“Both.”
“I know with you, one has precedence over the other.”
She blinked. He was using up a lot of her mental energy.
“Look at me, Katherine.”
She turned her head slightly to gaze at him. On painkillers, it was amazingly easy to look into Quinn Benton’s beautiful, deep-set eyes and not feel moved. She stifled a yawn. “I’m sorry, but I’m exhausted again.”
He got out of the car. At first, she thought he was going to walk around to her side, but then he walked straight ahead on the gravel road. He walked and walked, and then he kept walking to the crest of the hill, where the crisp green wheat fields rolled into the summer sky. He stood still in the center of the gravel road, a mere dot on the horizon. Maybe he was having a talk with God. A long talk.
Thank goodness, he’d left the air-conditioning on. Feeling rummy, she leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. She drifted into a relaxed oasis where there were no more questions.
Ж
In Grandma’s gravel driveway, Quinn swung open her passenger door. “Hand me the crutches,” he said. She slid them out the door to him. He propped them against the middle of the back passenger door. “You’re tired, and I’m going to carry you inside.”
“Benton, please don’t. What if you drop me?”
He ignored her, bent down, and tucked his right arm under her knees and his left around her back. She placed her arms around his neck and blinked. He closed the car door with his hip and regarded her in the bright sunlight. The soft, emotive look in his eyes surprised her. Now that she was home, he was definitely different.
“We’re all going to church tomorrow,” he said, propping the gate open with his left knee. “Evans, Cindy, Grandma, you, and me.”
“Evans?”
“Yes, and Cindy.”
Was it the first time he’d called Grandma . . . Grandma? Speaking of Grandma, she held the back door open, so Katherine had to stop staring in his eyes. She had a date with Ungerbach on Monday.
“I made up the bed in the main floor guest room. Do you want to lie down on the couch or the bed?”
“The bed, Grandma.”
“I made a dump cake for dessert to celebrate.”
“It sounds awful.” Katherine noted a pleasant aroma in the kitchen.
“Easiest cake I’ve ever made. You just dump it in a pan,” Grandma said.
“It smells good.” Turning sideways, Quinn carried her through the doorway into the living room and from there to Grandma’s sewing room, map room, guest room.
“How’s your foot feeling?” He gazed into her eyes.
“The pain’s a five,” she said as he set her down. The covers were already pulled back. “I’ll try and sleep off the other medicine before I take any more.”
He knelt down beside the bed and took her hand. “I can take you to your exam on Monday, Katherine. You’ll just have to go in a little earlier. Eight fifteen. And the earliest I could bring you home would be one thirty. You could wait in my office. Read and sleep.”
She looked from his eyes to the pastel quilt coverlet. “That’s very sweet of you, Benton, but… with all the trouble I’ve already caused you this semester, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” What in the world was he thinking? “There is something you can do for me.” She moistened her lips.
“Yes, anything.”
“Can you look out this window?” She nodded over her right shoulder to the lace curtain-covered window. “It’s Saturday. Is Hannah out there with her little lemonade stand?”
Holding back the lace in one hand, he peered toward the street. “Yes, I see her.”
“There’s some quarters on the windowsill, to the right of the front door. She’s saving up for a puppy. Sweetest little girl in the whole wise world. And I’m a tad parched.”
“Whole wide world, darling.”
Darling? She’d always loved the sweet term of endearment. Did he know? Did Grandma tell him?
Katherine flung her forearm over her eyes and swallowed tears. Boarding her in his office for half a workday! What was he thinking?
In Quinn’s absence, the phone rang. After two rings, Grandma answered it. “Hello—I’m sorry, Katherine’s resting at the moment. May I take a message?—Err, wait a moment while I find a pen.”
Grandma! She hadn’t even asked if she’d take the call.
Quinn returned carrying two Dixie cups of lemonade. “When you call Brad back, ask when you can cut back on the meds. At the pace you’re at, you’ll sleep through Monday’s exam.” He brushed her hair away from her face, smiled at her tenderly, kissed her forehead, and squeezed her hand.
Now that she was home, he was definitely different.
Chapter Fifty
Grandma delivered a tray with a cup of hot tea and an oatmeal cookie. “Your doctor called and left his number. He said he was checking in.”
“Thanks, Grandma.” Katherine read through her Lewis and Clark history notes for a spell and fell asleep.
Quinn knocked on the door frame, waking her. “Hey sleepyhead, how about joining Ethel and me for dinner at the table?”
She nodded and stretched. After he disappeared into the hall, she slowly lowered her left foot to the floor before reaching for the crutches. Without a mishap, she hobbled to the door.
“In case you’ve forgotten, Ungerbach called,” Quinn said from the kitchen. “There’s a sticky note on the mirror.”
“Thank you.” Unfortunately, there wasn’t a phone in the spare bedroom. She crutched into the kitchen. She’d call Brad after—she surveyed the table—toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.
Katherine ate half her usual portion. It was amazing how much her appetite had shrunk on the hospital’s Jell-O diet.
“This cake is delicious.” Quinn winked at Grandma.
“I wish I’d found this recipe forty years ago. It’s so easy. You just dump everything in the pan and pop it in the oven. Don’t even have to stir.”
Despite its name, the dump cake was surprisingly good, with cherries, crushed pineapple and pecans.
While Grandma and Quinn washed dishes, Katherine called Brad from the living room.
“Hello.” Brad’s voice brought back memories of the kind physician that he was.
“Hi, Brad, it’s Katherine. Is this your mobile number or your home number?”
“My mobile. I’m at work, but I’m not in the middle of a surgery.” He chuckled.
“Good.”
“Are you calling me back to cancel Monday’s get-together? Or simply calling me back?”
“Simply calling you back.” She hopped one legged to a dining chair and sat down.
“I’m relieved. What time would you like me to pick you up Monday?”
“About nine thirty, if it still works for you.” She looked straight ahead out the lace curtains and sensed that Grandma and Quinn were unusually quiet in the kitchen.
“Nine thirty is great. I have to work tomorrow, but I have Monday and Tuesday off. Try and keep both days open, if you can.”
“I’ve been sleeping a lot. I’m not the greatest company.”
“Your body is healing. You need to rest.”
There was a long, awkward pause.
“I’ll call again tomorrow, Katherine.”
“Okay. Oh, um, when can I cut back on the pain medicine?”
“I’d wait a few days. You want to stay ahead of the pain. How’s Quinn Benton been?”
“Attractive, I mean, attentive,” she whispered.
“Is he there?”
“Yes.”
After she hung up the phone, it rang again.
"Can you get that Quinn?" Grandma asked as Katherine crutched her way to the table.
“Hello,” he said, answering it. “Oh, hello, Cindy. Yes, it’s Quinn.” Grinning, he turned his back to Katherine. “No, we’re not talking marriage yet, but we’re both thinking in that direction. The Nazarene church is on the corner of Third and you know the road tha
t Les Schwab Tires is on.—Take care, we love you guys, too.”
“Who’s thinking marriage?” Katherine asked as he returned to the table. “You and Grandma?”
He chuckled. “Ethel, do you mind getting your gardening hat and gloves on? Your house is awfully small for the conversation your granddaughter and I are about to have.”
Katherine swallowed. He had definitely come to his senses. “You seem to have forgotten last week’s dilemma: grad student and faculty relationships are very frowned upon.”
“I’m up and walking to my hat right now. I’m putting it on my head.” Grandma puttered from the table.
Katherine was surprised she wasn’t calling Pattie King first.
The back door swung open and closed.
A tad light headed, she remained seated at the table and recalled Evans’s order: Do not give in to Benton. Using her left leg, she rose and maneuvered the crutches beneath her armpits.
“Katherine . . . I’m sorry.” She hobbled past him toward the living room.
What did he mean sorry? Sorry that he dated a girl from every bordering town? Sorry for apologizing after he kissed her? Sorry that he hadn’t even bought her a card?
She paused and planted the crutches’ rubber soles in the green shag carpeting and looked sideways at him.
“I’m sorry I haven’t always said what’s on my heart. Now’s a good time for me to set things straight before you and Brad go any further.”
“Now’s not a good time, Quinn. I’m sorry.”
He winced slightly.
“I have questions, and I’m going to answer them just like you answered your questions.”
“My situation was different.”
“Yes, you had never met any of them before.”
“Exactly!”
She hobbled toward the guest room.
“You already know there’s a spark.” He followed her.
“You were infatuated with the unknown.”
“At least, let me tell you what I’ve planned to tell you.” He followed her. “What I need to tell you.”
She made it to the guest room and leaned the crutches against the sewing machine table before hopping to the bed. After plopping down, she straightened her skirt. The exercise made her dizzy. She propped her head against a pillow and looked at him as he leaned against the doorframe, his hands shoved into the front pockets of his cargo shorts. She blinked. Yes, he was standing still.
“I’m ready now.”
“There’s a lot I want to tell you, Katherine. But only because you’re pale, I’ll wait for a more appropriate time.”
Ж
Quinn rolled her wheelchair down the aisle of the Nazarene church. The crowded parking lot to the sanctuary would have proved a long distance for her on crutches. Using her good foot, she hopped to the middle of the row and sat down beside Cindy. Quinn rolled the wheelchair to the rear of the church and folded it up before returning to sit between her and Grandma.
“You look well, Katherine,” Evans said. “Good color with—”
Without asking, Quinn took her hand in his.
“A helpful, somewhat good looking man beside you.”
Feeling anxious, Katherine nodded and looked toward the front.
“I know you’re not ready.” Quinn slid his hand out of hers.
She sighed, relieved.
The worship time was good and harnessed her thoughts toward God. When Pastor Ken strolled to the pulpit, Katherine prayed that his sermon would honor God and pierce their souls.
“Turn with me in your Bible to Galatians 1. Our aim should be to please God and not men.”
Katherine closed her eyes—already the sermon pierced her soul while Quinn’s hand remained within reach.
“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. – Galatians 1:10.”
The throes of college had just been summarized in one verse. If she had her undergraduate years to live over, she would have written this verse in lipstick on her dorm room mirror.
“Thank you, Jesus,” Grandma whispered under her breath.
Grandma could obviously relate to the verse. Each year she tried to win the judges’ approval at the fair. A brown ribbon was her best finish yet.
Quinn’s hand was so near, if she took it, her future would be easier. She lowered her head, but Brad’s sentiments had moved her. She owed him at least Monday.
Chapter Fifty-One
Without asking Katherine’s opinion, Grandma invited Quinn for lunch. Katherine sat at the table and spread butter on six slices of bread while Grandma preheated a pan on the stove for toasted cheese sandwiches. Quinn dumped a can of chicken noodle soup into a saucepan.
“Katherine, a gentle reminder that our foursome is going to the Micro tonight,” Quinn said, keeping his back to her as he stirred in a can of water.
“It’s the first I’ve heard of it, so how can it be a gentle reminder?”
“Well, A Beautiful Mind is playing at the Micro.”
Katherine loved the Micro, a small, three-dollar theater that was housed in a yellow bungalow near Main Street.
“Quinn, the only reason I went to church today is that I had the wheelchair. There was no fear of anyone stepping on my foot.”
“It might be a decade before A Beautiful Mind is playing at the Micro again.” He glanced briefly over his shoulder at her.
“In a decade, you’ll have to find sitters,” Grandma said. Moving from the table to the stove, she placed three slices of bread, buttered side down, in the pan.
The two were ganging up on her. “I have a final tomorrow morning.”
“Study for a couple of hours this afternoon,” Quinn said.
“What happened to the good old-fashioned interrogatives?”
“What?”
“I hear a lot of declarative and imperative, and when it comes to dating, I’m quite fond of interrogative.”
He nudged Grandma beside him at the stove. “I do believe our Katherine King is feeling better.”
Maybe he didn’t have it in him to ask her out.
He scratched the side of his neck, inhaled, and looked at her over his shoulder. “Our threesome would appreciate your company tonight, especially me.”
“Another declarative, Quinn. Formally asking a woman out is a part of maturing.”
He swallowed and glanced at Grandma. “We’re, uh, Evans and I are hoping to double-date tonight. We thought we’d go to the Micro to see A Beautiful Mind, which is one of my favorite movies of all time.” He sighed. “Would you go with me, Katherine?”
She raised her brows. He’d completed the challenge.
“No, thank you.” If her foot were in running shape, now would have been a perfect time for flight.
“Katherine!” Grandma whispered.
“It’s okay, Ethel. Do you mind if I make a call?”
“Yes, you don’t need to ask.” She flicked her wrist.
“Watch the soup for me, please.” Exiting the kitchen, he flipped open his phone.
Over her shoulder, Grandma cast Katherine a look of disapproval. Then she mouthed, “I can’t believe you.”
“Hello, Evans, it’s Quinn.—Yes, it was a good sermon. The reason I’m calling is I asked Katherine to double-date tonight with us at the Micro, and she said ‘No, thank you.’”—There was silence before Quinn added, “I am, too.”
Quinn sounded down. Katherine frowned. She couldn’t eat with them at the table. It would be too uncomfortable.
“Grandma, can you have Quinn deliver lunch to my room?”
“Why?” Grandma set a hand on her hip.
“You know why.” She maneuvered on crutches through the doorway into the living room, past Quinn on her way to the guest room.
“I agree. She has not been herself.” Quinn was deliberately loud.
She lay on the twin bed and stared at the popcorn ceiling. His timing was poor. She had her
first date with Brad tomorrow, and she shouldn’t be going to a movie with Benton; she needed to focus.
She reached over and turned on the bedside lamp, and then she opened the textbook for Lewis and Clark and stared blindly at the page. Someone knocked on the door. It wasn’t Grandma’s rap.
“Come in.”
Quinn entered empty-handed, swung a folding chair that was positioned near Grandma’s sewing machine close to the bed, and sat down, facing her.
“Katherine, I was wondering . . .” He cleared his throat. “If you would go with me to the Micro tonight to see A Beautiful Mind?”
It was strange. Last week she would have begged and pleaded to see Quinn behave so pitifully in love, but this week, after all she’d been through, she was numb.
“No, thank you.” She returned her gaze to the textbook.
“Why?”
She curled the toes on her left foot. “I . . .” Turning, she looked into his deep brown eyes. “I have to study for my test.”
“You’ve been ready for weeks.”
Turning her profile to him, she read the top paragraph of the left page.
“Katherine, would you go with me to the Micro tonight to see A Beautiful Mind?”
She looked directly in his somber gaze. “No, thank you.”
He smiled softly. “It doesn’t hurt as much the third time.” He rose and returned the chair to its place near the sewing machine.
“Katherine.” He paused, setting his hand on the door molding. “Would you go with me to the Micro tonight to see A Beautiful Mind?”
“No.”
He smiled. “It doesn’t hurt as much the fourth time.”
The man was hopeless!
In Quinn’s absence, she studied for at least five minutes before he delivered her lunch tray. He waited for her to sit up a little taller against the headboard before setting the wood tray on her lap.
“Katherine.”
She almost started her response with “Yes,” but caught herself. “What, Benton?”
“Tonight Evans, Cindy, and I are going to the Micro. You know the yellow historic bungalow near one of the busiest intersections in Moscow? A Beautiful Mind is one of my favorite films, and I haven’t seen it for quite some time.”
Sticky Notes - A clean romance (Ethel King Series Book 1) Page 30