She entered and shut it behind her. Her purse always managed to hold whatever obscure item she needed at a moment’s notice. Right then it was a pair of disposable gloves and a travel packet of disinfectant wipes.

She set everything out on the white marble counter and took in the bathroom, impressed.

“Goodness. If I wasn’t so sure the boys were married to the ranch, I’d hire them to build the spa cottage.” Then she placed several paper towels neatly on the counter, slipped on the disposable gloves, and nodded to my boots. “Pull up your jeans.” Which I did. She got to work, unzipping the left one—the one with the pee. “Now the other one.” She set them on the paper towels and began scrubbing.

But while my grandmother was helpful by nature, I knew instinctively that wasn’t why she was here. Which was confirmed in under two minutes of her arrival.

“I noticed your reaction when Esha mentioned reindeer corn and the town’s website. That’s twice you’ve seemed uncomfortable.” She kept working on the pee boot. “Spill.”

I was sock-footed and cornered and we both knew it. Dammit.

“I, uh . . .” I cleared my throat. “. . . kinda . . . changed it last month? Remotely?”

Maybe phrasing it in the form of a question wouldn’t make it seem quite as bad?

She frowned, baffled. “Why on earth would you do that?’

I fidgeted. “Make it seem, you know, nicer here. In Christmas. Than it really is.”

“For Arthur?”

Now it was my time to frown. Where had that come from? “No. I had no idea he was going to see it or show it to his aunt.”

“Then for whom?”

I hesitated. This wasn’t where I wanted to confess the full extent of my failures to my grandmother. Heck, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that at all.

I shrugged like it was no biggie.

“Just some girls.”

“At the school?” she pressed, and I nodded. She glanced up from her task to fix me with a knowing look. “Are they perhaps not appreciative of your Oklahoma background?”

I wasn’t sure if this was the full reason behind my social ostracization but my instinct told me it played a part, if only by the number of times Bronwyn had affected a truly terrible version of what she thought was an Okie accent but would have been better suited for a Gone with the Wind revival. They weren’t remotely the same.

“I don’t think so.”