Feuding Hearts Read Online Free

reason I hadn’t considered. I laughed. “Well, Nana’s certainly met her match with him.”
    The click of the back door opening made me turn my head.
    Mr. Garret stepped outside. His face lit with pleasure as he saw me. “Angel.” With steps slowed by age and arthritis, he came into the garden and gave me a sweet smile.
    I stood and held out my hands. “Mr. Garret.”
    “Shush, now. You know it’s Harrison to you.”
    His large, soft hands enveloped mine. I wondered again why he and Nana couldn’t get along. He was everything Nana would have wanted—debonair, worldly, charming as all get out. Harrison may have been eighty-five, but he had a glint in his eyes most twenty-year old men couldn’t match.
    “What are you doing here?”
    “I heard there was a scuffle this morning.”
    His lined face scrunched together. “Aw, your grandmother just doesn’t know what she wants.” Cocking his head to the side, he shot his grandson a hard look. “And I don’t know why my grandson’s keeping you in this hot sun when there’s air conditioning on inside.”
    I stepped forward, putting myself in between the two men. “I volunteered to keep him company while I waited for you.”
    “Did you, now?” He exchanged looks with Harry.
    Not a word was spoken, but in Nana, I’d seen the same tilt of the head, the outward jut of the jaw, and I could interpret that expression with my eyes closed.
    His hand rested on my shoulder. Look at this eligible, single person. Why can’t you marry and settle down? Then I could have great-grandbabies and go to meet my maker in peace .
    Harry, like every child harassed by his elders, feigned a look of complete incomprehension. His eyes went blank with innocence and he blinked with the guileless conviction of a monk.
    Mr. Garret shook his head. “Why don’t you come inside, Angel, and we’ll talk.”
    I gripped my shoes so I didn’t toss them aside, grab his grandson’s face, and plant a kiss on his delectable lips that would be felt around the world. “Thank you,” I breathed and followed the older man into the house. He led me to one of his leather couches in the family room that sat opposite the kitchen—a seat I’d grown to know too well over the past few months. The same one I always sat in when I came to broker peace. “I expect you know why I’m here.”
    “Aw, shucks.”
    My lips twitched. Like my Nana, he really knew how to swear.
    “Your grandmother’s got her britches in a knot over nothing.”
    “She says you uprooted her azaleas.”
    His white eyebrows rose to the widow’s peak of his equally white hair. “I’d never do such a thing. I took care of some weeds.”
    I sighed. This is what usually happened. She said one thing, he said another, and somewhere in the middle was the truth. “I’m sure there’s a simple explanation to all of this. I don’t suppose you would happen to have the flowers, would you?” I didn’t know if they could be saved, but if that were the case, then Nana wouldn’t be out money. Plus, if I did this right, I could get some gardening tips from Harry. The kind shared over wine, mussels in garlic sauce, and soft jazz music.
    I turned my attention to Mr. Garret and to resolving this issue, once and for all.

Chapter Three
    For the next ten minutes, I tried to negotiate a truce, but my Jimmy Carter skills must have melted in the Miami heat. Mr. Garret didn’t budge. The more I tried to mend fences, the more he took a sledgehammer to all my ideas.
    He didn’t want to go through me to talk to Nana—they were, he said, grown folk who didn’t need a translator.
    I covered my snort of disbelief with a passable coughing fit. The thought of my hiring Harry to tend Nana’s garden went over like wood rot. Harry was his grandson and, as such, should do any gardening work for free.
    I hid my smile and wondered how Harry would feel knowing his granddaddy was willing to rent him out as slave labor. Then I caught my breath at the vision of