“I haven’t told my momma yet either,” Elaine said. “And I don’t want any of the men to know until I’m ready to tell them.”
Everyone at the table looked around at one another. When Lila Mae looked back to Elaine, she found her holding her head high.
“I can keep a secret from Trap, if it’s important,” Lila Mae said.
“It’s important,” Clara Jean said.
“I can do it too,” Glory Rose said. “At least I hope I can.”
Elaine looked at Ruby, who only nodded with her big brown eyes wide and filled with trepidation.
“Everyone’s going to know eventually,” she said. “And I may ask you to be the ones to tell your husbands and significant others.” Her eyes met Glory Rose’s. “Not my brothers. I’m going to tell them myself.”
Glory Rose nodded and leaned forward. “Just tell us. You’re scaring me a little.”
“It’s about Brandt Lyman,” she said. “And what really happened when we broke up.”
“I haveno idea how I’m going to keep this from Trap,” Lila Mae muttered to herself as she made the turn off the highway and onto Feline Friends. Her SUV bumped over the dirt road, almost like a protest.
After Elaine had told them what had happened at the brewery, she’d covered Lila Mae’s hand and promised that their luncheons weren’t normally like this. The others had disagreed and said, “No, they’re always like this: amazing food and a safe space to talk about anything.”
“It’s usually happier news,” Elaine said.
“But it doesn’t have to be,” Ruby said.
Lila Mae went past the bank of trees where the ranch really opened up, her Intake Center in front of her, and the community barn and the veterinary stables to her left. She made a right and trundled along toward her tiny house, where she parked and then just stared out at the woods behind her house.
Elaine said she hadn’t told anyone what had happened in September, because she’d needed time to process it. Lila Mae knew exactly what she meant, because she’d left lunch an hour and a half ago, ran a few errands in town, and gone grocery shopping, and now all she could do was stare. She finally blinked and reminded herself that she had ice cream in the back.
She got out and started taking her groceries into the house. She went to Wilde & Organic every couple of days, because she didn’t have a huge fridge or freezer to hold things long term.
She’d told the women she worked with at the Intake Center that she wouldn’t be back that day, and she’d been planning to take a book out to the hammock and relax after the luncheon. But suddenly that didn’t feel like the right thing to do, and Lila Mae leaned one palm into her countertop and closed her eyes.
“Dear Lord,” she prayed. “Bless me to know how to help Elaine.”
She didn’t know what else to add to the prayer, finally deciding that sometimes the simplest of pleas were the most heartfelt. Besides, God knew Elaine Walker and what she needed, and if He needed to use Lila Mae to accomplish His plan, He would.
She opened her eyes just as her phone chimed, and she looked across the counter to where she’d left it next to the sink. She moved that way as her brain registered the sound as the one belonging to Thad. Her veterinarian knew she was out today as well, so when she saw his message—Can you come over to the veterinary hospital ASAP?—Lila Mae’s pulse kicked into a new gear.
Perhaps this was why she hadn’t felt like going out to the hammock to read.On my way, she sent, and then she hurried outside to the UTV.
She arrived at the veterinary hospital only seven minutes later, and she pushed through the front doors calling, “Thad, where are you?” She didn’t even look toward his office, because anASAPmeant that he needed her right this second, and she assumed he’d be in one of the patient rooms or the surgical center.
“Right here,” he said, and he came out of his office wearing a smile and holding an envelope. Lila Mae frowned, because this was notASAPbehavior.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He extended the envelope toward her, and she saw that it was pale yellow. “Someone dropped this off for you.”
“Who?”
He simply wiggled it, and Lila Mae stepped over to him and relieved him of the envelope. She opened it as he went back into his office. A single piece of paper sat inside, and it hadCat House Threeprinted on it in black ink.
Lila Mae exhaled heavily. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“I don’t know,” Thad said. “What does it say?”
“Cat House Three.” She looked at him, hoping he’d have the answer.
