King's Country (Oil Kings #4) - Marie Johnston Page 0,18

didn’t think about how I tossed my gear aside and rushed to the house every day after work. That I hadn’t moved from the couch at night because that’d be farther away from where she was sleeping. Or how quickly I’d become addicted to our nightly routine of watching movies with Daisy snuggled between us.

“That wasn’t exactly an answer, jackass. But if you don’t hate her anymore, you’d better go save her from your grandma.”

I spun around. Grams’s black SUV pulled up in front of the house. “Shit.” I sprinted across the yard, Tucker’s laughter fading behind me.

“Grams,” I called before she marched into the house like she owned the place. My family all knew I had an open door and they were welcome anytime.

This was just a really bad time. Anytime from now until my birthday was a bad time.

She waited at the bottom of the porch stairs, but she didn’t look at me. Her gaze was on the figure sitting in the porch swing. Daisy darted across the porch and down the stairs to greet me. Grams’s shrewd gaze watched her the whole way.

I stooped to pet the dog but kept my gaze on Grams. Her mouth was turned down and her eyes glittered.

“I see you have company,” she said crisply.

“Yeah, Bristol’s staying with me for a while.” I willed my grandmother not to make a scene. She’d come here to pester me about dating and getting married before I turned twenty-nine. This was the most she’d ever been involved in my life—she’d done the same when my brothers had been my age—and that was because there was money on the line. A lot of it.

The sun rose and set over piles of cash for Grams.

“Why would she be doing that?” Grams talked like Bristol wasn’t on the swing, her body stiff, her jaw tight. Bristol’s hair was up in a clip I’d found in the upstairs bathroom—left behind by one of my brothers’ wives, or maybe Kendall. Her gorgeous red strands spilled over her head. I’d never seen the style on her before, and at least two hunks of her hair had escaped to trail down her neck like she didn’t have much practice at getting either her hair or her clip to do what she wanted. Which made it all the more endearing.

Most likely she just didn’t give a shit.

Getting to know the other side of Bristol over the last four weeks had become my favorite pastime. Ice-cold Bristol that gave as good as she got was sexy as hell, and I could finally admit it without feeling like a traitor. But the softer Bristol, the one with vulnerable emerald eyes and sudden smiles, made a guy go stupid.

“She broke her leg. I’m helping her out.” I jogged up the stairs. “You coming in?”

Grams stood at the bottom, her gaze jumping between us and settling on Bristol. “How’d you break it?”

Well, she could’ve been ruder. As it was, I didn’t trust where her line of questioning was going.

“I fell,” Bristol answered flatly.

I wouldn’t have to worry about Bristol handling herself. She was the third generation of Cartwrights that’d been on the receiving end of Grams’s insults. But that didn’t mean she had to deal with it.

“You fell and couldn’t stay with anyone else to recuperate?” Grams asked just as flatly.

“Grams,” I snapped. “Bristol is a guest in my home, here by my invitation.” I cocked a brow as if to say and you aren’t.

Grams drew herself up and gave me a cold, appraising look, managing to look down on me when I was at the top of the porch stairs. “We need to talk. Privately.”

I was about to tell Grams she needed to leave when crutches scraped against the boards.

“Don’t worry. I was just heading in.”

“Bristol—”

“It’s okay.” She gave me a small smile. “I’ll go in the bedroom so you two can talk.”

Grams wasn’t welcome inside if this was how she was going to act. I went down to meet her before she came up the stairs.

“That was uncalled for,” I said.

“You do realize what birthday’s coming up, don’t you?”

That damn trust. Mama had created it with stipulations that my brothers and I each marry before we were twenty-nine, and that we remain married for at least a year. I didn’t know why she’d thought my brothers and I needed prodding to get married, but that was what she’d done.

The other stipulation, what would happen if the trust’s demands weren’t met, was what stuck in Grams’s