put an end to it. Her sister arriving to drag her back would solve the problem for them and erase Poppy from Turner’s life for good.
Drawing in a breath, Poppy moved out of his arms. “She came to your place?”
“She found out where you worked and someone told her you lived in the building.”
And Turner led Primrose straight to her. He could’ve denied all knowledge or even that he recognized her name. Way back at the start, Turner had promised no one would get information from him. Turned out he wasn’t a tough nut to crack.
“Okay,” Poppy said, fastening the rest of her shirt buttons. “Thanks.”
“Candy-Cane…” he said as she went past him to open the door.
Primrose was standing there waiting.
Poppy stepped back to gesture her inside. “Come in,” she said. “I apologize for being rude.”
Her sister fully expected that response, and why shouldn’t she? Granger Girls were always welcomed. They were gracious and hospitable too. No one closed a door in the face of a Granger.
Primrose came inside, gliding like she was on casters. If the world was how she wanted it to be, Poppy would beg Turner to stay and support her. Instead, she just held the door open and looked right at him. Leaning on him wouldn’t be fair to either of them. She’d start to think that maybe relying on him was acceptable; he already had too many women depending on him. Whatever Primrose said, it was Poppy’s burden to bear, no one else’s.
When he noticed her expectation, he seemed surprised. After it sank in that she wanted him to go, his brow clamped down and he marched past her.
Once he was in the hallway, Poppy closed the door and turned her key. She took a second to breathe at the door then went further into the room to find Primrose scrutinizing it. The floors weren’t done, that was difficult to do with no place to put her and Charley. Still, the kitchen was in, the workbench gone, and they had a couch. It was second-hand and rickety, but it was theirs.
“How is everyone?” Poppy asked.
Primrose slunk into the kitchen, running what had to be a judgmental fingertip across the counter. “I can’t believe you live here, in a place like this,” she said.
“I happen to adore my apartment,” Poppy said, owning her defensive stance.
“You could’ve had Holden Abernathy… and you chose this instead.”
“If all you came here to do was judge me—”
“I came here because Grammie is losing her mind,” Primrose said, whirling to look across the room at her. “She says she’s going to sell it all. Everything. She says she wants to give it all to some stupid cat charity.” Poppy’s smile quirked. Yeah, that sounded like something her grandmother would say. “It’s not funny.”
“It is actually,” Poppy said, acknowledging to herself that those who depended on the money to maintain their lifestyle probably wouldn’t feel the same. “What do you think I can do about it?”
“Dad said if she hated it so much that she should sign it all over to him.” Poppy shrugged, but received a frown in return. “Grammie said the only person she’d think to hand it all over to was you.”
“Oh,” Poppy said, catching up to why her sister was there. “I don’t want it.”
Primrose sighed. “She said that you wouldn’t.”
“I’m sorry you wasted a trip,” Poppy said. “Are you staying at a hotel in town?”
Her sister wasn’t done with the tale of woe. “Mother wants to have her committed.”
That stole Poppy’s amusement. “What?”
“She says they can have a lawyer deem her unfit… incapable of making her own decisions or something.”
“She’s not senile.”
Shaking her head, Primrose came around the kitchen island. “You don’t know what it’s been like, since you left. You’ve been gone three months!”
“Eleven weeks,” Poppy said.
Primrose just carried on. “Holden keeps showing up, demanding answers, accusing us of hiding you. Violet is a mess. She won’t show herself in public. Grammie has been acting crazy and then a month ago, she collapsed… They said she had a heart attack! Grammie had a heart attack.”
Panic and guilt swamped her. “Oh my God, why did no one call me?”
Primrose glared. “Because no one knew where you were… I went into Grammie’s room and found a social security number and your name on a piece of paper… it wasn’t easy to locate you.”
Which was exactly as Poppy had wanted it. Except that desire almost cost her a chance to see her grandmother again.
“Everything is falling apart,” Primrose said