“Sounds like a bunch of cockamamie, if you ask me,” Grandma muttered.

Wilder didn’t say a word.

Tough crowd.

Time for plan B.

“Who’d like a cup of tea?” Quinn asked, rising to her feet. “Mrs. Kane?” Calling her Grandma felt way too familiar. “Want some Egyptian licorice?”

The older woman peered over the top of her turquoise bifocals. “Egyptian licor-what?”

“Or plain black? Simple? Classic?”

That received a brief, pursed-mouth nod. Quinn gave Wilder the “help me out a little” eye. He knew she was doing it, so he looked everywhere but in her direction. Darn him.

“Boy,” Grandma snapped. “Will you kindly acknowledge your girlfriend before she gives me a turn with all that nervous twitching?”

Her throwaway use of the word girlfriend did a better job of snagging Wilder’s attention. He jerked out of whatever gloomy stupor he’d been trapped in.

“We’re just friends,” Quinn said quickly. Yeah, he was a real good friend to her girl parts.

“Just friends?” Grandma snorted, catching her blush. “Hah. I might be over eighty with a busted hip and be able to remember when Roosevelt was president, but that doesn’t mean I lost my marbles. I have friends, missy, but none that know what I look like out of my drawers.”

Quinn had a sudden terrible image of Grandma Kane in a pair of drawers, white ones with pink flouncy ruffles on the butt. The idea made a titter well up in her throat, no, worse, a giggle, wait, crap, a guffaw. Yeah, a full-scale guffaw was imminent and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

She tried to turn it into a sneeze and that just made everything ten times worse. The escaping noise was a mash-up between a wheeze, snort, hiccup, and chortle. The entire thesaurus could have a field day trying to describe the sound that stress, uncertainty, sex, and the glare of a dowager rancher could pull from her body.

“Is this one all right in the head?” Grandma Kane asked Wilder, speaking out of the side of her mouth.

“The same as anyone,” Wilder responded, adding, “And for the record, when you talk like that, everyone can still hear you.”

Grandma’s gaze was frostier than the White Witch of Narnia’s.

“Wasn’t sure if you were aware.” Wilder shrugged. “When I was a kid you used to do it to cashiers in the checkout aisle, talk about their moles or the fact that you were going to be covered in moss if they moved any slower.”

That sent Quinn off on a fresh round. She grabbed her water glass off the coffee table and took a swig. Maybe that would help.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, bending over and bracing her knees.

“Here I thought Annie Carson was the kooky one but you might take the cake,” Grandma said, shaking her head.

“Guess we all have our moments.” Quinn wiped her eyes.

“I’ll make the tea.” Wilder rose and went straight to the kitchen without waiting for anyone to tell him no. He was using his cane less and less.

The fire crackled in the hearth, otherwise silence reigned supreme. Strange, seeing as this was an old house. No creaks.

“You have a lovely home,” Quinn said at last.

“Don’t get any big ideas,” Grandma barked. “It’s going to Archer and Edie.”

“Excuse me?” Quinn bristled.

“You’re a Higsby, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“Everyone knows a Higsby is the worst kind of fool. You’re the one who works in the bookstore, aren’t you?”

“Yes. You come in every Wednesday with the other Chicklits, but I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“Go to the mantel.” Grandma pointed to a thick leather-bound book on the end.

Quinn rose and trudged over. What a shrew. No wonder Wilder didn’t like spending time with his family. She glanced at the title. “Brightwater: Small Town, Big Dreams?”

“That right there is the town history,” Grandma Kane said. “You like to read? You should give it a try. The pages are riddled with the exploits of Higsbys, half-baked ideas, inventions. Did you know your great-aunt Helen tried to sell a baby mop?”

Quinn wasn’t sure if she should be amused or horrified, so she settled somewhere in between. “Excuse me?”

“A baby mop. It was a mop head but instead of a stick, a crawling baby was attached to it. She thought she’d put her children to good use. Considering she had enough of them, you could almost not blame her. Higsbys are a fertile lot, after all.” Grandma gave her an appraising stare. “And you have the family’s birthing hips.”

“I’m not sure if I ever want to have kids.” Quinn willed her voice to stay steady. It wasn’t that she didn’t love kids. She did, at least most kids, unless they ate their boogers or threw fits on an airplane. Still, if she carried the early-onset gene, she couldn’t reproduce. No way would she saddle another person with a fifty-fifty future like the one she faced.

“No children?” Grandma’s frown deepened, her eyes narrowing into suspicious slits. “But what about keeping the family alive, growing the herd?”

“Leave her alone,” Wilder said, carrying two mugs of tea. He set one next to Grandma and carried the other over to Quinn.

Grandma made a tsk sound. “Use a—”

“Coaster. I know. You only told me that for as long as I lived here,” Wilder muttered as he set the cup down.

Grandma Kane crossed her arms and stared at her grandson. “I told you a lot of things but never saw it do much good.”

Wilder walked over, grabbed a log, and threw it onto the fire with more force than the situation called for.

Quinn watched both their faces. Wilder was hurt, masking it with anger, whereas Grandma Kane was like a junkyard dog who’d caught a pant leg and was physically incapable of letting go.

“You want to pick on somebody, pick on me,” Wilder said. “How about a game of chess?”

“It’s getting close to my bedtime. Aren’t you supposed to make sure I’m tucked in at a sensible time?”

Wilder dug out the chessboard from under the coffee table. “Save your smarts for the game—you’re going to need them.”

The two of them engaged in serious trash talking. The dynamic was impossible to figure out. A tug of war was going on, a power play. One Quinn didn’t understand and was glad she didn’t have to get involved in.

Instead, she cozied onto the couch with Brightwater’s history. She’d never really devoted much brain space to wondering about the town’s past or the fact that her family really did tend to have a lot of kids. More than the Kanes if that was possible.

She flipped around, pausing at a strangely titled chapter. “The Curious Case of the Castle Falls Phantom.”

She read through the short entry, her stomach in knots. Déjà vu wasn’t a feeling that she had much experience with, but there’d been a Castle Falls hermit before Wilder?

Why? And what happened to him? Quinn tried to lose herself in the story, but her thoughts kept drifting to Wilder.

He was stuck in the past while she fixated on the future. Was there a way they could both figure out how to live in the present?

Chapter Fourteen

GRANDMA BEAT WILDER, best two out of three games. He played hard but she was wily, didn’t miss a trick. Never had. She always was one step ahead of him. It used to scare him how she seemed to understand what he’d do before he did.

She’d gone to bed smug in her victory before Archer and Edie returned, tired and a little rattled.

“The fire started inside the kitchen,” Edie said, taking a spot next to Quinn. “Luckily the damage was minimal. I’ll have to replace some appliances but it could have been worse. A lot worse.”

“Was it set on purpose?”

Edie bowed her head, a troubled look crossing her refined features. “The only person with a real axe to grind against me is my ex and he’s in jail now. Unless he somehow got out and . . .”

“He didn’t get out, Freckles.” Archer had walked behind the couch and began kneading her shoulders.