It was a sour pill to swallow. I had gotten in so many fights at school, defending her honor and protecting her, that I’d been threatened with expulsion. Even after my grandparents moved me here, it had taken me a long time to stop thinking about Bryn. I would go to sleep at night, worrying about her. Now, I had to worry she might take advantage of someone I loved.
“She was asking about a job for her sister,” Henley said then, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Don’t. Tory was bad news way back when. She isn’t better now,” I warned her.
Henley rolled her eyes. “I think I remember you once asking me if I was that judgmental all the time. Sounds like I need to be asking you that question now.”
Henley wasn’t listening to me, and she didn’t get it. Although she had been born to a single teenage mom, just like I had, she had lived a very different life. Her mother was an uptight, controlling bitch, but Henley had never come home to her mother high or lived without food because of her mother’s addiction. I had lived in bad places until my mother’s death. The last of those bad places was where I’d met Bryn. I knew the life she had been raised in and the effect it had on people who had gone through that.
“It isn’t the same. You were judging people you didn’t know because they had a life you had never experienced. Granted, you were right about several of them. But I’m not judging Bryn and Tory. I know their life. I watched how they lived. Their aunt treated them like trash. Their mother was in prison. It messed them up. Hell, you’ve heard Bryn stutter. She’s so emotionally traumatized that she gets nervous and can’t speak a word without struggling.”
Henley was frowning at me. She was so damn stubborn. I had to get through to her on this though. She couldn’t let Tory into this shop. I wasn’t just protecting her; I was also protecting what our father’s mother had built here in her lifetime.
“Bryn doesn’t stutter,” Henley stated matter-of-factly.
“Yes, she does. She’s done it since she was a kid.”
“She didn’t do it one time while in here. I guess I don’t make her nervous. Perhaps that’s reserved for you.” Henley’s eyebrow shot up, and the door to the shop opened.
In came many voices, and I knew this talk was over for now. A kid ran past me and pointed at the cupcakes on the display and began begging for one.
Henley gave her complete attention to her customers, and I stood back to wait when a group of five more people came in behind the family who had interrupted us. She was about to hit the afternoon rush she often talked about, and I knew there was no reason to stay. Moving behind the line of people, I headed outside.
I would explain all this to Saul. He could talk to her. She would listen to him.
I was almost to my Jeep when my phone rang. I reached into the back pocket of my jeans to see my gramma’s name on the screen. I pressed Answer and put the phone to my ear as I unlocked my Jeep.
“I will be there for dinner. I didn’t forget,” I assured her before she could even ask.
I heard her sniffle then, and I paused as alarm registered in my head. My gramma wasn’t an emotional person. Unless she was praying. Other than that, she didn’t cry. Not easily.
“Honey, it’s your pops. He’s had a heart attack. I’m at the hospital now, and they have him. I’m waiting. I don’t know much of anything just yet. Could you go tell Hazel and make sure Jesse shuts down the market tonight? Bring Hazel with you when you come.” Her words were clear and in her calm voice. Yet there was a fear she couldn’t cover up that caused a subtle tremble as she spoke.
“I’ll be there soon. I’ve got everything else under control,” I assured her.
“Thank you,” she replied, then the call ended.
Fear engulfed me, and I realized I had never been this frightened of anything in my life. Not even when I had found my mother dead. A life without Pops seemed impossible. We all needed him. Gramma would be lost without him. Hazel needed her father; she had so many more milestones in life he had to be there for. And me, I needed Pops. The only man in my life to give me stability.
Chapter Ten
Bryn
When Tory walked into the apartment, smiling, I knew she had found a job or a new man. I wasn’t sure which. With her, you never knew. She could have forgotten what she was supposed to be doing today and ended up at a bar somewhere.