“I do.” She held up the tote she carried. “Brought you a few things.” Then she took inventory of the dust-free living room. “Looks like I can leave the cleaning supplies in my car, though. I expected dust and must a foot deep.”
Her hands rested on her hips. “Jake Parker, did you call ahead and have Lydia or one of her girls come over and do a fast clean-up? Did they know you were coming home before your own family?”
He shook his head vehemently. “No. I wouldn’t do that. When I got here yesterday, I cleaned up a little, totally out of self-defense.” He couldn’t bring himself to mention Lucy, that he’d had help. “I came home for Grandma Hattie, Birdie.”
“This has put you in a tough spot, hasn’t it?”
Jake shrugged.
They moved into the kitchen, and Sammy wiggled free. Tugging a small toy car out of his pocket, he raced it over the top of the vintage 50s chrome-and-Formica table. Birdie hefted her bag to the counter, and while Jake poured coffee, she unpacked a container of still-warm homemade cinnamon rolls, a carton of milk and a stick of butter.
“Sammy, take your hat off while you’re at the table.”
“Aw, Mom. We’re not eating yet.” But even while he groused, he removed his skull and crossbones and hooked it over the chair’s back.
The scent of vanilla and cinnamon had Jake’s mouth watering. He flicked a gob of icing off one of the rolls and let it melt on his tongue. “Maybe instead of being pis—upset with Randy, I need to call him and thank him. Without his tattlin’, I wouldn’t have these, would I?”
“Without me getting up an hour earlier this morning,” his sister said, “you wouldn’t have these.”
“There is that,” Jake agreed. He carried the unexpected treat to the table while Birdie set out plates and forks. Now would be the time to say they needed four of everything instead of three. He didn’t.
“So how is Gram? Really. No BS.”
“She’s okay. Thinner than she was and a little slower. But all in all, for an eighty-nine-year-old gal, she’s doing pretty darn good.” Without missing a beat, she laid a hand over Sammy’s car-wielding one. “Son, mind your manners.”
“Can I have a cinnamon bun?”
Birdie rolled her eyes. “Yes, you may.”
Jake and Sammy shared a quick, mothers-are-like-that look.
“Her heart?”
“Fine, as far as I know.”
“Then,” Jake said to his sister, “why all the heat from Mom and Dad to get my butt home?”
“Because Grandma Hattie is eighty-nine.”
“So?”
“Come on, Jake. You know very well what I mean. Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow. By the time you’ve had as many of them as Gram, your chances of another one get slimmer with the setting of every sun.”
“Yeah, okay, you’re right. But what’s the big deal about me getting married? Why is she so hung up on that? I don’t get it.”
“Gram wants to bounce another great-grandchild on her knee.”
“One isn’t enough?”
“Sammy’s last name isn’t Parker.”
“Big deal.”
“It is to some. I think Dad’s been yammering at her about it. About you. He misses you.”
Jake laughed. “Right.”
“Seriously. Gram misses you too, and it’s eating at her that you and dad are at odds. She wants to patch things up between you before… Well, you know.” Birdie cleared her throat. “To do that, she needed to get you back here.”
“Even if this isn’t where I want to be?”
“A case of the end justifying the means in her book, I think.”
“So she’s not d-y-i-n-g?” he spelled out, aware of Sammy’s keen ears.
Birdie reached for his plate, stacked it on top of hers and Sammy’s. “Not that I know of. Not unless they’ve been hiding something from me.”
“Maybe they figure with Sammy, with your shop, you’ve got enough to worry about.”
“Still…”
Jake shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you, sis.”
She laid a hand on his arm. “If you find out anything different, you’ll let me know?”
“Absolutely.”
“My guess? She’s playing you, Jake. And guilt is a powerful motivator.”
He grimaced. “Oh, for the love of Mike!”
“Who’s Mike?” Sammy looked up from where he’d been ramming his car against the plate holding the remains of his cinnamon bun.
Birdie threw her son “the face” as she swooped in and plucked the car from him. God, when had Birdie morphed into Mom? Jake wondered.