She plopped back down, then groaned. “That sounds amazing, but I told Andrew I’d be back around eleven.”
“So text him.”
She slanted him a look. “And tell him I’m spending the night with a man and I won’t be home?”
He looked a little wounded. “You make it sound like you picked up some guy off the street.”
She nuzzled the delicious place where his neck met his shoulder. “You’re pretty yummy. I might have picked you up off the street.” She felt him smile. He had a delicate ego. But didn’t all men.
“So stay,” he murmured. “Andrew’s a big boy; he can take care of your dad.”
She untangled herself reluctantly. “I should be there in the morning. Andrew and my dad aren’t ready for this.”
“Are you?” His gray gaze stopped her.
Wasshe ready for this? Life was already so complicated. She had a son who needed to come to grips with his behavior, a father who couldn’t stay at home any longer, and she had to find a new place to live. And on top of it all, the constant drip of worrythat her memory would betray her, that any day now she would start to decline, just like her mother had. How could she inflict that on someone?
“You don’t realize what you’re getting into,” she said.
“Does anyone?”
“I have a lot of liabilities.”
He rolled his eyes. “You sound like a lawyer.”
“Iama lawyer.”
He kissed the hollow of her throat. “It seems to me we’ve stumbled onto something pretty good. At least I think so.”
“I do too.”
“But you still have to go?”
She sighed and rolled out of bed. “I’d better.”
He walked her to her car, and she stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “Let me know how things go with Lilah.”
“I will.”
He waved from the top of the driveway, and even though she had no idea what would happen next week or next month, her heart felt lighter than it had in ages.
Chapter Nineteen
Cassie felt like a teenager sneaking in after curfew, but her dad was asleep and Andrew’s door was closed and neither of them remarked on her fine mood the next morning. Who was she kidding? She could skip naked through the kitchen, and they wouldn’t glance up. Mothers of a certain age were invisible, and her dad was just trying to put one foot in front of the other. Literally.
At least his ankle was improving. He was moving competently this morning, making his breakfast. He seemed almost like his old self, all the synapses firing. A stranger might not even realize his memory was faulty. Only his appearance gave him away—hair uncombed, bundled in the frayed cardigan he wore even when the weather was warm.
“How about a walk this morning?” Cassie kissed his cheek as she sat down with her coffee, and he smiled absently, already involved with the newspaper.
It was afternoon by the time they got out, ambling down the driveway, her father leaning lightly on the cane. The day was thick with sunshine, one of those gorgeous May days that felt like summer without the humidity. Her mother’s peonies, which had survived despite lack of attention, had sprouted six inches seemingly overnight. Even in Connecticut, life was in a hurry.
Her dad tested a couple of steps then brought forward the cane, wobbling when he caught a stone. Cassie resisted the impulse to steady him. She never knew how much to do, whento help and when to back off. Which was true of all her relationships, she supposed.
Despite his unsteadiness, they made it all the way down the driveway, which felt like progress. From here, the house looked better. You couldn’t see the peeling paint and the rot eating away at the windowsills. It looked like any solid Connecticut colonial, and for a moment she saw it as her dad must, the way he probably still viewed himself—battered but still standing.
“Remember the swing?” She pointed to a barely visible indentation where a towering maple had once stood. Grass had swallowed the spot, but you could see it if you knew where to look. Her dad had fashioned the swing from a flat piece of wood, sanded the edges smooth and varnished it so they wouldn’t get splinters. Bolted the rope to a branch sturdy enough to hold them.
They detoured onto the grass, and her father scraped at the remnants of the stump with his cane. “Your mother hated that swing,” he said.
