He had her wrapped in his arms before she finished.
Her entire body shook. That scared the fuck out of him. He squeezed her tighter and pressed his lips to the top of her head, breathing in the sun-warmed scent of her hair.
When Tobin tried to discreetly wipe away the dried leaf that had gotten stuck to his lip, Jade wiggled until he let go of her.
That’s when he realized she wasn’t crying from distress but from fury.
He noticed the shovel lying next to a pile of dirt. His gaze moved across the ground, zeroing in the other new holes. She’d taken a different approach to her frustration instead of beating rugs into submission.
“Talk to me, sweetheart. What happened today?”
“I don’t think I can talk about it when I just want to yell about it!”
Tobin propped his hands on his hips. “Go ahead. Ain’t the first time you’ve yelled at me and it won’t be the last.”
Jade glared at him for several long moments, as if she didn’t believe him. Then she let fly.
“I’m so, so, so, so mad!” She’d picked up the shovel and punctuated each so by stabbing the metal tip into the ground. “How dare they? Seriously? I don’t care if they are worried about GG’s health—that was not the way to go about finding out if their concerns are justified! Did they really think if GG had confided in me that I’d break that confidence just because they’re her friends? No, no, no, no.” More ground stabbing.
He stayed mum and let her rant.
“Not to mention they brought my dad into it and asked a bunch of questions that are none of their business. And if they’re such good friends of hers, then they should know that my grandmother has a habit of exaggerating. With her, it’s always worst-case scenario and then she has a hard time remembering what’s fact and what she’s embellished.”
No argument there, but Jade’s diatribe still didn’t make sense.
“Plus, they also have to know that if Garnet Evans is backed into a corner she comes out swinging every time.”
Like grandmother, like granddaughter.
“And look out if you wrong her because there’s no way you can ever make it right again.”
Jade took a minute to breathe.
Tobin watched her, completely . . . turned the fuck on at seeing this side of her. Yeah, he knew she was pissed off, but goddamn. This fierceness was hot as hell. Not that he’d share that with her right now—he valued his balls, thank you very much. But he’d much rather see her all het up, screaming mad, than watch her weeping and wringing her hands.
This was how she ought to deal with her anxiety issues. Get a fucking shovel and beat it into submission. Not that he’d tell her that right now either—he’d mention it later. When she wasn’t wielding a weapon.
“And you know what else?”
She wasn’t talking to him, as much as at him, but he answered anyway. “What?”
“Those results are skewed. They’re inconclusive ninety-nine percent of the time. And I don’t think they even knew what they were doing anyway. So the whole thing was an exercise in futility. Unless their motivation was to test me. Not only to see how mad I’d get, but if I’d tell GG about their scheming ways, knowing full well that it would hurt her.”
“Jade. You’re talking in riddles, darlin’. Tell me exactly what Miz G’s friends did today.”
She aimed that stubborn chin at him. “They hooked me up to a lie detector machine.”
Tobin’s jaw nearly hit the dirt. “What?”
“Oh yes, that’s right. First thing today, GG’s beloved friends squired me away to the barn and practically strapped me into a chair so I could privately address their . . . concerns. By taking a lie detector test.”
“How the fuck did that even happen?”
“They claimed they had something to show me. And I went along with it.” She frowned. “At first, when we were walking outside and they started asking me how much time I’d been spending in GG’s gardens, I worried they were trying to get me to admit I knew about the pot plants and intended to warn me off. But they didn’t care about that at all. They demanded to know when Dad and I planned to lock Garnet away, where we were stashing her, if we were selling off her assets. Not only that, they accused me of encouraging GG to hide her health issues from them—which isn’t true because she’s healthy as a horse. But really, that isn’t their business! If GG wanted them to know something so personal, she’d tell them. Then they asked me a bunch of other stuff, but by that time I was so angry I blanked it out.
“The last thing I remember before I grabbed the shovel and came out here was their suggestion that I didn’t mention our ‘conversation’ to GG. Ever.” She blew out a long breath. “Which I actually agree with because GG would be so hurt if she knew what they’d done today. She was so excited for me to meet them and these women are such a huge part of her life . . . I mean, they didn’t cause me physical harm. And I get that they were probably acting out of love for her, but they should’ve used a different approach.” Jade looked away, but not before he saw her firm her trembling chin. “I am not the enemy. That’s how they treated me. So that’s how I ended up out here, channeling my frustrations. But the longer I’ve been out here digging holes, the angrier I’ve gotten.”