“Daphne?” Cash rumbled from behind me, making me nearly scream with fright. He looked disheveled, the leather bag he’d brought with him this morning thrown haphazardly over his shoulder. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”
He must have run after me when he realized I left without him.
“I didn’t want anyone at the shop to gossip,” I said with a shrug, avoiding his silver gaze.
The gray skin around the corner of Cash’s mouth creased as he frowned at me. “I don’t give a shit if they gossip.”
“Well I do.” My face flushed thinking about Effie’s earlier teasing.
We stood together for a silent beat that seemed to go on forever before Cash finally let out an aggravated sigh.
“Fine, but you’re still riding with me in the morning. I’ll drop you off up Main street tomorrow instead.” Cash’s tone left no room for argument and it was my turn to sigh. “Now let’s go,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the parking lot.
Then Cash led the way through the crowd of people, his bulk forcing them to part like the Red Sea allowing me to follow him with relative ease.
I hadn’t meant to give in, but something about Cash Windheart’s silver eyes made every bit of stubbornness drain out of my body.
Eleven
The steady beeping of various machines filled my mother’s hospital room. My normally lively mother looked tiny amongst all of the lines and tubes, her red hair standing out starkly against her pale skin as she slept.
The doctor had just finished checking her vitals, and judging by his stony expression, the time that he and my mother had spent the past year preparing me for had finally come.
She slept a lot now, and when she was awake, she was hardly lucid, usually babbling about things from her past that had happened long before I was born.
A different kind of exhaustion had settled deep in my bones. I spent every day by her side, ignoring the text messages from my college friends and trying to hang onto the last few threads of my mother before she disappeared from Earth entirely.
“Minnie?” My mother’s groggy voice cut through my misery and I was up from my seat in a flash.
“Hey, Mama,” I whispered, giving her bony hand a squeeze. “Do you want some water?”
I was already grabbing the little pink hospital cup by the time she nodded. Her lips were chapped as they closed around the straw and I made a mental note to buy some things to give her a facial tomorrow.
When she was done she leaned back against the mountain of pillows, fully awake now.
“You should go home and get some rest.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but her eyes still sparkled with life despite the illness ravaging her body.
“I did go home already,” I lied, hurrying to change the subject. “The doctor said your vitals are looking good today, how are you feeling?”
The corner of her mouth pulled up into a wry grin. “Like I could dance the night away.”
“That can be arranged,” I said and smiled back despite the misery that was fisted inside of my chest.
“Knock, knock!” A cheerful voice came from the hospital door.
My mother smiled at the visitor and held her hand out to them.
“Michael, how good to see you!”
I turned to look at him, frowning as the division between memories and dreams crumbled away.
Mike looked the same as the day that I left him. There was a gash on his forehead that trickled with blood, and his normally put together suit was disheveled.
“Stay away from us,” my voice shook as I glanced between Mike and my mother. She seemed unperturbed by his appearance, her tired smile unchanging.
I wanted to stand and get in between them, but my legs were stuck to the chair I was sitting in.
As Mike came closer, the expensive cologne he always wore filled my nose and I had to keep myself from gagging.
