15
“I think I’d like to stay here today and perhaps do a little more cooking this afternoon. If that’s okay with you?”
Ryan looked up in surprise at his grandmother and set aside the guitar he’d been strumming and the notebook in which he’d been scrawling lyrics for the past half hour.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asked, getting to his feet from the sofa and crossing the room to where Miriam stood at the kitchen counter, flicking through a cookbook. During breakfast, she’d talked about how she was looking forward to getting out and seeing some of the surrounding countryside for a few hours. Ryan was concerned about why she’d suddenly changed her mind about their plans.
“I feel fine,” she assured him. “I feel wonderful, actually. I think the lovely day I spent yesterday cooking my beef casserole did me the world of good. It was fun just pottering around at the stove, and I hadn’t done something like that for quite a while. And it was even more fun having you to chat with while I got on with my cooking work. I’d like to do more of the same, unless you minded another day at home with an old fuddy duddy for company.”
“I don’t know any old fuddy duddies,” Ryan smiled. “If you’d like to stay here, we’ll stay here.”
“I know I said we should head out into the countryside today for a long walk with Stanley, and stop off somewhere for a nice pub lunch, but… well, I’m rather cosy here in your lovely house, Ryan, and I’m feeling very rested.”
Ryan was glad to hear it, and he was glad to see it, too. As his gaze scoured his grandmother’s face, he saw no worrying signs of fatigue, and if Miriam was benefiting from simply hanging around the house with him, then that’s what he wanted her to do.
“You’re in charge of the agenda while you’re staying here with me, Grandma. I want you to feel relaxed. We don’t have to go tearing off here and there like a couple of mad tourists.”
Miriam laughed. “We’ll enjoy some sight-seeing another day. For now, I’d like to try this soup recipe I found in one of your cookbooks.”
Miriam tapped at the book that was lying open on the counter. Ryan couldn’t remember ever opening the book, never mind cooking any of the recipes in it. He seemed to recall someone gave it to him as a housewarming gift when he bought the house. If some use was now being made of the cookbook, then Ryan was pleased. He was usually too busy working to find much time for leisurely cooking.
“We’ll enjoy some of the soup for lunch and then the rest can go into your freezer,” Miriam said, still scanning the recipe in the cookbook.
“If you keep this up, my frozen food stores will last me until winter.”
“Well, considering there seems to be little more than boxes of pizza and bags if chips in your freezer at the moment, I think you need all the help you can get. You’re not a teenager anymore, Ryan. You need to eat properly.”
“Don’t worry about me, Grandma. I eat just fine.”
“Hmm.” Miriam narrowed her gaze, amusement lighting up her eyes. “I think I’ll also prepare a little something for dinner tonight, too. Nothing fancy, not after the meaty feast we ate yesterday. Perhaps a simple pasta dish and some fresh vegetables. How would that suit you?”
“It would suit me fine. But why don’t I cook for us both instead?” It wasn’t that he couldn’t cook—just that he rarely ever did.
“No, I’d like to do it,” Miriam replied. “I said I was enjoying myself pottering around here in this kitchen and I meant it. Also, I was rather enjoying watching you strumming at your guitar and scribbling away in your notebook over there on the sofa just now. I like seeing you busy and working.”
Ryan winced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get distracted.”
“Don’t apologise. You have a creative soul, and it’s one of the privileges of this old lady’s life to get to see you in the midst of writing some song or lyric or whatnot.” Miriam gave him a considered look. “What’s the source of the distraction that has your pen flying across the page as if your life depended on it?”
Ryan laughed, unaware that his absorption in his task had looked that way. “It’s just an idea that came into my head last night after I walked Grace home.”
Too late, he realised he’d probably said more than he ought to. The twinkle in his grandmother’s eye deepened considerably.
“I see,” she said, as if all made perfect sense. “In that case, perhaps we ought to invite Grace back for dinner tonight?”
“Why do you say that?”
His faux innocence failed to convince his grandmother.
“Don’t play dumb, Ryan. It doesn’t suit you. Grace is a nice young woman and you are a nice young man and you are both obviously interested in one another. Why complicate things by pretending otherwise?”
“You seem to know an awful lot about it, Grandma,” Ryan frowned. “How on earth do you know whether Grace is interested or not?”
Miriam clicked her tongue. “Because I have a pair of perfectly healthy eyes in my head, that’s how I know.” She waved a hand, dismissing his protestations. “You said Grace would come round to collect Stanley after she finished work at five o’clock, yes?”
“Well, yes, but?—”
“In that case, when she arrives, you must invite in her to join us for dinner again.”
“Grandma—”
“I feel sure that after a busy day working, and not to mention all this added upheaval with that little scamp of a dog to deal with too, she will be very happy to let someone else feed her. She lives alone, doesn’t she?”
“As far as I know.”
“Sharing a meal with us will save her the trouble of cooking and cleaning up for one person. And it will give you two a nice chance to chat a little more.”
Ryan sighed. “I love you, Grandma, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to start meddling in my love life.”
“I’m not meddling in your love life, Ryan. You don’t have a love life for me to meddle in, do you?”
Ryan opened his mouth and closed it again, silenced by the wry look of triumph in his grandmother’s eyes.
“I’ll ask Grace if she’d like to stay for dinner again tonight,” he said at last, and gave an exaggerated sigh.
“Good.”
“But please don’t do anything embarrassing or make cringy remarks in some awful attempt to force us together.”
“As if,” Miriam said, scandalised. “I know how things work. I’m simply helping them along.”
Ryan rolled his eyes, which earned him a swat on the shoulder.
“Right, let’s get Stanley ready and take him for a walk to do his business,” Miriam said. “And while we’re out, I’ll buy a few things on the high street for my soup and salad. It’s a pretty little high street you have here, Ryan. I hope you know how lucky you are.”
While Miriam gathered her light cardigan and bag, and Stanley darted around waiting to get out the front door, Ryan closed the notebook he’d been writing in. His grandmother apparently had enough of an insight into his head already without catching a glimpse of the lyrics he’d just penned about the summer twilight walk with a girl whose laughter sounded like the music of the stars.
Yeah, that last line needs a lot more work , Ryan thought with an embarrassed laugh at the syrupy lyric he’d written, before following his grandmother and Stanley outside.