“She said she had something in her eye, and I believe her, of course,” Gram said sternly. “Now she may like him and enjoy spending time with him but she’s not in love with him, and we’ll all just sit down, talk this out and everything will be fine. You’ll see.”
“I don’t think so, and I don’t trust that man. You shouldn’t, either.”
“Things will be fine. Leo’s going to tell her everything. Just wait and see.”
Gladdy, just as Jane feared, was with Leo Gray!
When she finished with Gram, Jane went to the card room, where Gladdy wasn’t, and then kept asking if anyone had seen her or Leo. She eventually tracked them down to a secluded bench near the tennis courts. Someone said it was a particularly favorite spot of Leo’s to take his lady-friends.
Jane contemplated strangling him with her bare hands when she saw him and Gladdy sitting there, laughing hilariously, Gladdy’s hand on his knee, Leo toying with a bit of Gladdy’s long, pretty white hair.
Was the man on some new combination of Viagra and steroids?
This was ridiculous.
Jane crouched down behind a bush and tried to figure out what to do next. It was like both Gram and Gladdy had completely lost all sense. Granted, they’d never been the most sensible women, but they hadn’t been crazy, either.
Marry Leo Gray?
Gram would be safer jumping off a cliff.
He was like those wackos who founded cults and could get people to do anything he wanted, no matter how illogical or inherently dangerous.
Drink the Kook-Aid for Leo Gray.
And here was Jane, the only sensible one in the group. Well, maybe Wyatt was, too.
She had to see Wyatt again—and firmly ignored a little happy feeling that came along with that thought. There was simply no choice. He at least would help her.
She was getting ready to creep away from her hiding place behind the bush when Leo got up, kissed Gladdy on the cheek and headed Jane’s way.
She gave a little yelp, fell to her knees and tried to crawl into the midst of the bushes. It was all the cover she could find that quickly, but it just wasn’t big enough for hiding purposes. She was sure her butt was sticking out, and the stupid bush scratched her cheek, her arms, maybe even her ear and was likely ruining her pretty-yet-sensible, low-heeled pumps she’d just bought on sale.
Jane waited there, cuts stinging, knees sinking into the dirt, wondering how her life had been reduced to this—hiding in bushes—until she heard a man’s voice.
“I’m telling you, there’s something wrong with that little girl.”
Leo, of course.
Groaning, even swearing under her breath in the bushes, Jane couldn’t bring herself to crawl out of there. It was too much. She had no dignity left, and Jane Carlton placed a great deal of value on her own sense of dignity. Every woman should, she believed. And hers was simply gone, all because of that man!
“You can come out now. He’s gone,” Gladdy said, sounding sad and worried herself.
Jane backed out on her hands and knees, then sat back on her heels, simply unable to look Gladdy in the eye.
“Honestly, Jane. Is there something going on that you’re not telling us? Because you just aren’t acting like yourself lately,” Gladdy said.
“Of course I’m not acting like myself. I’m trying to save you and Gram from that man!”
“And we keep telling you, we don’t need saving.”
“Oh, yes, you do. Did he tell you what’s really going on? What he did? What he and Gram are talking about?”
“Oh, please! What is going on? We’re all going dancing together. We have dinner together. We just told you this. You remember, don’t you, darling?”
“Of course I remember! There’s nothing wrong with my memory! It’s just…he’s…I knew he wouldn’t tell you. I just knew it.”
“Tell me what?”
“About what’s really going on here!” Jane was just all done in. She had dirt all over her knees and her new shoes, scratches on her face. She’d been caught hiding in a bunch of bushes, spying on her aunt, and two days ago, she’d nearly attacked an old man.
“Jane, everything’s going to be fine. I’m sure of it. Kathleen and I are as happy as we’ve ever been. Life is very, very good.”
“You’re both crazy about the same man. This cannot end well!”
“Well, Leo will just have to pick one of us. Or. maybe not.”
“Maybe not? What do you mean, maybe not?”
Gladdy hesitated, looking uneasy for once in the whole Leo Gray situation. “Jane, are you really sure you want me to answer that question? Because you have to think, before you ask some things, whether you really want to know the answers.”
Jane shook her head. “What? What could I possibly not want to know?”
“Well…it wouldn’t exactly be the first time Kathleen and I have…shared.”
Jane got a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Shared?”
Gladdy nodded.
“Shared…a man?”
“Yes,” Gladdy whispered, a tiny smile on her pretty face.
When he got back to his office that afternoon, Wyatt got Leo’s doctor on the phone. Wyatt was mostly getting the runaround about patient confidentiality and privacy laws, a thoroughly frustrating exchange.
“Look, he’s just acting…funny,” Wyatt finally said.
“Funny-sad or funny-odd?”
“He’s definitely not sad, just…more stubborn about things,” Wyatt explained. “And a little reckless.”
“Ignoring what seem like perfectly reasonable requests?”
“Yes.”
“And good advice from people trying to take care of him?”
“Exactly. What is that?”
“The most common complaint I hear from people trying to take care of older relatives,” the doctor replied. “And unfortunately not a disease, as far as the medical profession has been able to identify.”
Wyatt wanted to beat his head against his desk. “He’s driving me crazy!”
“Me too, most of the time,” the doctor admitted. “I can’t get him to listen to a thing I say.”
“Me either. What do we do?”
“Unfortunately, he’s an adult, he’s competent to make his own decisions—according to the law, at least—and he gets to go on making his own decisions until you can convince a court to find him incompetent.”
Wyatt groaned.
“Look, you’re always welcome to come with him to his appointments with me, if he’ll let you, and then if you have concerns, I can try to play medical referee. If you’re trying to look out for his health and safety, I’ll back you up all the way. But I can’t force him into anything.”
“I feel like I’m the grown-up and he’s the teenager,” Wyatt complained. “Or maybe even a toddler.”
“In my experience, most family members caring for older relatives feel that way eventually,” the doctor sympathized. “Come to his next appointment. We’ll talk.”
Wyatt