“Hey,” she yelled at the disappearing taillights, “watch where you are going.”

She shivered, the warm feeling replaced by an ominous prickle. All of a sudden it felt like danger could exist around every corner, and you never knew when it would slam into you without warning.

Chapter Sixteen

WILDER SAT AT Quinn’s little kitchen table, conscious of the scrape and clink of his silverware. Today her shirt said, “I Read the Book before It Was a Movie.” Cute and funny, but falling flat with this crowd. The conversation was nonexistent despite Quinn’s valiant attempts at small talk. When she told him what she was planning, a bonding dinner between him and Grandma, he almost said not to bother. But she looked so hopeful that the idea of disappointing her about killed him.

She wanted so much to believe that everything would work out, have a happy ending like one of those old books she favored. What could he do, tell her how the world really worked and rain on her parade? Not happening. She’d been kicked in the teeth enough, by her old job, by her dad being sick. He didn’t want to show her what it was really like to be kicked in the ass, how those scars never heal. How eventually the wounds fill with poison until nothing looks good and you’re angry every day, from the first breath when you wake up until you fall into another uneasy sleep.

Grandma, on the other hand, knew . . . all too well. From time to time during the dinner, she caught his gaze, her eyes still sharp behind those turquoise bifocals. She never missed a trick. That night of the house fire, after she got Sawyer and Archer tucked into beds at Hidden Ranch, she came to him, sat on the edge of his bed.

“You going to tell me what really happened?” she had asked.

She always knew the worst about him.

“So.” Quinn wiped her mouth with her napkin and set it on the table. “Everyone’s plates are empty so looks like my questionable cooking skills turned out okay this one time. Pork chops were my dad’s favorite meal—he taught me how to make them when I was thirteen years old. It’s either this, canned soup, or macaroni and cheese so don’t expect any more from me in the way of culinary greatness.”

“Meat was a little overcooked,” Grandma muttered.

Wilder tossed his fork on his plate. “Jesus, Grandma.”

“Hey, I don’t mind,” Quinn soothed. “Well, maybe a leetle more sugar-coating would be nice, but hey, at least we’re all talking now, right? Better than just staring at our plates and listening to the light bulb hum.” She glanced up. “Those fluorescent bulbs in there are noisy when there’s no sound, huh? Anyway, I have an idea.”

Wilder had to give her points for sheer tenacity. This dinner was a bust but she wouldn’t admit defeat, was going down punching, and that deserved respect.

“What are you thinking, Trouble?” he asked, gentling his tone.

“A game.”

“Do I look like a game player to you?” Grandma said skeptically.

Quinn looked between them. “Everyone likes board games.”

“Looks like you found the two exceptions to the rule,” Wilder muttered.

“Good lord, you really are both cut from the same cloth,” Quinn said, standing to grab the plates and waving Wilder back into his seat. “No. Butt in chair, mister. There’s a dishwasher in this kitchen and I intend to put it to good use. We are going to eat cake and play a game and there will be no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Understood?”

The two faces stared back at her with identical expressions of shock and awe. She felt like she was a lion tamer in the ring. Exhibit a trace of fear and they’ll eat you alive. Better to show them who is boss.

She stalked to the kitchen, loaded the dishwasher, and cut heaping slices of the cake Edie insisted on giving her for free. “A donation of goodwill,” she had said. “Listen, I’ve lived with the woman since summer time, and all I can say is don’t be fooled into thinking she can be tamed. She’s like a barn cat. If she likes you, she likes you, but her mood is unpredictable and you can’t take it personally.”

But of course this was personal. Grandma Kane didn’t have to like her, but she had to respect her.

She set the cake slices before them and scanned the games on the bookshelf. Risk? Too long. Scrabble? No, not quite right. Hungry Hippos? Ah, thumbs-up for childhood nostalgia, but again, no. Monopoly? Maybe. Wait a second. What’s this? Yes. Yes, perfect.

“The Game of Life,” she announced, grabbing the box off the bookshelf and walking back to the table.

Grandma glared at the brightly colored lid before forking the last bite of cake into her mouth. Ganache or not, she hoovered the slice like it was going to sprout legs and scurry away. “When you get to my age you learn life’s not a game. It’s a joke.”

“Now, now.” Quinn clucked. “Nothing ages a person faster than being set in their ways.”

Grandma snorted. “You’re saying that if I play this here board game, I’ll push back my date with Saint Peter?”

“Who’s to say?” Quinn spread out the board as Wilder picked up a tiny car, frowning.

“What’s this thing do?”

“Jesus, take the wheel,” Grandma muttered.

Quinn refused to lose her grin. These party poopers would have fun tonight or she’d die trying. “You mean to tell me that you’ve never played Life either?”

“I’m with Grandma on this one. Not big into games.”

“That is all about to change.” She gave Grandma a red car. “Now find a little plastic person, either blue or pink. Sorry, this game doesn’t really take gender ambiguity into consideration.”

They both stared as if her neck had sprouted a new head. These two might have different features, but something about the way they held their heads and set their mouths marked them unmistakably as kin.

Quinn pointed to the dial. “Then we spin the wheel and start.”

“And what’s the point?” Wilder asked, sticking a blue man into the driver’s seat.

“To win at life.” She left off the duh part of her statement but it managed to hang there regardless.

“Hah,” Grandma muttered. “There is only one winner in life and that’s the Grim Reaper.”

“Enough.” Quinn slammed her own car down so hard that her little pink stick figure flew across the table in a perfect arc, landing in Grandma’s lap. “I’m adding extra rules. No cynical comments and that includes under-the-breath grumbles. No snorting. No checking your watch. We are going to have fun even if it hurts because today, right now, we are all alive, we are all more or less in good health, and we are all together, so we might as well make the best of it.”

Grandma Kane stared at her with an unfathomable expression. Quinn restrained the urge to gulp and rubbed an invisible speck off the table. She’d gone and done it now, gone too far, the lion was opening its mouth, coming in for the bite . . .

“You have gumption.” Grandma thought for another moment. “Yes, I’m giving you that, missy. More grit than any other Higsby I’ve ever met.”

“Thank you.” Quinn wiggled her feet in a secret under-the-table happy dance. She had conquered the lion. It was giving her a begrudging lick and purr. “Now spin the wheel and let’s see who goes first.”

Chapter Seventeen

IT WAS ALMOST midnight when Wilder drove Grandma back to Hidden Rock Ranch and for once they had actually spoken. Not about anything deep and meaningful—he asked about her hip rehab after it was broken in July and she checked in on the status of his leg.

But it was a start.

“We’re a pair, aren’t we, boy?” she’d said as he pulled up in front of the old homestead she now shared with Archer and Edie. The house she’d taken him and his brothers into after his parents died, the house that never quite felt like a home, at least for him. “Survivors.”

Quinn had made rum-spice apple cider halfway through the board game. He’d declined because he was driving but Grandma had sipped a mug. Maybe she’d snuck another and the tipple was making her emotional?