“Steaks sounds like something you buy per-person,” he said. “And you weren’t expecting me….”
“I’ll have him grill me a piece of salmon,” Grams said. “Steak isn’t my favorite, and it’ll be fine.”
“All right,” Cash said, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to convince her otherwise. “I’ll be there in probably an hour or two. It depends on how dire the situation is at Helen’s.”
“I can go over there right now,” Grams said. “If you need me to.”
“I don’t know what she needs,” Cash said. “And she’s….” He didn’t know how to describe Lark’s grandmother. To him, she seemed like a fairly normal nearly-eighty-year-old. Sometimes she forgot things. She had cats she loved. Routines she stuck to—except for today, apparently.
Cash made it to the condo complex, parked, and jumped from the truck. He jogged through the lot and down the sidewalk, his keys still in his hand. He reached her door and knocked loudly. Pounded, some may say.
“Helen,” he called. “It’s Cash Young, and Lark called me to come check on you.”
He leaned closer to the door seam, trying to hear any movement or meowing from inside the apartment. Nothing.
“Helen?” He curled his fingers around the doorknob and twisted. Locked. He jiggled the knob again, his frustration and fear twirling together into something terrible.
The lock clicked and clanked, and he fell back a step, his adrenaline pounding along the back of his skull. The door finally opened, and Helen stood there, her hair covered in a colorful wrap and one hand clutching a pale pink bathrobe.
“Why are you out here yelling and pounding on my door?” She frowned at him and scanned him down to his cowboy boots and back to his face. When he didn’t answer, she raised her eyebrows, which only added more wrinkles to her face. “Mister Young?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry, ma’am. It’s just that Lark called me, because the pastor called her, and….” He trailed off and took a breath, trying to get himself to slow down. “Apparently, you take cookies to an outreach program every Sunday, and the pastor is very concerned about you, because you didn’t show up.”
She blinked at him, her frown deepening. “I called him last night and said I would send the cookies with Louise. Are you telling me that she didn’t take them to him?”
“Well, uh, I don’t rightly know, ma’am.”
“I am calling her right now.” Helen spun and marched, as well as an elderly woman could anyway, back into the condo. “It’s cold outside, Cash. Either come in or close the door.”
He stepped inside, because it felt abrupt and rude to pull the door closed and leave. He toed the door closed and reached down to pat Mister Muffins as the cat came trotting toward him.
He covertly checked to make sure the cats had food and water—they did—and while she clipped out words with Louise, who had apparently forgotten to take the cookies to church withher, he opened the fridge just to make sure she had something to eat.
She did, and Cash didn’t see anything more he could do here. He did find it strange she wasn’t ready for the day at one o’clock in the afternoon, but Cash couldn’t judge someone else’s routine.
Helen hung up, and Cash met her eyes. “I’ll call Lark and let her know you’re okay.”
She stepped over to him and brushed one hand down the front of his jacket. “You’re a good man, Cash.”
“Thank you,” he said, surprised by this as much as anything. “I’ll get out of your hair.” He tipped his hat and let himself out of the condo.
On the way back to the truck, he called Lark. She answered on the first ring. “I just want you to know I connected my car to my phone with the Bluetooth thing, just so I could take this call hands-free.”
“Wow,” Cash said with a chuckle. “That’s amazing, hon.”
“Yeah, so what’s the news?”
“Your grandmother is fine,” he said. “Gonna lead with that.” He pressed his palm to the top of his head as the wind tried to steal his cowboy hat. “She made the cookies and gave them to Louise to take to church. She even called the pastor last night to let him know, but apparently, he didn’t get the message, and Louise forgot to take the cookies with her. So.”
He jogged the last few steps to the truck and practically dove in to get out of the weather. Las Vegas was sounding better and better by the minute, especially now that Lark had left.
“So it was nothing,” Lark said.
“It was a big ole nothing,” he confirmed. “But I get to have steak with my grandparents so I’m not going to count the drive as a total loss.”
She laughed with him, though he couldn’t quite hear the same happiness over the phone. “Thank you, Cash,” she said, the sincerity in the words pure and whole.
“Yeah,” Cash said, though he did wonder if Lark sometimes over-reacted when it came to her grandmother. “Of course, my love. I’ll talk to you in a couple of hours when you get home.”
