Best Worst Mistake

“Hey,” she yelled at the disappearing taillights, “watch where you are going.”

She shivered, the warm feeling replaced by an ominous prickle. All of a sudden it felt like danger could exist around every corner, and you never knew when it would slam into you without warning.

Chapter Sixteen

WILDER SAT AT Qui

She wanted so much to believe that everything would work out, have a happy ending like one of those old books she favored. What could he do, tell her how the world really worked and rain on her parade? Not happening. She’d been kicked in the teeth enough, by her old job, by her dad being sick. He didn’t want to show her what it was really like to be kicked in the ass, how those scars never heal. How eventually the wounds fill with poison until nothing looks good and you’re angry every day, from the first breath when you wake up until you fall into another uneasy sleep.

Grandma, on the other hand, knew . . . all too well. From time to time during the di

“You going to tell me what really happened?” she had asked.

She always knew the worst about him.

“So.” Qui

“Meat was a little overcooked,” Grandma muttered.

Wilder tossed his fork on his plate. “Jesus, Grandma.”

“Hey, I don’t mind,” Qui

Wilder had to give her points for sheer tenacity. This di

“What are you thinking, Trouble?” he asked, gentling his tone.

“A game.”

“Do I look like a game player to you?” Grandma said skeptically.

Qui

“Looks like you found the two exceptions to the rule,” Wilder muttered.

“Good lord, you really are both cut from the same cloth,” Qui

The two faces stared back at her with identical expressions of shock and awe. She felt like she was a lion tamer in the ring. Exhibit a trace of fear and they’ll eat you alive. Better to show them who is boss.

She stalked to the kitchen, loaded the dishwasher, and cut heaping slices of the cake Edie insisted on giving her for free. “A donation of goodwill,” she had said. “Listen, I’ve lived with the woman since summer time, and all I can say is don’t be fooled into thinking she can be tamed. She’s like a barn cat. If she likes you, she likes you, but her mood is unpredictable and you can’t take it personally.”

But of course this was personal. Grandma Kane didn’t have to like her, but she had to respect her.

She set the cake slices before them and sca

“The Game of Life,” she a

Grandma glared at the brightly colored lid before forking the last bite of cake into her mouth. Ganache or not, she hoovered the slice like it was going to sprout legs and scurry away. “When you get to my age you learn life’s not a game. It’s a joke.”

“Now, now.” Qui

Grandma snorted. “You’re saying that if I play this here board game, I’ll push back my date with Saint Peter?”

“Who’s to say?” Qui

“What’s this thing do?”

“Jesus, take the wheel,” Grandma muttered.

Qui

“I’m with Grandma on this one. Not big into games.”

“That is all about to change.” She gave Grandma a red car. “Now find a little plastic person, either blue or pink. Sorry, this game doesn’t really take gender ambiguity into consideration.”

They both stared as if her neck had sprouted a new head. These two might have different features, but something about the way they held their heads and set their mouths marked them unmistakably as kin.

Qui

“And what’s the point?” Wilder asked, sticking a blue man into the driver’s seat.

“To win at life.” She left off the duh part of her statement but it managed to hang there regardless.

“Hah,” Grandma muttered. “There is only one wi

“Enough.” Qui

Grandma Kane stared at her with an unfathomable expression. Qui

“You have gumption.” Grandma thought for another moment. “Yes, I’m giving you that, missy. More grit than any other Higsby I’ve ever met.”

“Thank you.” Qui

Chapter Seventeen

IT WAS ALMOST midnight when Wilder drove Grandma back to Hidden Rock Ranch and for once they had actually spoken. Not about anything deep and meaningful—he asked about her hip rehab after it was broken in July and she checked in on the status of his leg.

But it was a start.

“We’re a pair, aren’t we, boy?” she’d said as he pulled up in front of the old homestead she now shared with Archer and Edie. The house she’d taken him and his brothers into after his parents died, the house that never quite felt like a home, at least for him. “Survivors.”

Qui