Caped and Dangerous - Isabel Jordan Page 0,25

book in her lap and her face turned up to catch the sunlight. Her legs were tucked up underneath her, and it looked like she’d not only combed her hair, but put on makeup.

Nat had been right. This was a good day.

When Greer shut the door, Ivy’s eyes popped open and she gave her daughter a smile that put the sunlight streaming through the window to shame. “Baby! I’m so glad you’re here. I was just thinking about you.”

Greer smiled back and crossed the room to give her mom a big hug. Ivy hugged her back with strength that belied her ninety-pound, five-foot-nothing frame.

But when she pulled back, Ivy’s smile turned into a frown as she took in the bruises on Greer’s face. “What the hell happened to you? It looks like someone used you for a fucking punching bag.”

Greer chuckled and sat down on the corner of Ivy’s bed. “They kind of did. Got my ass handed to me by a bad guy.”

Her mother uttered a few nasty curse words that made Greer smile even wider. Ivy had always had a foul mouth. She was a master of cussing. If Harvard taught a course in cussing, her mom would be the professor. For Ivy, cussing was an art form. And it had always tickled Greer to no end to hear this tiny, elegant-looking little woman talking like the love child of a longshore man and a construction worker.

“Who’s strong enough to beat you up?” Ivy asked when she was done cussing.

“Good question. Rio’s looking into it for me.”

“I like that boy,” Ivy said. “Are you sure he wouldn’t marry you and give me some grandkids?”

“Since he’s gay and I’m forty-six and in early onset menopause, I’m gonna go with no, mom. Sorry.”

She frowned. “That’s a damn shame.”

Greer had no idea if her mom meant it was a shame that Rio was gay, or that Greer was forty-six and not able to have babies anymore. But then again, maybe it was a little of both.

They exchanged small talk for a few minutes. Greer told her mom about work, and Ivy caught her up on all the retirement village gossip. (Seriously, the place had more drama than an episode of The Young and the Restless, and when her mom was lucid, the woman knew everything that everyone was doing.)

It wasn’t long, though, before Ivy asked, “So, are we just going to keep shooting the shit, or are you going to ask me what you really want to know?”

Greer felt her eyebrows inch up involuntarily in surprise. “How do you know I want something? Can’t I just come visit my mom?”

“You can, and you do. But I know you better than you know yourself. And ever since you were two, when you had something you wanted to talk about, you got this look on your face.” Ivy twirled a finger around, gesturing to Greer’s face. “This puckered, tense face like you were constipated or something.”

“My bowel habits aren’t really anyone’s business,” she grumbled.

Ivy snorted. “I don’t want to know about your bowels. You have something you want to talk about, and it isn’t who Theo in room 4B is playing hide the salami with this week.”

Well, she did kind of want to know who Theo was playing hide the salami with, but that was just her own morbid curiosity at work. And, of course, the fact that she was a little jealous that a dude with dementia in a retirement village had a better sex life than she did. She could probably learn a few things from Theo.

It had been a long, long time since Greer had hidden any salami.

But that was so not the point right now. So, she asked her mom, “Do you remember when you started dating Mr. Defasio? The guy who lived next door to you when you were in the house on Frazier?”

Ivy leaned back in her chair and let out a dreamy sigh. “I sure do. That man was hung like a fucking stallion. And he could do this thing with his tongue that—"

“Whoa, there! TMI.” Greer held up her hand. I do not want to know any of that.”

“Well, you asked.”

“I did not ask you about Mr. Defasio’s penis!”

Ivy rolled her eyes. “Fine. To answer your question, yes, of course I remember Mr. Defasio. Today, at least. Tomorrow? Who the fuck knows.”

Greer gave her a hard look.

She shrugged. “A little dementia humor. What? Too soon?”

Greer shook her head. “You’d been through so much with dad.