There are no women in my life, he almost said. It was his standard response to Emma’s not-so-subtle prying. But he caught himself because they both knew this time, it would be a lie.
As much as he valued his privacy, he wouldn’t mind unloading on his grandmother. She understood him better than anyone else and already knew he was interested in Cat. More importantly, she liked Cat, too.
He leaned forward. “I’m not sure how she feels about me right now. I haven’t had a minute’s free time to get in touch.”
Emma made a chiding, clucking sound with her tongue. “You know what they say about all work and no play. You ought to go find Catherine and have a good time with her. Relieve some of that tension you’re carrying around with you.”
He had no patience for her prying or the way she spoke of Cat as if she meant nothing more to him than a good time in bed. He shook his head. “You cut that out, now,” he warned his grandmother.
She clapped her weathered hands together. “Thank goodness.”
“Thank goodness what? Someone other than the judge is finally censoring your language?”
“Logan, I raised you, I love you, but you can be thick as a milkshake sometimes. Thank goodness you’re looking out for Catherine. If you don’t let me talk like that about her, I picked right, and it’s finally happened.”
“Your train of thought boggles the mind,” he muttered. “But I’ll bite. What’s finally happened?”
“You’ve fallen hard. I knew you would. Now, here’s the plan.” She talked fast, probably before he could interrupt. “When I realized you were tied up for two days, I took a few liberties.”
He shook his head. She was a whirlwind, and right now, his life was caught dead smack in the middle. Which reminded him. “We still haven’t talked about the closet incident.”
“Oh, I thought you and Catherine already taught me a lesson,” she muttered.
“So, you didn’t like being on the receiving end, did you? Now listen and understand. Much as I appreciate your intentions, your… meddling can’t go on. I’m thirty-one years old, Gran. Would you take it personally if I said butt out?”
“Of course not. But it’s too late for that. You need the scoop and I’m here to give it to you.”
“And I’m here listening.”
“You said at the party you wanted to make Catherine’s dreams come true. And before you ask how I know, I accidentally left the intercom on by the pool house where the bar was located,” she said, unable to meet his gaze.
He blinked hard. “You’re telling me you sat in the house and listened?” he asked, buying himself time to swallow his anger.
“Yes,” she admitted with embarrassment and shame in her tone.
Emma wasn’t malicious nor did she ever mean any harm. But the knowledge didn’t help right now. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, attempting to control his frustration.
The penalty for murder in this state wasn’t pretty, and even though this could be considered justifiable homicide, the jury might take exception to the fact that he’d strangled his eighty-year-old grandmother.
“I only needed to know if I chose right,” she said by way of explanation. “If you two hit it off. Heaven knows you’d never tell me the truth.”
“Only because you react… like this.” He balled his hands into tight fists. The thought of her invading his and Catherine’s privacy had him seeing red. “You might mean well, but you passed the bounds of common decency this time.”
“Actually, I know that, and I’m sorry.” She bowed her head. “But that heart attack scared me to death. Well, not literally, thank goodness, but it meant I had to see you settled down and happy before I passed on. Went to the great beyond. Well, you know what I mean.”
He did. And he understood. Her heart attack had taken years off his life as well. And the reason he let her get away with so much interfering was because he loved her and was grateful she was still around to meddle in his life.
But she couldn’t go to these extremes, not when Catherine was involved. “I already told you I won’t use Cat in any scheme to stop the judge. You should be ashamed of yourself. You claim to like this woman and you set her up, plan to use her…”
Emma rose to her feet, indignation in her posture and a determined look on her face. “I did no such thing.”
“Sit down, Gran.”
She lowered herself back into the booth.
“Well, I set her up with you, if that’s what you mean. But you should be grateful. As for using her, can I help it if her background will infuriate your father and thwart his mayoral plans? But that has nothing to do with why I brought you to the party. I wanted you to meet her. Period.”