Rocked by Love (Gargoyles, #4)(65)

She sighed. “Yes, bubbeh.”

“Or, on second thought.” Esther looked over her granddaughter’s shoulder, her hazel eyes going wide and her lips curving in a smile that spelled nothing but trouble for Kylie. “Maybe first you should introduce me to the young man standing in your hallway. I’m guessing this is why you took so long to answer the door, with your hair all mussed and your cheeks red like borscht.”

Zol Got mir helfen! Oh, God help me, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut for a brief moment and wishing she’d just wake up in the ICU at Mass General. That coma theory simply kept sounding better and better.

The elbow in her ribs, however, told her it was not meant to be. She had to suffer through this. People thought it was so nice that Jews didn’t believe in hell; they didn’t have to. Hell was right here on earth. In Kylie’s front hall.

“Bubbeh,” she said very carefully, gesturing Dag forward. He was lucky she didn’t gesture for him to lift her up and fly out the nearest window. “This is my friend Dag. Dag, this is my grandmother, Esther Kramer.”

Esther held out her hand and looked from Dag to her granddaughter. “What, he’s like that Prince singer? He doesn’t have a last name?”

Before Kylie could manage to swallow her panic, Dag stepped forward and gently clasped her grandmother’s delicate, wrinkled hand in his own. He shook it carefully while simultaneously making a sort of abbreviated bow that on him looked not pretentious, but sort of old-world and chivalrous. “Dag Steinman, Mrs. Kramer. I am honored to meet you. Kylie speaks of you often and with great warmth.”

Stone man? Kylie nearly choked on her tongue.

“Steinman,” Esther repeated, eyebrows rising toward her hairline. She looked him over more deliberately, not bothering to hide her interest. “Are you Jewish? Or just German?”

“Bubbeh,” Kylie groaned.

Esther didn’t even bother to look away from the current target of her interest. “What? I’m just curious.”

Dag barely hesitated. “I am sorry, I am not Jewish. My, ah, my ancestors did spend a great deal of time in Germany, though. In the fifteenth century, I believe.”

Meaning Dag had lurked on the battlements of some castle there, no doubt. Desperate to change the subject, Kylie carefully linked elbows with her grandmother and attempted to guide her to the open doorway to the living room. “Come on, bubbeh. You said you wanted to see the house. Let me give you a tour.”

“All right.” Esther waved her free hand to Dag. “You can join us, Mr. Steinman. It looks like you’ve spent plenty of time here. You can help show me around.”

The older woman let Kylie lead her into the living room, took one look around, and dug in her heels. Then she threw up her hands and turned on her granddaughter like a rabid ermine.

“This is how you live?” she demanded, the New York accent she had sublimated with the softer tones of Connecticut after fifty-odd years reemerging with a vengeance. “And you invite people over to see you living like a vilde chaya? No curtains on the windows, no rugs on the floor! You have that gigantic television on the wall, and all the furniture you can manage is a single sofa and one measly table? Who exactly raised you, Kylie Tsifira Kramer? Because I know I did not teach you anything like this.”

“Bubbeh—”

“No!” Esther slapped her hands against the air, closed her eyes, bowed her head, and drew a deep breath. “Don’t speak. Just show me the rest. Go on.”

So Kylie did, wincing every time her grandmother hissed air in through her teeth and muttered under her breath in Yiddish. Since Dag didn’t speak the language, it went against Esther’s fundamental beliefs about good manners to use it in his presence, which only served to emphasize how heinous she considered Kylie’s transgression. She inspected the house top to bottom, mercifully leaving the attic and basement off the list, since no one outside of Kylie needed to see those.

When the tour concluded in Kylie’s bedroom, the old woman pursed her lips, drew a cleansing breath, then turned a steely gaze on her granddaughter. “Coffee,” she said flatly. “Then we can discuss this.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kylie said meekly, and followed the woman back to the kitchen.

Dag had watched the entire event quietly and with deep apparent fascination. His gaze moved back and forth between the two women like a spectator at a tennis match, even though neither spoke much after the first two or three rooms. At first, Kylie had been grateful to him for not calling Esther’s attention to himself, but gradually she had begun to pray he would do something drastic to save her from the obviously growing disapproval. Heck, if he’d stripped her naked, thrown her to the floor, and proceeded to ravish her in front of God and everyone, at least it might have made Esther think about something other than Kylie’s utter lack of homemaking skills.

At least his manners remained impeccable. When they moved up or down the stairs, he gallantly offered his arm to assist with the older woman’s balance, and as soon as he returned to the kitchen, he pulled out one of the chairs at the small table Kylie never used and helped Esther to her seat. Climbing onto one of the tall counter-height stools at the island would have been awkward for her.

She remained silent, but her sharp gaze watched Kylie’s every move as her granddaughter scrounged through cabinets looking for the cups and saucers and other hostessy items that she would consider necessary to properly receive a guest. By the time Kylie had brewed the coffee and set a tray with cups, saucers, cream, sugar, and the leftover almond cookies she had squirreled away after the Chinese feast (the only cookies she had in the house), she felt like she had just run a marathon.