Finally, Beau lifts his head. “How is Granny?”
I shrug. They all just saw her at the last Sunday dinner. “Same.”
He gives me one nod before putting his notebook under his arm and telling us goodbye.
I get up to leave, and Ford points at the chair I was sitting in. Austin makes some kind of face at me, like I’m in trouble or something, and I flip him off as he walks out of the conference room. I don’t sit, though. I stand next to the chair I just vacated. “What is it, Ford?”
He leans forward. “What’s going on with you? Are you okay?”
I’m not ready to share what I’ve been thinking, so I tap my pen on the desk. “What do you mean what’s going on with me? I’m good. I’m fine.”
He doesn’t believe me. I can tell by the way he tilts his head with that smirk on his face. “You were zoned out during the whole meeting.”
“Beau–” I start, but he doesn’t let me finish.
“No, I’m used to you–hell, we all zone out during Beau’s presentations of charts and diagrams. But even Austin’s story about the guy that singed all his arm hair off didn’t make you laugh.”
I rear back, wide-eyed. “A guy caught his arm hair on fire?”
Ford points at me. “See! That right there. You were zoned out. What’s going on? Talk to me. Is Granny worse?”
I might as well give it up. I’m not getting out of here until I tell him. “No, Granny’s fine. I mean, no change. She still gets tired easy. Even dancing–the only form of exercise she’s willing to do–she just sways back and forth now. I literally have to hold her up. But there’s been no change since Sunday.”
Ford stands up and leans against the table, arms over his chest. He’s giving me that big brother look–the one where I’m not getting out of here until I tell him. “So I had a conversation with Granny this morning, and she gave me a few things to think about.”
He tenses. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
I tell him about overhearing Granny and Isabella this morning, leaving out the part where she said she thinks Isabella loves me. And then I tell him about my talk with Granny. “She wants me to settle down. She’s worried about me, and she’s worried about Isabella when”–I try not to choke up–“when Granny leaves us.”
Ford stands to his full height and comes toward me. His hand goes to my shoulder and squeezes. “She’s not the only one that’s worried about you, Lucas.”
Our eyes meet, and I see the worry in his. He’s the oldest brother. He was ten years old when I was born, but he may as well have been twenty. He looked after us, and to this day, we all look up to him. “It’s going to be hard for all of us,” I say.
He nods but lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “I know that. We’ll all grieve. Granny is one of a kind, and we’ll all miss her. But your relationship with her is different than the rest of us. If anything, she’s been like a mother to you.”
I know what he’s saying. When our mother left, Granny stepped in for all of us. My dad remarried a few years later, and Charlotte is great, but I had attached myself to Granny by then. She really has been like a mother to me. “Yeah, uh, she’s also worried about Isabella.”
Ford’s forehead creases, and before I can change my mind, I spit it out. “Granny has it in her head that Isabella and I should be together. I think–no, I know–she wants us to get married.”
His mouth compresses into a hard line, and he shakes his head. “Don’t do it, Lucas. Don’t even think about it.”
Surprised that he obviously feels this strongly about it, I lift my shoulders in a shrug. “Why not? We can get married and give Granny some peace. You should have heard her, man. She really wants this.”
Ford leans onto the table, pressing his fist into the hard cherry wood. “You can’t marry her.”
I cross my arms over my chest. The days where Ford tells me what to do and I do it without question passed around the time I hit puberty. And even though I fully respect him, this isn’t something I’m going to let him sway me on. But I am curious. “Why? You seem to feel awfully strong about this. What? You like Isabella or something?”
I try to act like I don’t care one way or another, but already my hands are fisting at my sides. All in one day, this woman has me turned inside out. I’m not a jealous person. At least I didn’t think I was.
Ford throws his hand in the air. “Of course not. But you can’t lead her on like that. She obviously loves you, and when it ends, you’re going to break her heart. And even though I think Granny should have everything she wants, Issi doesn’t deserve to be a casualty in all this.”