“No worries, Everly.”
Maybe not for him, but I genuinely want to take him up on his offer. I take a quick breath and lay my hand on his shoulder. His nice shirt is soft beneath my fingers. “Let me think how I could work things. Can I get back to you in a day or two?”
“That’d be great.” He hands me the menu, the tenor of his smile still tough to gauge.
I scurry off, mulling his mellowness.
Tina, one of Uncle Charlie’s most recent hires, informs me Buck has botched three orders in a row. Grumble-sighing, I seek out the grouch and find a tornado of drama. This time, his rumblings accuse the waitstaff of multiple screwups—but if I were to venture a guess, he’s missing Uncle Charlie, or at least the predictability of every shift where his longtime boss was running the show.
After the fussy baby is soothed, he plates Knox’s order and I back through the swiveling door.
Knox’s chair sits empty, jutting into the walk space. I glance down the hallway leading to the restrooms. Too much coffee this morning?
But as I set the plate of pot roast, mashed potatoes, and corn on the table, I notice a twenty wedged beneath his mug. Marlene breezes past.
“Did you see where Knox went?”
She stops only long enough to squeeze my arm. “I’m sorry, sugar. He left.”
Chapter 9
Knox
December is fast winning the designation as my least favorite month.
Fate—if I adhered to the concept—was doing its best to resolve the issue when Mom’s phone call dealt another blow.
Honey collapsed at church this morning and has yet to regain consciousness. The family’s group text has kept me apprised of her condition throughout my mad dash to the airport, my flight, and now my racecar drive to the hospital in a sluggish,underpowered rental. So far, the news isn’t good. Her hip is broken and she remains unconscious. The doctors aren’t sure if the hip caused the fall and she hit her head on the way down or if she collapsed and the hip shattered in the process.
Both my grandparents were precious and integral parts of my childhood. Following careful consideration, Honey chose her grandmother name before Rand was born, but my grandfather, Gampy, became so named by Rand’s inability to say thersound until he was seven. Losing him two years ago rocked me, and I’ve been dreadingthisphone call ever since.
No. I’m going to believe my grandmother will recover. Yes, she’s eighty-something years old, but there’s too much life left in her, too much life yet to live. She’s talked for ages about wanting to be a great-Honey. Last year at this time, my impending marriage gave her reason to hope that blessing was within reach.
The piling on of my least favorite topic to my plateful of angst further agitates my gut and ratchets up the pounding in my skull. I turn the satellite radio on at a high volume, reserving zero headspace forhertonight. Honey is what matters—whomatters—not an indecisive, faithless, heart-stomping ex-fiancée.
Like the stiff wind pummeling my cheeks, memories of Gampy’s passing in this same place assail me as I cross the dark parking lot to the main entrance of the sprawling hospital in my home city. I murmur prayers with every step.
Sadly, I know well the route to the third-floor ICU.
A nurse in blue scrubs steps onto the elevator as I exit. There’s a cluster of people at the far end of the long corridor, and also a woman much nearer, back turned, talking on a phone. Her flowing blonde hair is too thick and perfect to be natural. I know this thanks to Becca. That woman spent more on colors, cuts, and extensions than my monthly auto insurance’s auto-debit to cover my late-model pickup sitting neglected in my garage most of the year.
The lady turns. My jaw drops. The nerve…
“Knox.”
Becca?
My muscles tighten, caught on the line between fight mode and flight. Meanwhile, my brain stumbles about, feeling around for something that makes her presence make sense. “What are you doing here?”
Collagen-injected lips lift at their ends, although regular injections of poison into her face prevent other features from moving. “Honey, of course.”
I jerk back. There’s noof courseabout it.
“I’m sorry Honey’s ill.” She lays her hand on my wrist, the pointy nails I always disliked pricking my skin. “I know how much she means to you.”
I blink several times, a poor substitute for spoken words, and clear the clutter from my throat. “You shouldn’t have come, Becca.” She and my grandmother were never close, Becca always complaining Honey didn’t like her. Does she think her presence here will be a help? A comfort to me? If so, her calculations hit far from the mark.
I don’t have to dislodge her touch. She removes it quickly enough, probably reading my lack of appreciation of her presence.
