“Can I help?”
“She’s sick.”
Is that the right thing to say? I’m not a doctor. I don’t know how to explain the nuances of neurological diseases.
“I’m assuming this isn’t the flu or the common cold.”
I slowly shake my head no.
His deep inhale of air is loud in the quiet kitchen. He comes around the counter island and stops directly in front of me.
“How bad?”
I clear my throat when it closes up with the threat of tears. Jordan’s large, warm hands take mine between them, his face filled with concern as he patiently waits for me to answer.
I haven’t told anyone about Natalie, not even Harper or Mason. I don’t know why I said anything to Jordan. I keep so many secrets already, and the weight of them is punishing. Suffocating. It’s nice to be able to release one of those burdens and allow someone else to help carry it.
“Alzheimer’s. That’s why she’s selling the house. She’ll be moving into Brookgate at the end of April.”
“The old persons’ home?”
“It’s an assisted living community that specializes in memory care. It’s what she wants.”
Jordan cradles my face in his hands. The calluses on the pads of his fingers caress the tender skin of my cheeks, and I can’t stop from tilting my head slightly into his touch. He brings our foreheads together, and the comfort of it has me closing my eyes. I allow his clean, citrusy scent to fill my lungs, and find that it helps soothe the emotional turmoil churning inside me.
“Jesus, Douglass. I’m so sorry, baby. Please let me help. I want to help. Ineedto help. Anything. I’ll do it. I’ll buy the house myself and pay for her to stay at Brookgate. All of it.”
My wet eyelids flutter open when he pulls away, and I feel his intense stare on my face. Jordan and I may never be best friends, and I may never forgive him for what he did, but I’ve been so angry for so long, and I’m tired of it. I don’t want to live like that anymore. Natalie needs me, the best of me. She needs her friends and people like Jordan, who care about her, to make sure however many days she has left on this earth are filled with joy and love. Natalie means more to me than my hatred of the past.
It’s time to let it go.
Realizing the intimacy of our closeness and how Jordan is touching me, I ease back several inches.
“Thank you for the kind and overly generous offer, but that’s not my decision to make, and one that Natalie will be too prideful to accept. However, I will take you up on the loan of a car until I can replace the rental.”
Chapter 18
“You didn’t have to follow behind me to the grocery store or back home. I wasn’t going to crash your million-dollar car. The thing could’ve driven me anywhere by itself anyway,” Douglass grouses as I heft a brown paper grocery bag from the trunk of the Jeep that’s parked behind the Tesla in Natalie’s driveway.
“I’m technically your boss, which makes you officially my responsibility.”
She picks two bags up by the handles and turns to me in exasperation.
“I don’t think helping me pick out apples with no bruises or which steak would be the most tender is a job requirement for a bartender. A job I don’t start for two weeks.”
Grocery shopping with Douglass was… interesting. She took forever reading nutritional labels for everything. If I tried to toss in a bag of chips, or God forbid, anything with chocolate, she’d take it right out of the cart and put it back.
“The quality of meat is very important when you’re cooking your boss dinner tonight. I’m very particular about my steaks.”
Shutting the trunk door to the Jeep, I follow her up the short walkway to the house, watching how her ponytail swings from side to side and how her pert ass sways as she walks.
She picks up her pace. “Who said you’re invited to dinner?”
I run around her and walk backward as I talk. “I’m hungry, so you have to feed me. It’s spelled out in the small print of the job description.”
I give her one of my crooked, panty-melting smirks that usually has women tripping over themselves, but Douglass just rolls her eyes and shoves past me, then stumbles up one of the rotten wooden steps. She recovers quickly just as I shoot an arm out to steady her.
“Damn it. I really need to fix those.”
