Just for This Moment (Wishful 4)

This is a serious emergency.

Oh God, had she been in an accident? Before he could text back or call, another message hit.

Your grandmother is sitting in my parents’ living room.

“Oh my God.”

“Everything all right?” Patty’s teasing expression shifted to one of concern.

“No. No everything is definitely not all right. Meeting adjourned. I…I have to go.”

“But what about—” Zach began.

“Simone will decide. You’re editor for the rest of the day. Whatever you say goes.” He shoved away from the table, bolting for his office and his keys. By the time he hit the front door, he was running.

What the hell was Gram doing here? How did she even know? As he slammed the door and started the car, he remembered their brief encounter with Mrs. Healy.

Shit. Of course she used running into him as an excuse to call up Gram and catch up. But how had Gram found Piper’s parents? Or their address?

The marriage license.

It wasn’t filed yet, but they were public records. If she’d called the circuit clerk’s office…

A litany of profanity and self-recriminations ping ponged through his head, cranking up in intensity as he screeched to a stop behind his grandmother’s Lexus.

They’d been watching for him. The front door opened as he hurried up the walk. Piper stood in the doorway, face drawn and pale but for two flags of color in her cheeks. Her scrubs said she’d been called from work. Behind her, he could hear raised voices.

Myles ran the rest of the way, reaching for her instinctively, wanting to put himself between her and whatever was on the other side of that door. He cupped her jaw, feeling the tension. “Are you all right?”

She leaned into his touch. “It’s nothing a stiff drink won’t fix. Which would be expedient since I’ve all but been ordered to pee on a stick.”

Absolute blistering fury ripped through him. Grabbing her hand, he pushed past her into the room. “Everybody quiet!” he bellowed.

All three of them shut up. Piper’s parents looked shocked. The only change in Gram’s expression was a faint lifting of those patrician brows.

Myles had to pause for several moments to rein in his temper enough to speak to her. “How dare you.” He sucked in another breath that did little to calm him. “How dare you show up here, without my knowledge, certainly without my consent, and interject yourself to interrogate my fiancée.”

Gram had the grace to look at least mildly regretful. “You know it had to be asked.”

“No it goddamned well did not.”

She made a face at his language. “But your brother—”

“I am not Grady. And Piper sure as hell isn’t some gold-digging trollop who’d try to pass someone else’s baby off as mine. And not that it’s any of your business, but there is no possibility of a baby because we haven’t been sleeping together. At this rate, I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t decide to cancel the engagement and walk away from me entirely in the face of this assassination of her character. It’s appalling and unforgivably rude.”

“What precisely was I supposed to think, Myles? With all this cloak and dagger sneaking around, eschewing all tradition and protocol. No one even knew you were dating.”

“In case you missed it, Gram, I haven’t exactly let the family in on my personal life for the last decade. Why would I, when all of you have disapproved of ninety-nine percent of it since I dared to have aspirations that weren’t joining the family business?”

“Don’t pin your father’s disappointments on the rest of us,” Gram snapped.

There was so much Myles wanted to say to that, but he wasn’t here to argue about old family conflicts.

“I just don’t understand why you’d hide a decision this significant, unless there’s something you’re ashamed of.”

His head was well and truly going to explode any minute now. Piper had been right. He should’ve introduced her first. “The only thing I’m ashamed of is your behavior. I’m proud to be able to call this kind, funny, beautiful woman mine.”

Myles hoped, God how he hoped, that would still be true when they got out of here.