. If he’d had to guess what had happened to Dynasty, he would have envisioned her walking down a very ragged road. High-school dropout. Kids with different fathers. Drinking and drugging and a parade of useless men.
He’d graduated high school when she was only fourteen. When had she cleaned up her act? And why? He didn’t dare ask her. She didn’t seem to realize that he was Billy Chase. Hell, she might not evenrememberBilly Chase. And if she did…
