house should be fixed so he’d have a place to move when Hunter brought a bride home to the new place. Not that there was a wedding in sight. Until his grandfather stopped his schemes, Hunter was stuck. If he did marry, he had no intention of kicking his grandfather out of their home. But he couldn’t ask anyone to put up with the old man’s schemes, either, especially now that they were back in full force. That pretty much tied everything in a nice uncompromising knot.
“You won’t want the house,” Hunter said when he saw that Scarlett wasn’t weakening. “It’s almost falling down. Needs new electrical. Plumbing. Paint. The works.”
“You’re just as bad as your grandfather,” she said with a grin. “You can’t stop me, though. He warned me about you.”
Hunter blinked.
“He what?” He almost couldn’t speak, he was so astonished. “He warned you about me? ”
He was the good grandson. Always had been. The one who had stayed. The one who fed the cats warm milk when the snow was knee deep outside and the wind was howling. The one who gave everyone back their money, even if they had lost their receipt. He’d half raised his brothers, made sure they got to school on time and washed behind their ears. And his grandfather had warned her about him?
“Yes,” Scarlett said emphatically. “And my family needs that house—and the land. It’s going to be our new home. We have your grandfather’s promise in writing and we’ll sue if that’s what we need to do to get what should be ours.”
With that threat, she turned back to the car, clearly dismissing him.
Hunter did the only thing he could. He turned around, climbed the steps and stomped into the café. He had to wait a minute for the cat to slip through the open door first, but they both finally made it inside with their dignities intact. As he suspected, his grandfather was calmly sitting at a table in the back —a cup of coffee and a half-eaten piece of apple pie in front of him. Hunter noted that, as usual, the waitress had removed the salt and pepper shakers from the table. His grandfather had a history of putting them in his pocket when he left. Hunter had finally gotten tired of bringing them back so he’d asked the owner, a nice woman by the name of Linda Enger, if she would just have them taken off the table when his grandfather came in. She’d not only done that, she’d preserved the old man’s dignity by telling the waitresses it was to cut down on his salt intake.
“What are you up to with the Murphy family?” Hunter demanded to know as he sat at the table. The cat curled itself under his chair. His grandfather had given up shaving these days in favor of a short white beard that made him look deceptively jolly. He’d lost some height in his old age and was a little more round than he should be. He still wore his trademark long-sleeved denim shirts, though. He said the ladies liked them because their color matched his eyes. Red suspenders held up the black wool pants he preferred. Hunter suddenly wondered if his grandfather wanted to look like Santa Claus so he could fool people easier.
“Why today of all days?” Hunter continued, working to soften the steel in his voice.
His grandfather shrugged. “It’s time we moved on.”
“And why would you warn someone about me?” Hunter added. He needed to be calm if he expected to learn anything. “I’m the good guy here.”
The old man just looked at him.
“Scarlett Murphy isn’t a fool,” Hunter said, trying again. “So you might as well let me in on the plan you have.”
The smell of the frying bacon reminded Hunter that it had been hours since he’d had breakfast. He looked over and caught the eye of the waitress. She was new, all starched and proper, and he didn’t know her name. He nodded to her all the same. Then he turned back to his grandfather.
“I thought it would be obvious—now that Scarlett is here.” The elderly man smiled and then he paused the