“Hey, Bobbi,” McKenna answered, giving an evening walker across the street a quick wave before popping open the trunk to her silver Toyota Prius parked beneath their carport.
“Or should I sayBuongiorno, principessa!” McKenna said in her best Roberto Benigni impression fromLife Is Beautiful. Or at least the best impression she could do when she was stressed and tired. Mr. Sullivan wasn’t the only one who’d been wringing his hands all weekend.
“I’m so worried,” Bobbi said with a sniffle.
Oh, good grief, couldn’t McKenna call dibs on being the worrywart for once? She forced herself to sound nonchalant. “Worried? Why? Didn’t you make it to Italy okay?”
“I did. But I feel like I shouldn’t be here.”
“Of course you should be there.”
“Not while Oliver’s in the hospital. Not when I’m starting a new job so soon. I just feel like everything’s too unsettled for me to be hanging out across the ocean right now. I feel... queasy.”
“It’s the jet lag. Give it a few more days and you’ll feel fine.” Maybe. McKenna had never experienced more than a two-hour jet lag.
“Has Oliver said anything to you?”
“About what?” McKenna slammed the trunk closed.
“I don’t know. Anything. He sounded off last time I talked to him. Like something’s on his mind, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. Why wouldn’t he want to talk about it? You don’t think he’s still thinking about that Germany position, do you?”
“No. I’m... I’m sure it’s something else. But even if he was thinking... things.” McKenna lifted her gaze to the cottonwood tree where a robin had built its nest in the spring. Why was it so easy for those little birds to learn how to fly away when here McKenna was, at thirty years old, still trying to figure out how to leave the nest? “It’s not like it would be the end of the world. You could still make it work. I mean, Oliver would only be gone for three tiny years. And you’re both so very young.”
“Are you nuts? Three years is forever. There’s no way it would work. You know how all my long-distance relationships in the past have turned out.”
She did? “Who have you—oh my word, you’re not talking about the boy you met at band camp, are you? That was back in high school.”
“It was two boys, McKenna. Two. One I met after my freshman year and the other at the camp session before junior year. Neither of them were from Nebraska, but oh how they both swore that distance wouldn’t matter and we could still be boyfriend and girlfriend. Ha! We didn’t even make it to the end of September before the maybe-we’re-better-off-as-just-friends talk came up.”
“I thought you said they were dorks. And weren’t you the one who broke things off?”
“They were dorks, so of course I had to break things off. But the lesson still applies, doesn’t it?”
McKenna waved goodbye to Mr. Sullivan even though he was still parked at the curb with no obvious intentions of leaving.
“Oliver’s not a dork.” Actually, Oliver was the very definition of dork, but so was Bobbi in many ways. “You and Oliver are perfect together. Stop worrying about Germany. Just eat some good food and have fun. You’re in Italy!”
Italy.How much would McKenna love to be able to say that someday?
How much would she love to just say she was anywhere but in her hometown in Nebraska?
All the more reason to find that ring.
“I’m going to kill her.”
“You’re not going to kill her.” Nate and his mom had been having this conversation for the past twenty-four hours. Ever since his aunt’s call.
“Soon as the doctor tells me the surgery went fine and she’s doing well, I’m going to kill her!”
Nate watched his mom shove a handful of shirts into her suitcase while she continued to rant about her sister. “Friday. Open-heart surgery on Friday.Oh, I didn’t want to bother you. Oh, you don’t need to come.Can you believe her?”
Yes. Because his mom and aunt were cut from the same cloth, and he could see her doing the exact same thing. Not that he was going to say that to his mom. Instead he said, “So you want me to go ahead and book that flight for you? The one out of Nashville early tomorrow morning?”
“Wouldn’t the other airport be much closer? The new one?”
“Trust me. You’ll want to fly out of Nashville.”
“Then book it, I guess.” She paused in her packing. “No. Wait. I don’t know. What about you?”
