Hadn’t she?
Yeah. She’d promised she would be over Saturday as she showed him the door.
Really, he should check on her, see if there was anything she needed, anything he could get for her...
* * *
The house phone rang as Madison was standing at the sink spooning blueberry yogurt into her mouth.
Sten?
Who else would be calling on the house phone?
It rang a second time as she exulted in the high probability that it was him.
On the third ring, she set the yogurt on the counter and went to answer. “Yes?”
“Just checking on you.”
She dropped to the sofa. “Why? You afraid I’m misbehaving?”
“If you are, can I come over?”
She stretched out, stuck a pillow under her head and gloated at the ceiling. “Actually, I just might be getting a little bit stir-crazy...”
“Not surprising. You’ve been in that house for, what, a week now?”
“Just about. And I need groceries. Maybe you could help me with that?”
“By...?”
“You could drive me to the store.”
“But what if someone recognizes you?”
“They won’t. I’ll go in disguise.”
* * *
“Whoareyou and what have you done with my tenant?” Sten teased when Madison answered the door in a short red-brown wig and the dark glasses he’d found in the sand and returned to her.
She made a pouty face. “I miss my big hat. Where are we going?”
“Safeway?” he suggested, and then realized she probably expected to go somewhere that only sold free-range chicken, organic produce and homeopathic headache remedies. “Sorry, you’ll have to go almost to Portland to find a Whole Foods. But there’s a great co-op in Astoria. We could try that.”
“Are you kidding? Safeway is perfect. It’s been over a decade since I went to a Safeway.”
She cracked him up. “I’m so glad Safeway excites you.”
She whacked him on the arm with the back of her hand, just like Karin would have done. “Knock it off with the hipster irony. It will be an adventure. Get with the program.”
On the way to the store, she decided they needed a contingency plan. “Just in case someone recognizes me.”
“Why am I certain you’ve already got that worked out?”
She turned his way slowly, dipped her head and gave him a look over the top of her enormous shades. “Because I do.”
The plan was simple. If things got dicey, she would turn to him and announce that she’d forgotten something in another aisle and then run off in search of it. Meanwhile, he would keep whoever had recognized her busy while she hustled out of the store. As soon as the coast was clear, he would meet her at the truck.
