Love Me Sweet (A Bell Harbor Novel) by Tracy Brogan

fists under the table. Gone, gone, gone. The money was gone and so was all her hope for a fast resolution to this latest dilemma. Every dollar she had left was in her backpack, and although it was certainly enough to keep her head above water for a few months or maybe more, being out six grand was a big dent in her finances.
    Grant wiped both hands across his face, pressing his fingers against his temples for a full five seconds. Delaney looked at Carl.
    He mouthed the words, “Sloe gin fizz?”
    She shook her head but wondered if she should say yes. She could use a drink right about now.
    Grant let his arms fall to the table with a thump, and he sighed. “OK, Mom. Then we can just return whatever you bought them and get a refund from the store, because Elaine needs her money back. She needs to find another place.”
    Yes, she did need to find another place, and she did need that money back. Maybe the paparazzi’s interest in The Scandal would wane soon, but until it did, going home to Beverly Hills was not on Delaney’s list of viable options.
    Donna’s face flushed a rosy shade of I’m in trouble as she popped the filter into the coffeemaker. “Return the gift? Well, I don’t really expect we can return it.”
    A muscle twitched in Grant’s jaw, and his fingers drummed on the table. “Can’t return it? Why? Is it monogrammed?”
    “No, but it might be branded.”
    “Branded? What the hell did you buy them?”
    Donna opened the can of coffee and scooped up some grounds. “A cow.”
    Grant’s mouth dropped open in tandem with Delaney’s but he recovered slightly faster while she was still trying to breathe.
    “A cow?” he said.
    “Yes. A cow.” Donna turned and faced them squarely. “Evie is always talking about how unhealthy meat products are these days, what with all the hormones and bad feed and all that. And my friend, Dody Baker, she said she’d recently bought herself a cow that gets fed only fresh green grass and it gets to live on a farm until its time comes. A happy cow. And I thought, what a nice present.”
    “A cow,” said Carl, pulling a cigarette from the pack on the table. “This is news to me. Or should I say moos ?”
    “You take that nasty smoke outside, Carl,” Donna said.
    He nodded and lit the cigarette anyway.
    Grant leaned forward toward his mother and splayed his hands out on the tabletop. “OK, so how much did the cow cost?”
    Donna avoided his stare and put another scoop of coffee in the maker, snapping the lid shut. “Well I couldn’t just buy them the cow without getting them the freezer too. That’s really where the money went. In the freezer.”
    “That’s what I call cold cash,” Carl murmured to no one in particular.
    Delaney might have laughed if she hadn’t been so transfixed by the oddity of it all. If anyone needed a reality show, it was these people.
    “You bought them a cow and a freezer.” Grant’s voice was flat. He didn’t sound all that shocked, but Delaney thought a slaughtered cow and a freezer to keep it in was quite possibly the grisliest wedding present ever. Maybe it was a Midwestern thing.
    “Does Tyler know that’s what you bought them?” Grant continued.
    “Of course not. I want it to be a surprise. So don’t you tell him either.” She turned to fill the coffee pot with tap water, talking even as her back was to them. “You know, this is partly your own fault, Grant. The house only belongs to you because your grandfather’s dying wish was that you’d move back home and rejoin this family. But you didn’t do that, did you? No. You just kept gallivanting around the globe and shunning us.”
    Grant popped back in his chair as if he’d been cuffed on the chin. His cheeks flushed. At least the little bit Delaney could see above the facial scruff. There were broad currents of family history here, and it piqued her curiosity, but at the moment she was just a spectator.
    “I wasn’t gallivanting, Mom. I was working. And I wasn’t