“Wow, Lawyer is such a good guy,” Shabina said. She smiled at the two women over her shoulder and then hurried to help the waiters and waitresses take orders and get food and drink out to her customers. She knew exactly why Lawyer had made his confession. He was circumventing Bale from using what he thought was damning evidence against him.
She was a little surprised to see that the three women from Washington were still in town. Janine, Val and Theresa waved to her and indicated when she had time they would love to chat. They were friendly and clearly enjoyed bird-watching and hiking, but climbing wasn’t one of their passions. Most visitors prolonged their stay in Knightly to boulder.
Lucca’s sister, Avita, and one of his brothers, Pablo, came infor breakfast. Both had clearly been up all night. She took their order. “I’m so sorry to hear about Lucca,” she whispered. “I know they’re keeping it under wraps, and I won’t say anything, but we get all the latest news because we send supplies to the volunteers.”
She didn’t know what to say, so she felt she said too much. Avita teared up, and Pablo put his arm around her.
“We’re heading up to the base camp. If you need us to take anything up there, we can do that,” Pablo said.
“We want to be closer just in case,” Avita added.
“I’ll see if we can have the supplies ready in time before you leave,” Shabina said.
“Oh, Shabina,” Avita suddenly said, tears spilling over. She stood up and flung herself into Shabina’s arms.
Shabina held her tight for a few minutes. To her consternation, Pablo stood as well and wrapped his arms around his sister and her. She was uncomfortable with men touching her, even men she knew. It wasn’t as if Pablo was a stranger, and she had empathy for him, but every cell in her body rebelled. It was all she could do not to stiffen, especially when he put his head on her shoulder.
There was a sudden hush in the café. Rainier appeared beside them in that silent way he had. Pablo stepped back, as did Avita. Rainier gave them an easy smile, holding out his hand to Pablo. “Rainier Ashcroft, Shabina’s fiancé and partner here in the café.” His voice was pitched low, impossible to hear other than by the two members of the Delgotto family. “I wanted to let you know we’re putting together supplies to take up to the base camp. If there’s anything we can do for your family, please let us know.” His arm swept around Shabina, and he pulled her protectively beneath his shoulder.
Pablo shook his hand. “Thanks, man. We appreciateeverything you’re doing for us. Shabina has always been a good friend to our family, particularly to our parents.”
Rainier waved the two back to their seats and indicated for Patsy to bring them their drinks.
“Mom was very sick last winter,” Avita revealed. “When Shabina found out we were having trouble getting her to eat, she brought her different kinds of soups and smoothies and shakes. She also brought meals for our entire family. Dad was working and also trying to caretake our mother. He didn’t like leaving her, so he was stretched pretty thin. I was away at school, and they didn’t want me taking a leave of absence.” She flashed Shabina a smile. “Shabina went over nearly every day.”
She felt color creeping under her skin. She didn’t like the spotlight on her. “I wasn’t the only one. Zahra, Harlow, Vienna and Raine took turns as well. I just brought food. Your parents are wonderful. We feel incredibly honored to have them as friends.”
“Again, please let us know if there’s anything we can do for you,” Rainier reiterated. “In the meantime, your breakfast will be out shortly. We’re a little short on staff today, so we’re running late, but we’re catching up.” He turned, taking Shabina with him as he made his way back to the kitchen.
“Are you all right?” His hand swept down the back of her neatly braided hair. “Raine texted me about the family, and when I looked out of the kitchen and saw them putting you in a bear hug, I knew you would be uncomfortable.”
“I really despise that I’m like this, Rainier. It shouldn’t be such a big deal. Pablo is hurting every bit as much as Avita. They’re both scared for Lucca. I should be able to get over my aversion to being touched by men.”
“Stop,Qadri. It’s perfectly reasonable for you to have the reaction you do. You’re too hard on yourself. You allowed him to hugyou, and there was no way anyone in that room, including him, could tell you were uncomfortable.”
“You could.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We have a strange connection, one I’m grateful for. Are you going to be okay to go back on the floor? If I tried to carry orders out, it would be a disaster. As it is, Patsy is secretly laughing at me about the way I do dishes.”
“You’re lucky it’s secretly. They openly laugh at me if I screw up,” Shabina confessed. “I’m fine now. You keep up with the dishes, and I’ll keep up with the orders and customers.”
“You need me, just give me our birdsong.”
She loved him just for that alone. He knew birds and their individual calls to one another. He had perfect pitch. Sometimes at night when she was falling apart alone in her room in Houston, he slipped in, singing different birdsongs, and she would have to identify them. It became a game, a distracting one. He knew so many. Later, when she found out he was the one who realized she used the birds in the video to send the coordinates of the camps, she wasn’t in the least surprised. Rainier noticed the smallest details.
For the next hour, she worked fast to get orders out, keeping an eye on the outside patio. Nellie was amazing, covering for Chelsey’s absence with the occasional help of Tyrone or Patsy. She was extremely proud of her staff and Nellie in particular, making a note to herself that she would have to give them a bonus for the extra work.
Albert and Sally Chavez, who owned the local cleaning service, came in when the café was packed. The only table available was the smaller table just behind the four university students, leaving Shabina no other option. She led them to the table and took their drink orders, stopping for a minute to chat with them.
The cleaning service took care of offices, businesses, rentals, Airbnbs, and the occasional house when asked. They had a full cleaning service and did a brisk business. As she went to turn away to take the order to the kitchen, Albert stopped her.
“Shabina, we have a huge favor to ask. We took on a massive job, not realizing it was going to be such a large undertaking or that it would take so much time or manpower. Edward Fenton hired us to completely go through his home and clean every room. To be fair, he boxed up a tremendous amount of the old clothes, personal items and knickknacks, things he had trouble getting rid of after his mother passed. He even pulled down the old drapes in all the rooms and had a dumpster brought in to make it easy to throw things away. Still, he has an enormous house, and I’m not certain it has seen the light of day for years.”
Sally took up the narration. “To make a long story short, he’s on the Search and Rescue team and has been gone for a couple of days, so hasn’t been home to help us. He told us to keep going, that it was important to him to have the house cleaned and aired out. We know what they may find, and we want to do this for him, but it’s taking so much time. Our crew usually cleans your café at six each night. Would you mind if we come much later? Albert and I will come ourselves. It could be extremely late.”
Shabina glanced over at Raine, unable to help herself, although she couldn’t possibly have overhead. What were the odds that Edward suddenly had an interest in painting? In changing his house, which he’d kept the same for years? And Bale’s escalating behavior toward her? Had this change in Edward started on the bird-watching tour? Before? She tried to think back. Were there signs of Edward pulling away from Bale the way Jason had? Jason separating himself from Bale could have paved the way for Edward to take the steps to do the same.
“I have no problem with you coming in late,” she assured.
