not to stumble over the words when she said, “Hank, sweetie, this is your grandmother. You two need to figure out what y’all want to call her.”
Francesca looked at Hank again, her hands still clasped before her, still giving him the space he needed. Clara was grateful the older woman realized that a child his age needed longer to get used to a situation like this than an adult did. Clara understood well the enormity and exuberance of a mother’s love. It was the only kind of love she did understand. It was the only kind she’d ever known. She knew how difficult it was to rein it in. She appreciated Francesca’s doing so for her grandson.
“Do you know what your father and Uncle Grant called their grandmother?” Francesca asked Hank.
He shook his head. “No, ma’am. What?”
Francesca smiled at the No, ma’am. Clara supposed it wasn’t something a lot of children said anymore. But she had been brought up to say no, ma’am and no, sir when speaking to adults—it was still the Southern way in a lot of places—so it was only natural to teach Hank to say it, too. One small step for courtesy. One giant step for the human race.
“They called her Grammy,” Francesca told Hank. “What do you think about calling me Grammy?”
Clara felt Hank relax. “I guess I could call you Grammy, if you think it’s okay.”
Francesca’s eyes went damp again, and she smiled. “I think it would be awesome.”
Now Clara smiled, too. The woman had clearly done her homework and remembered how to talk to a child. A grandmother’s love must be as enormous and exuberant as a mother’s love. Hank could do a lot worse than Francesca Dunbarton for a grandmother.
“Now, then,” Francesca said. “Would you like to see your father’s old room? It looks just like it did when he wasn’t much older than you.”
Hank looked at Clara for approval.
“Go ahead, sweetie,” she told him. “I’d like to see your dad’s room, too.” To Francesca, she added, “If you don’t mind me tagging along.”
“Of course not. Maybe your uncle Grant will come with us. You can, too, Mr. Fiver, if you want to.”
Clara turned to the two men, expecting them to excuse themselves due to other obligations, and was surprised to find Grant looking not at his mother, but at her, intently enough that she got the impression he’d been looking at her for some time. A ball of heat somersaulted through her midsection a few times and came to rest in a place just below her heart. Because the way he was looking at her was the same way Brent had looked at her, whenever he was thinking about...well... Whenever he was feeling frisky. And, wow, suddenly, out of nowhere, Clara started feeling a little frisky, too.
He isn’t Brent, she reminded herself firmly. He might look like Brent and sound like Brent and move like Brent, but Grant Dunbarton wasn’t the sexy charmer who had taught her to laugh and play and frolic one summer, then given her the greatest gift she would ever receive, in the form of his son. As nice as Grant was trying to be, he would never, could never, be his brother. Of that, Clara was certain. That didn’t make him bad. It just made him someone else. Someone who should not—would not, could not, she told herself sternly—make her feel frisky. Even a little.
“Thank you, Mrs. Dunbarton,” Gus said, pulling her thoughts back to the matter at hand—and not a moment too soon. “But I should get back to the office. Unless Clara needs me for anything else.”
She shook her head. He’d only come this morning to be a buffer between her and the Dunbartons, should one be necessary. But Francesca was being so warm and welcoming, and Grant was trying to be warm and welcoming, so... No, Grant was warm and welcoming, she told herself. He just wasn’t quite as good at it as his mother was. As his brother had been, once upon a time.
“Go ahead, Gus, it’s fine,” she said. “Thank you for everything you’ve done. We appreciate it.”
He said his goodbyes and told the Dunbartons he could find his own way out. Clara waited for Grant to leave, too, but he only continued to gaze at her in that heated way, looking as if he didn’t intend to go anywhere. Not unless she was going with him.
He’s not Brent, she told herself again. He’s not.
Now if only she could convince herself he wouldn’t be the temptation his brother had been, too.
Unfortunately, as Francesca led them back the way they’d all come, Grant matched his stride to Clara’s and stayed close enough that she could fairly feel the heat of his body mingling with hers and inhale the faint scent of him—something spicy and masculine and nothing like Brent’s, which had been a mix of sun and surf and salt. It was just too bad that Grant’s fragrance was a lot more appealing. Thankfully, their walk didn’t last long. Francesca turned almost immediately down a hallway that ended in a spiral staircase, something that enchanted Hank, because he’d never seen anything like it.
“Are we going up or down?” he asked Francesca.
“Down,” she said. “But it can be kind of tricky, and sometimes I get a little wonky. Do you mind if I hold your hand, so I don’t fall?”
Hank took his grandmother’s hand and promised to keep her safe.
“Oh, thank you, Hank,” she gushed. “I can already tell you’re going to be a big help around here.”
Something in the comment and Francesca’s tone gave Clara pause. Both sounded just a tad...proprietary. As if Francesca planned for Hank to be around here for a long time. She told herself Francesca was just trying to make things more comfortable between herself and her grandson. And, anyway, what grandmother wouldn’t want her grandson to be around? Clara had made clear through Gus that she and Hank would only be in New York for a week. Everything was fine.
Francesca halted by the first closed door Clara had seen in the penthouse. When the other woman curled her fingers over the doorknob, Clara felt like Dorothy Gale, about to go from her black-and-white farmhouse to a Technicolor Oz. And what lay on the other side was nearly as fantastic: a bedroom that was easily five times the size of Hank’s at home and crammed with boyish things. Brent must have been clinging to his childhood with both fists when he left home.
One entire wall was nothing but shelves, half of them blanketed by books, the other half teeming with toys. From the ceiling in one corner hung a papier-mâché solar system, low enough that a child could reach up and, with a flick of his wrist, send its planets into orbit. On the far side of the room was a triple bunk bed with both a ladder and a sliding board for access. The walls were covered with maps of far-off places and photos of exotic beasts. The room was full of everything a little boy’s heart could ever desire—building blocks, musical instruments, game systems, stuffed animals... They might as well have been in a toy store, so limitless were the choices.
Hank seemed to think so, too. Although he entered behind Francesca, the minute he got a glimpse of his surroundings, he bulleted past his grandmother in a blur. He spun around in a circle in the middle of the room, taking it all in, then fairly dove headfirst into a bin full of Legos. It could be days before he came up for air.
Clara thought of his bedroom back home. She’d bought his bed at a yard sale and repainted it herself. His toy box was a plastic storage bin—not even the biggest size available—and she’d built his shelves out of wood salvaged from a demolished pier. At home, he had enough train track to make a figure eight. Here, he could re-create the Trans-Siberian Railway. At home, he had enough stuffed animals for Old McDonald’s farm. Here, he could repopulate the Earth after the Great Flood.
This was not going to end well when Clara told him it was time for the two of them to go home.
Francesca knelt beside the Lego bin with Hank, plucking out bricks and snapping them together with a joy that gave his own a run for its money. She must have