Deadline. Metsy Hingle

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      Chapter Two

      “I’m so glad you called,” Elizabeth Abbott said that Saturday morning when she greeted Tess at the front door of the elder Abbotts’ town house. “I do hate it so when you and your grandfather are at odds.”

      “I know, Grams,” Tess said as she returned her hug. She drew back a fraction. “And I’m sorry that you’re the one who always gets caught in the cross fire.”

      Her grandmother reached up and brushed the hair back from Tess’s face. “Don’t worry about me, dear. I’m a lot stronger than you think.”

      “I’ve never doubted your strength,” Tess told her and she meant it. Her grandmother was a strong woman in her own way, having handled the loss of her only child, battled breast cancer and remained married to a strong-willed man like Senator Theodore Abbott for more than fifty years. “But sometimes I don’t understand how you can put up with Grandfather when he gets in one of his moods.”

      “By one of his moods, I take you mean his being out of sorts because things haven’t gone as he planned?” her grandmother asked, a twinkle in her blue eyes as the two of them headed toward the breakfast room.

      “Yes,” Tess replied. In truth, out of sorts was a mild description. Her grandfather was dictatorial and often nasty when he failed to get his way. She took a seat at the glass-and-rattan table where colorful place mats had been laid out with coffee cups and sterling.

      “It’s called marriage, dear. When you marry someone you take them—warts and all.” She poured Tess a cup of coffee. “He’s a good man, Tess. He’s done some remarkable things in his life. And he only wants what’s best for you.”

      “I know, Grams. But that doesn’t give him the right to try to manipulate me and decide who I should marry.”

      Her grandmother took a seat at the table next to her. “He just doesn’t want you to make a mistake.”

      “You mean the way my mother did?” Tess asked. “Maybe marrying Jody Burns was a mistake in Grandfather’s eyes. But it was her choice. Not his. And whomever I marry, it’s going to be my choice, not grandfather’s.”

      “You’re so stubborn and righteous. Even more so than your mother was.” Her grandmother sighed. “Sometimes, I wonder if things would have turned out differently if you and your mother had taken after me more instead of your grandfather.”

      With the morning light spilling in from the window across her grandmother’s face, Tess noted the lines bracketing her eyes. The tasteful short coif of hair that had once been blond had given way to a lovely silver. Despite her seventy-plus years, Elizabeth Abbott’s skin remained smooth, her face lovely. “You’re stubborn in your own quiet way, Grams.”

      “Yes, I suppose I am,” she conceded. She reached over and patted Tess’s hand. “So, are you going to tell me why you needed to talk to your grandfather and me?”

      Tess was tempted to tell her grandmother, to confide in her all the questions that had been running through her head since receiving that phone call and the decision she’d finally reached. “I think maybe it’ll be better if I talk to the two of you together. When will Grandfather be home?”

      “He had an early golf game with Senator Wilke. I expect him home any minute now.”

      Any minute turned out to be nearly an hour later. And when her grandfather entered the breakfast room, the entire house seemed more alive. “Tess, I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” her grandfather said gruffly, and Tess knew from his tone that he was still miffed at her over walking out on him at dinner more than a week ago.

      “Tess called after you left this morning and asked if she could come by, Theo,” her grandmother explained as she poured her husband a cup of coffee before resuming her own seat.

      A big man with a head of thick silver hair and skin darkened by hours spent golfing, her grandfather remained a formidable man even at the age of seventy-five. Ignoring the coffee, he popped a stick of the cinnamon-flavored gum that he favored inside his mouth. A onetime smoker, Theodore Abbott had kicked the habit some twenty-seven years ago, but he had taken to chewing gum. Since then, he was never without a packet of gum stuffed inside one of his pockets. Taking the silver foil from the gum, he proceeded to tie it into a knot. It was a ritual that she had watched her grandfather СКАЧАТЬ