Page 18 of Never Been Witched (Starfall Point #3)
Alice startled and distantly, Collin heard the plink of metal hitting the floor. Collin threw his arm in front of her as if to shield her from the diminutive older woman in tailored white linen storming across the polished wood floors.
“Where have you been?” she demanded, her cloud of carefully styled blond hair barely quivering as she moved swiftly across the floor.
“Grandmother,” Alice whispered, her voice so shaky that Collin’s head whipped toward her, his mouth turned downward. “I didn’t know you’d come back to town.”
An older man stood near the register, glaring, his arms stiff at his sides as he balanced himself on a carved ebony walking stick.
Dressed in pastel madras, he looked like the silver-haired villain in a wacky 1980s class-struggle comedy.
But there was nothing remotely funny about him. Collin doubted there ever had been.
So, this was the infamous Marilyn and Franklin Proctor—yelling at their granddaughter in front of a complete stranger. Collin was not impressed.
“Well, obviously. If you’d had any idea, I doubt you would have left our business unattended while you gallivanted off to God-knows-where with this hoodlum!” Marilyn sniffed. “Explain yourself, young lady!”
“Hoodlum?” Collin asked dryly.
Alice’s voice was shaky as she tried to cling to some semblance of a normal business interaction. “Franklin and Marilyn Proctor, this is Collin Bancroft. He owns the Duchess Hotel, and I’ve been assisting him in finding antiques for the hotel’s soon-to-be remodeled suites.”
“I know exactly who he is,” Marilyn seethed, her face going the same puce as the paisley in her Aigner scarf.
“I can’t believe you would let him into our shop, after all we’ve told you about the Bancrofts over the years.
We knew your judgment was defective at best, Alice, but honestly, this can only be classified as a betrayal. ”
“I beg your pardon ?” Alice cried. “All you’ve ever told me was that I was to stay away from the hotel. I thought it was because you didn’t want me getting into trouble for breaking something.”
“We thought you were intelligent enough to make the inference,” Marilyn hissed. “Clearly, that was a mistake.”
Alice began, “How on earth was I supposed to—”
“Don’t speak to your grandmother in that tone!” Franklin thundered.
“Don’t speak your granddaughter like that!” Collin shouted. Franklin, who seemed unaccustomed to this sort of defiance from anyone, took a step back. “What’s wrong with the pair of you? Alice has only ever protected your interests here—”
“Who do you think you are, speaking to us like that in our own establishment?” Marilyn cried. “Leave at once, or I will call the authorities.”
Collin pressed his lips together and turned to Alice. “I’m not comfortable leaving you here with them. Would you come with me?”
Marilyn gasped. “How dare you suggest—”
“I’m not speaking to you,” Collin told her.
“I don’t think that’s—” Alice began, only to have her grandmother interject.
“Alice, we expect you to face up to your mistakes like an adult and explain yourself. Not to go slinking off with this boy. ”
“Ma’am, I am thirty-five years old,” Collin told her.
Old enough to know he didn’t want to leave Alice with them.
He’d faced this sort of reptilian disdain in conference rooms across the world, but he’d never seen it coming from a family member , not even Cynthia and Lawrence.
The cold rage radiating off these two was enough to make Collin want to give Alice permanent residence at the hotel.
He did not want her anywhere near these people.
“You’re old enough to know how easily we could charge you with trespassing,” Franklin told him.
“All right, all right,” Alice said, turning and gingerly pushing Collin back out the door. “I’ll be fine, Collin, honestly. They’re just upset because I left the shop in the middle of the day. It’s not normal for me to do that, and it scared them.”
“They don’t seem upset,” Collin retorted, glaring over her shoulder through the glass shop door. “They seem unhinged.”
“Their whole routine has been disrupted for the summer, after my grandfather’s surgery,” she told him, fully aware of the excuses she could hear in her own voice. “It’s got them all off-kilter.”
Collin was aware that his face, normally difficult to read, was the very image of skeptical.
“I’ll be fine,” she promised him. “You know how it is with families.”
“I don’t think I would call those people ‘family.’ They’re more like a pack of wolves.
Or an unkindness of ravens. Or whatever you call a group of sharks.
” She stared up at him through her eyelashes, frowning slightly.
He sighed. “Call me if you need anything at all. In fact, call me anyway, just so I know that you’re all right. ”
“I will,” she promised before closing the door in his face.
Collin did not feel good about leaving her behind. But Alice knew her family better than he did, and he wouldn’t have appreciated anyone telling him how to handle things with his aunt and uncle. Still, he walked back toward the Duchess with his phone in his hand, just in case she called.