“Everything,” Ada Lou answered, and retold the story of her daughter in a shorter form for Jackson’s benefit. “That said, Robin came to me last night. She looked like she did when she went off to college.”
“Is this the first time you dreamed about her?” Jackson asked and helped himself to a second cinnamon roll.
“No, but I haven’t done so in a long, long time. She and I were taking a hike out to the mountains, and she fussed at me for not baking since I came to this area. She told me to listen to Nancy, and ...” She paused. “That it was okay if Carla reminded me of her. Then she disappeared, leaving me alone out there in snow up to my hip bones.”
“How did you feel when you woke up?” Jackson asked.
“Freer than I ever have.”
I followed Jackson’s example by cutting out another cinnamon roll for myself. “Do I remind you of her?”
“In a lot of ways—but now let’s talk about your nightmare,” Ada Lou said.
Jackson saved me by saying, “I have a recurring dream. My team and I are on a mission, and I’m the team leader. So I throw a piece of carpet over the top of a razor-wire fence so we can get into the prison and rescue an American scientist. When my feet hit the ground on the other side, I step on a land mine.”
I could see the whole scene as if it were showing on a huge movie screen. My chest tightened for the second time that morning, and I had trouble swallowing the bite in my mouth. Tears welled up, but I blinked them back. What did all these dreams really mean? Was the universe trying to tell us something?
“You look like you are about to faint,” Ada Lou said. “Do you need to put your head between your knees?”
“I’m good,” I lied. “I just swallowed some coffee with an air bubble.”
“You sip coffee. You gulp water,” she said with a smile. “Now, before we start our game,you”—she pointed at me—“are going to go get a quick shower and change clothes. I’ve laid out a sweatsuit that is too big for me. Wash your hair while you are there. We never know how long it will be until we can get out of here, or when the power might fail us. You don’t want to have to live and sleep in them jeans for several days.”
“Yes, Grammie,” I said.
“Grammiesounds old, and I’m not ready for that yet. You can just call me by my name, but when you have kids, they can call me G.G.”
“Why would you ever want to be called that? And what makes you think I’m having kids?” I asked.
“Because I want great-grandkids, and G.G. stands for Great-Grandmother, and it’s easy to say,” she answered.
Someone rapped on the back door. I peeked around the end of the short bar and saw Nancy coming inside without an invitation.
“Well, a fine howdy-do this is. You’re having a party, and you didn’t even invite me.” She sniffed the air. “Did you bake?” She stopped right inside the kitchen area and removed a pair of snowshoes.
“I did—and you leave those big old things on the porch,” Ada Lou said. “They’ll leak on my floor. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and bring it to the table. There’s half a pan of cinnamon rolls left. But be warned, I don’t want any back sass about my starting to bake from you.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Nancy grinned.
I finished off the last bite of my second roll, pushed back my chair, and headed to the other end of Ada Lou’s trailer. I could hear them still bickering when I closed the pocket door between the tiny bedroom and the bathroom. I could barely turn around in the shower, but I managed to get my hair washed. She had even laid out a pair of bright red lacy panties for me. I wasn’t about to guess where those had come from, or when she wore them—maybe to Woodstock, and she hadn’t had the heart to throw them away.
Chapter Thirteen
On Thursday morning, Jackson woke me up just before noon by kissing me on the forehead. “It’s time for you to wake up, Cinderella. The party is over, and we have to go back to reality now. Henry is bringing the biggest tractor we have at the site to get us. We’ll take you home, and then he and I will go back to the office. Even if we can’t work at the rig, we have lots of paperwork to do.”
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “What about having lunch with Ada Lou?”
“We have time to do that, but we can’t have another game of Scrabble,” he said.
I groaned and fell back on my pillow.
“If you like that game so much, I’ll buy one and we can play whenever you want,” he offered.
“I enjoy the company more than Scrabble, and mostly I just play to make Ada Lou happy. I just now remembered that Rosie said we have to clean if we can’t open the café.” I didn’t go into detail about Paula’s rules for cleaning.
“If you don’t like cleaning, we will simply have to hire a housekeeper,” he chuckled. “Maybe one that wears a tight, short outfit?”
“If we ever hire a housekeeper—and I’m not saying that we will—she will be as round as a basketball and have gray hair.” I pointed at him. “And she will boss you around.”
