Chapter 41

“What are you doing here?” Grady croaked as he sat up in bed. “I thought you couldn’t get away until tomorrow.”

Linh was looking down at him with her hands on her hips. “I told Mom that I was her daughter and not her slave. We had a bit of a row last night, as they say in other English-speaking countries. I called Jessica and she agreed to swing by and pick me up this morning. I am my father’s daughter, and I will not be chained to that restaurant. Happy to see me?”

“Beyond happy,” Grady said. “I’ve got morning breath.”

“Go brush your teeth and put on some clothes. I want to take a ride with you this morning,” she said.

When Grady got to the kitchen, she forced a mug of coffee in his hand before she returned to flipping a short stack of pancakes. As he slurped the brew, she slid a plate of pancakes in front of him with butter melting on the top. “Where’s the syrup?”

“In the trash. The bottle expired six months ago.”

Grady raised his finger to protest and lower it an instant later. He was not about to start an argument over pancake syrup, especially if Linh was cooking. She was giving him the look, expecting him to spit out a regrettable retort. He chose prudence as the wiser course; he smiled at her before digging in the stack.

“We’re taking the quarter horses,” Linh said as she pulled the almost finished plate from under his fork. “You’re being pokey this morning. Get the hustle on, Cowboy.”

“Chores?”

She was rinsing the plate and sticking it in the dishwasher. “Bri and both Witts are here, and Claire can cover the office stuff while we take a ride. He was putting on his riding boots while she tapped her toe. Grady grabbed his rifle from the safe as she led them through the back door.

When they were out on the trails heading west, Linh asked him to take her to the larch grove where they had gotten naked the first time. Still confused and a bit suspicious, he gave her a short smile and pointed the way. They kept exchanging smiles as they rode. As they approached the grove up and to their right, he asked, “Okay, what’s up?”

She snapped the blanket and laid it out. Pulling off her boots, she sat down and patted the space next to her. Grady followed suit, more concerned than ever. He sat.

“We need to talk about the next years,” she said. “I got the scholarship and Brianna got hers too. Mom is thrilled and Dad is proud. We’re not conventional students though, and that’s part of the problem.”

“Bri is a returning student,” Grady said and then stopped himself. “I guess you want some straight shooting. Brianna was gang raped and left college midstream. She wants her degree though. We slept together as friends with benefits before you returned from San Francisco. What other facts do you need?”

“I know, and I know some more facts,” Linh said. “I like Brianna, and I trust her. We’re good friends. When we’re together, Christina is forced to behave, which means that we are a force for good in the world. Bri wants to stay and work on the project. I want her to stay.”

“I hear you,” Grady acknowledged. “What about your plans for college now that the scholarship removed the last hurdles?”

“I got into State because they have rolling admissions,” Linh said. “After the first year, I can shift to remote.”

Grady thought a year was an awful long time. He had agreed beforehand and written that agreement into the scholarship guidelines though. Had his grandfather not warned him that life was a series of compromises, and the word ‘compromise’ sucks. Grady shifted to the next topic, “Where’s Bri going to attend? I thought she would return to California.”