Phyllis Bourne - Every Road to You

Her peach-glossed mouth dropped open in surprise. “D-do you realize how long it took me to track down the person on the other end of that call?” she sputtered.

“You should have thought about that before you stuck your nose in my business.”

“Your business?” Her words were more of a question than a statement. “I don’t even know you.”

Gargantua sided up to his boss. “Sorry, Tia. I was only checking to see if you were still on the phone.” He cast a scowl in Ethan’s direction. “I didn’t expect him to barge in here.”

She patted the man’s massive forearm. “Relax, Max. It’s not your fault.”

“I’ll try to get your brother back on the line.” The receptionist inclined his head toward Ethan. “After I see him out.” A series of pops sounded as the big man rolled his head around his thick neck and stepped toward Ethan.

“You’d better call off your secretary,” Ethan warned.

The man shuddered, visibly affronted. “I’m not a secretary,” he snapped. “I’m Ms. Gray’s executive assistant.”

Yeah, right, Ethan thought. And nowadays truck drivers called themselves freight-relocation specialists, and the guy he’d hired to paint his house last year used the title color-distribution technician. “I’m not going anywhere until I speak to your boss,” he said.

Tia stood between them and held up her hands in a halting gesture. “I think we all need to stand down,” she said. “Let’s take a few deep breaths and then reconnect?”

“Recon... What?” Ethan asked.

“Calm down so we can straighten out what I’m sure is simply a misunderstanding,” she translated.

Ethan looked on in astonishment as Beauty, along with the Beast, inhaled a gulp of air and blew it out with a whoosh. They did it again. And again.

He glanced at his watch. “You two about done?”

“Please, join us,” she said. “Deep breath in through your nose and out of your mouth.”

Ethan blew out a breath, all right. A long, frustrated one. In his grandmother’s nonstop chatter about Tia Gray lately, she’d omitted the fact the woman was a certified fruit loop.

“Now, don’t you feel better?” she asked.

Before he could answer, she turned to her gigantic minion. “Max, I’d like you to go down to the relaxation room and bring our guest and myself some of our tranquil tea.”

“But he’s no guest, not the way he shoved his way—”

“Regardless—” she cut off the protest “—he’s here now. So please bring the tea.”

The man nodded once, glaring at Ethan as he left the room.

“Ms. Gray,” Ethan began.

“Tia,” she interrupted. “And you are?”

“Ethan Wright,” he said.

“Have a seat. Max will be back with our tea momentarily.” She walked behind the glass desk and sat in the white leather executive chair. “Your name sounds familiar. Have we met before?”

“No, but you know my grandmother, Carol Harris.” Ethan continued to stand. He crossed his arms over his chest. “She’s the reason I’m here.”

“Carol? Is she okay?” Concern creased her perfectly symmetrical features, and Ethan reluctantly noted her legs weren’t her only pretty feature.

“She’s fine, at least physically,” he said, the outrageous encounter with his grandmother earlier this morning stoking his annoyance. “But thanks to you, she’s gone off the deep end.”

Ethan heard a clinking noise and looked around to see that the receptionist, no, rather her executive assistant, had returned bearing a dainty tea service that looked almost comical in his oversize mitts.

“Great. Our tea is here.” Tia smiled as her assistant poured steaming green liquid into two small cups, and then dismissed him with a thank-you.

“Did you hear what I said?” Ethan asked, flummoxed at her placid expression.

“Of course. You’re standing right in front of me.” Her soothing tone was a cross between one a parent adopted to cajole a stubborn toddler and one used to talk a jumper down from the ledge of a tall building. “It’s good to finally meet you, Ethan. Oh, you don’t mind if I use your first name, do you? Carol’s talked about you so much over the years it seems silly to call you Mr. Wright.”

“Fine,” he said. “Now—”

She cut him off. “Come on, have a seat and try your tea. Then we’ll talk.”

Ethan plopped down in the club chair in front of her desk. The damn tea appeared to be the last hoop he had to jump through before he could have a conversation with the woman, so he picked up the miniature cup and swallowed the contents in one gulp.

Hopefully, the minty concoction didn’t contain a mind-altering substance that would make him as batty as everyone else in this place—and the stranger now masquerading as his grandmother.

“Now, can we finally talk about what you did to my grandmother?”

“Go right ahead.” The woman eyed him over the rim of her cup as she took a sip of tea.

“When I gave my grandmother a gift certificate to your spa for her birthday, I’d expected she’d come away with a manicure and a new hairdo,” he said. “But I barely recognize her.”

“I know. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“It’s a nightmare,” Ethan said.

Tia frowned. “I don’t understand. I’m usually restricted to the office, but because Carol’s a friend, I either supervised her services or handled them myself.”

“Then, Dr. Frankenstein, you have created a monster.”

“Monster?” The words came out in a gasp. “That’s impossible. She looked amazing when she left here. Fifteen, maybe even twenty years younger.”

His grandmother looked different, all right, Ethan fumed. Two weeks had passed since she’d redeemed her gift certificate, and he still had to do a double take when he looked at her. However, the change in her appearance, though disconcerting, wasn’t the problem. It was the seemingly total transplant of her personality from a sweet, pie-baking granny to a septuagenarian hooligan.

“Yeah.” Ethan snorted. “She looked sixty and was acting like a delinquent teenager.”

He watched in dismay as a look of pure glee came over the woman on the other side of the desk’s face. Apparently, she still hadn’t grasped the seriousness of the situation.

“My grandmother has gone from spearheading church bake sales and garden-club meetings to staying out to all hours partying and doing who-knows-what.” As Ethan explained, he could almost see his straitlaced grandfather turning in his grave like a rotisserie chicken. “Last week, she went to a honky-tonk down on Broadway and didn’t get home until the next morning.”

He paused when he heard what sounded like a snicker from the other side of the desk.

Ethan cleared his throat. “This isn’t a laughing matter, Ms. Gray,” he said. “Your so-called makeover is responsible for this new behavior of hers, and I want to know what you intend to do about it.”

She placed her teacup on the desk.

“Absolutely nothing.” Her soft voice held a steely edge that didn’t bode well. “Even if I wanted to, and I don’t, your grandmother is a grown woman.”

“One you seem to have heavily influenced. Every sentence out of her mouth these days starts or ends with ‘Tia says’ or ‘Tia thinks.’” Ethan mimicked his grandmother’s voice.

“Regardless, Carol has her own mind. I wouldn’t dream of trying to tell her what to do.”

“Not even when I had to pick her up from jail last night.”

“Jail?” The woman straightened in her chair.

Finally, he’d gotten her attention.

“Yes, jail,” Ethan confirmed. He’d still been struggling to reconcile his God-fearing grandmother with the stubborn hell-raiser he’d fetched from the downtown detention center. “Now, will you talk some sense into her?”