"I didn't do anything you wouldn't have done as well."
He nodded. A smile came and went. "Thank you. Truly."
She glanced at the flowers on the side table. A small arrangement. Tasteful. She could see the card. Natalie. He saw her looking at them.
“She had them delivered,” he said.
"I expect she'll be pleased to see you."
His brow knit together. "We... um. She and I aren't an item anymore. If we were to begin with anyway.”
"Oh?"
"Yeah. I just figured Sutherlands and Ashfords don't mix well."
Callie nodded. "At least you don't have to box up her stuff."
"True," he said, smiling.
"Which reminds me, I still have to drop Jake's in the mail." She rose from her seat. The discharge papers were waiting down the hall. The parking lot. The drive home. The empty apartment. The boxes still in the back of her truck. She stopped near the foot of the bed. “So Lydia never told you the location of Kara?"
"No. There must be another dump site."
The machines beeped. The mountains held their silence outside the window.
"I should let you rest."
"They discharging you today?"
"Get 'em in, get 'em out," she replied with a smile.
Noah straightened in his bed. “Hey, uh, Thorne. Once I'm out. Would you like to come over for supper?"
Her eyebrows rose. "I never turn down good food or company."
"All right. Then it's a date."
"A date?"
"I meant... I'll have to set a date," he said.
She smiled back at him. "Sutherland, you really are something.”
43
The welcome home sign was strung across the back of the house between two posts, the letters painted in Mia's handwriting, slightly uneven, the M in HOME larger than the rest. The smell of charcoal and hickory hung in the warm evening air as Ed stood at the grill with a pair of tongs in one hand and a beer in the other.
The yard was full. Savannah sat in one of the deck chairs with Cora beside her, wrapped in a blanket. Cora was thinner than the last time Noah had seen her but smiling. Callie leaned against the porch railing talking to McKenzie, who was gesturing with a bottle and telling a story that was almost certainly exaggerated. Ray stood near the fence with Hugh, the two of them side by side, not saying much. Gretchen was helping Mia carry plates from the kitchen. Ethan sat on the steps scrolling his phone.
Even a few from BCI had made the drive. Felix. Declan Porter, who brought a case of beer and shook Noah's hand twice. Pete Moss and Evelyn Cross, who arrived together and stayed close to each other the way people do when they don't know many faces at the party.
The night had gone as well as any night as they entered the first of the summer months. The light held late and the mountains turned blue in the distance and the fireflies were just beginning to show in the treeline at the edge of the yard.
"Thanks again for coming," Noah said, waving off Savannah and Cora as they headed down the front steps to their car. Savannah waved back. Cora turned and gave a small wave of her own, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders. Then the headlights came on and they pulled away.
Noah closed the door. The house was quieter now. Most of the guests had filtered out over the past hour. Mia had headed off to Gretchen's for the night. Ethan said he was visiting a friend. That left just Noah and Callie.
"Cora looked surprisingly well," Callie said from the kitchen doorway.
