“I only got a brief call from him late Friday night. Said he was staying. I could tell by his tone that something wasn’t right. All he’d say was that things hadn’t gone to plan. I know he called Faye yesterday, asked to speak to the kids, but he wouldn’t tell her anything. Next I heard was from Preston to say he was here and I should round up the girls.” Silence stretched between them for a few seconds before Val reached over to take Poppy’s hands from her lap. “The girls don’t hate you, Poppy. I promise you that. They’re confused. They have a million questions. I know because they’ve been firing them at me.”
“Emmie asked if we were getting married,” Poppy murmured. “Yesterday, on the call. I heard them talking to Turner. I went in and… Emmie asked if we were getting married.”
Pride flavored Val’s brief laugh. “That girl has never been shy… I think they’ve put some of the pieces together themselves. Maybe it’s assumption. It’s not my place to tell them their brother’s business. If I spread it all over the place, he won’t trust me with it in future, will he?”
That curled Poppy’s lips just a fraction. “We have a similar philosophy with my father’s chief valet. Tiller, the man who was downstairs introducing you to Mrs. Caswell.”
“You have a wonderful life here, Poppy,” Val said, squeezing her hands. “No one would blame you for wanting to keep it. I adore my son, but I’m realistic enough to know, he can’t provide a house like this for you.”
“I don’t care about the house. Grammie would sign it over to us if I did, but I don’t.”
“Then what is it you want that you think will be too much for him?”
Pushing her shoulders back, she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, I—”
“Please, Poppy. You have to tell someone… I promise to keep your secrets too.”
Poppy wanted to believe her. Her usual confidante was Grammie. Except she couldn’t talk to Grammie about the life she wished for. Grammie didn’t know Turner, didn’t understand what true responsibility he dealt with every minute.
“I don’t want to live here,” Poppy admitted, gathering her courage. “I want to live in the Venture.”
Val enjoyed the tame confession. “I know he can provide that.”
Pulling them closer, Poppy’s heart rate ascended. “I want him to have everything, Val. I want to help him, to earn and contribute so maybe he doesn’t have to sweat every minute. I want to be his partner, to share his responsibilities. I can’t do anything in the building, with the renovations. I don’t know anything about that and every time I tried to help, I always screwed it up.”
“He enjoys that work,” Val said. “And he would have no problem sharing with you. All you want is to lighten his load. I don’t know why you’d think that he wouldn’t accept that.”
“Because he worries enough,” Poppy said, her shoulders sagging. “I wouldn’t lessen that load. With all the drama I bring, his load would increase. How is he going to deal with my family issues as well as his own? And this Holden mess? Even if we get over that, the press could decide we’re interesting at any time, for anything. Turner would hate to have his life plastered all over the newsstands. He’d despise it.”
“Not as much as he’d despise being without you. He loves you. He knows life can be complicated sometimes. We don’t love someone because of those struggles, we love in spite of them. Do you think life was always easy for me and Ed? Damn, we fell asleep wrapped in each other those first few years not because it was romantic, but because it was freezing. The house was a mess. We had barely any furniture. No floors, no roof, it was a chaos, Poppy. Was it always moonlight and roses? No! Definitely not. We fought like any couple. Sometimes I wanted to wring his neck. Everything was complicated. We had no money, no social life. We worked every second, and then, goddamn, I got pregnant. And, of course, I blamed him for that.” The smirk on Val’s face betrayed it wasn’t a major grievance. “But he promised me we’d make it work. I didn’t know how we’d raise a baby on a construction site… After Turner was born, Ed used to say he’d come along to provide extra free labor.” They both laughed. “We only had one boy