“I plan to go back,” Mark said slowly, softly. “We have a home there—the house where I was born. And Nonnie, too, for that matter.”
Oh, God. No, they didn’t. That secret wasn’t hers. But it was being kept from Mark.
A man so honorable he’d confessed that night that he was falling for her.
She needed to confess, too. So badly.
And to find out what would happen if he touched her like he’d implied he wanted to.
“Is there a college there you can transfer to?” She was grasping. But if he qualified for a scholarship at Montford, surely he could get one at a state school in West Virginia.
She had to look up his scholarship. But not until she looked at the others. In the order she would have normally looked at them. She was splitting hairs, but somehow the distinction mattered. She was going to look Mark up, but only as though he was a normal scholarship student. Not as if she’d found out something about him because of their friendship and was acting on that. “I can’t transfer,” Mark was saying while Addy was busy thinking about all of the people he’d grown up with—about Ella—and wondering how long it would be before someone said something to Mark about Nonnie’s house being sold.
Nonnie had sworn her to secrecy, but there was no way an entire town would keep her secret.
More likely, as soon as the new owners took possession, Mark would find out, just as everyone else in town did.
In the meantime, Nonnie had told her the house stood vacant with a For Rent sign still out front. “I can’t quit school, either,” he continued. “A condition of accepting this scholarship was that if I fail or drop out, I have to pay back every dime already spent, so that there’s a full scholarship available to offer to someone else. Just with this semester’s expenses, I’d owe more than my truck is worth.”
He’d be in Shelter Valley for at least four years. Adele had a year—at most. Probably more like another month or two—if the escalated threat was anything to go by.
“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to afford to stay long enough to get my degree.” The words flew out of her mouth. Adele again. Lying. In a lame attempt to warn him.
He’d said he was falling for her. Her body was falling for his, too. Like tipping over the edge of the highest peak on a roller coaster.
“You could get a job. You’re studying horticulture—have you checked at the nursery outside of town?”
“Not yet. I’m fine for now.” She’d already told him that she’d saved enough so that she didn’t have to work.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
Mark didn’t deserve this.
“I like you more than I’ve ever liked a man before in my life.” Adrianna, Adele, it didn’t matter who was talking. The words were the absolute truth. And they felt right.
His glance was intimate. She could feel it clear to her toes. And everywhere else, too.
“That sounds promising.”
“I’m just not ready for anything more than friends.” So true. And he’d be in Shelter Valley for a long, long time. She was out of there as soon as she was done with Will. She had to be.
In her psyche, Shelter Valley was synonymous with her father. She’d gotten that much out of counseling. And her recent nightmares, the visions haunting her, the breakdown she’d had out here on the patio with Mark, were all proof that she was not psychologically healthy here.
Shelter Valley was not a shelter to her. The town imprisoned her in a past that could debilitate her.
“I’m not asking for more than friends.” Mark’s reply was slow in coming, like he was choosing his words carefully.
“But tonight you said—”
“I said that I’m falling for you. Not that I’m asking you to do anything about that.”
“I just...” Be honest where you can. You have to give him that. The little voice inside of her blared inside her mind. To keep her word with Will, she had to lie to Mark. Except where it didn’t involve Will.
“I’m...not opposed...to something between us,” she said carefully, growing moist in intimate places as she revealed herself. “I also know that I can’t get involved in a relationship right now. I don’t want to lead you on and then not be able to follow through.”
“Define relationship.”
Holding the edges of her robe together at her throat, she stared at him.
“You said you can’t get involved in a relationship,” he repeated her words back to her. “But we already have a relationship. We’re two people who are relating—even if it’s just as neighbors.”
She frowned. He was confusing her. No, he was asking for a clarity she didn’t have. And there was so much she couldn’t say.
Addy thought about after Will’s trouble was resolved. She’d be hightailing it out of Shelter Valley. Could she and Mark have a long-distance relationship? Would he want to? Would she?
Would he ever want to speak with her again when he found out she’d been lying to him? He was a man of honor. Honesty was so important to him—as it was to her.
Would he understand that she’d been honoring Will?
And what happened if he didn’t?
The answer became clear to her.
“I can’t promise anything more than this moment,” she told him, and felt something settle inside of her.
“Fair enough. I can’t, either.”
“What about Ella?”
“I haven’t heard from her.”
“Are you still texting her?”
“Not since you agreed to have dinner with me.”
“I’m not always going to be living next door to you, even if I keep going to Montford. This place is kind of expensive and...” No, she wasn’t going to weave a more tangled web than she absolutely had to.
“I have no idea what my future holds,” he told her. “And no money or time to date.”
“Okay. Good. No promises or commitment.”
“Just an understanding that we mean something to each other in the here and now.”
“Right.” Could she do this? Was it right?
She’d already shared more of her true self with Mark than she’d ever given to anyone else. He knew her deepest secrets.
Just not her surface one.
Surely that would be enough. If and when he found out the truth.
“So...not to be crude, but does the here and now include sex?” He hadn’t been kidding about that honesty.
She was so hot. Her body throbbed.
“We’re mature adults. With...natural...needs,” he added.
“Could we, um, take that under advisement?” Oh, hell, she was talking like a lawyer. Because she was one. Because he was talking about sex and Adele couldn’t have sex. Only Adrianna could.
“I’d advise us to go on another date,” Mark’s tone was low, sexy. He was half grinning.
“And see what happens?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night? I’m off at eight. We could meet right here. Have a late picnic...”
Her stomach filled with exquisite butterflies, and she nodded.
His gaze held hers.
They didn’t need to see what was going to happen. They both knew.
* * *
MARK WAS SITTING on a rock in the courtyard of the cactus jelly plant on Saturday, eating his lunch alongside his lab partner who sat, mostly silent, on another rock. There were tables.
Mark just preferred the rocks—they seemed to fit with the mountains towering around them in the distance.
“So I tell Abe I’m going to work, and he starts to cry,” Jon said, breaking the silence that had allowed Mark to fantasize about the night ahead.
“Did you take him to Little Spirits?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you said he likes it there.”
“He loves it there. Except on Saturdays. He threw a fit last Saturday when I tried to drop him off for a couple of hours. But the woman who runs the program, Bonnie Nielson, is the greatest. She held him and he calmed down pretty quick. I’ve found most of the women in Shelter Valley are pretty phenomenal.”
“You got a girlfriend?” It wasn’t a topic they’d gotten around to in class.
“Nope. No time. No takers, either.
“Anyway, Abe’s crying, so I tell him I’m going to school and he stops. Instantly. Like how does a two-year-old know the difference between work and school? And why would he care?”
He had no idea. Hadn’t spent a lot of time around kids. “Maybe he just didn’t like the change,” he said, thinking that Addy would make a great mom someday. Kids needed someone soft-spoken and nurturing to guide them through the minefield of temptations and disappointments that were part and parcel of growing up.
“Yeah, maybe.” Jon bit into his second bologna sandwich and Mark went back to pretending that he wasn’t giving every single spare thought to his new neighbor.
The ring of his cell phone interrupted him this time. Dropping his sandwich back in the brown paper sack Nonnie had put it in while he’d been in the shower that morning—after he’d made the requisite bacon and eggs for breakfast—Mark pulled the phone from his belt clip, checking the caller ID as he did so.
He’d expected to see Nonnie’s number, but the screen displayed an Arizona area code. Nonnie’s pay-by-the-minute cell was still a West Virginia exchange. Addy’s was Colorado. “Hello?”
“Mark Heber?”
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“Shelter Valley EMT, Mr. Heber. I’m sorry to inform you that we have your grandmother...”
His phone beeped, signaling another incoming call. Briefly pulling the phone away from his ear, Mark checked to see who was calling him.
Addy.
“Where are you taking her?”
“She’s refusing to go anywhere, sir. But her blood pressure is dangerously low and—”
“Put her on,” Mark interrupted, his tone harsh.
“Markie-boy?” Not two seconds had passed.
“Go with them, Nonnie.”
“No, Markie-boy...” He heard short, quick breaths. “If I’m going to die...” More breaths. “I’m doin’ it right here....”
Standing in the direct sun, he stared at the mountains, his free hand clutched around his lunch bag. “You are not going to die, Nonnie. It’s not time. I’m not there. You go with them, do exactly as they say, and I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
“I’m...not afraid...”
“Give me your word, Nonnie. You can’t die without me.” He wasn’t yelling, but it was as close as he got to it with her. His heart pounded and he felt frozen to the ground.
He’d get to her. He’d fix this.
“Nonnie?”
“Mark? It’s me, Addy.”
Instant relief flooded him. And then the fear was back. Mark spoke in rapid staccato. “Make her go with them, Addy. They can give her something for her blood pressure.”
“I’m going with her, Mark. I left the room long enough to call you and that’s when she started refusing to go to the hospital. I’m back now. They’re already carrying her out. I’ll ride in the ambulance and meet you there.”
He squinted, dropped his lunch into the trash and reached into his pocket for his keys. “Where are they taking her?”
She named a hospital in Phoenix. He had no idea where it was but knew that the GPS on his phone would get him there by the quickest route.
He told Addy so, thanked her for being there and ran for the parking lot. He’d call his boss on the way.
The last thing he remembered as he turned the truck toward Phoenix was Jon wishing him good luck.
Luck be damned. He and Nonnie had been through low blood pressure before. As long as her brain still sent signals and her heart still ticked, they’d sail through this challenge, too.
He never should have listened to her, though. Never should have moved her across the country. She was eighty-one years old. With multiple sclerosis. The trip had obviously been too much for her.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BY THE TIME Mark got to the hospital, Nonnie’s IV had been pumped with enough medication to get her blood pressure back to normal. Her heartbeat was steady and relatively strong. Her blood work had come back okay. Addy was smiling as she greeted him at the door of the emergency room, waiting to take him back to the cubicle where Nonnie was dozing on and off.
“She’s waiting for you to take her home,” she told Mark, relieved almost to the point of giddiness to be able to tell him that his grandmother was all right.
“She’s been released already?” he asked, his gaze seeming to devour her face, as though searching for any sign that she was hiding bad news.
“No, they’d like her to stay overnight, but she’s insisting on going home.”
He nodded. “I’ll talk to the doctor...”
“He already told her that if she has someone who’s willing to sit with her all night, and to check her blood pressure every hour, he’ll send her home. You’re going to have a hard time changing her mind now.”
Addy had decided that she’d be the one to stay up all night if necessary. She knew how to read a blood pressure gauge. And she didn’t have to work the next day.
“I have no intention of changing her mind,” Mark said. “I just want to know if I’m changing her medication at all before we get her out of here.”
Addy didn’t know why she was surprised. Of course Mark would go the extra mile for Nonnie.
He’d give up his life for her.
Because he was that kind of guy.
* * *
“YOU DON’T HAVE to stay,” Mark said. It was two in the morning and he and Addy had been sitting on his couch, watching Netflix and taking turns checking on Nonnie every fifteen minutes. Except when they woke her to check her blood pressure, his grandmother had been sleeping the whole time.
“Of course I’m staying,” Abby said. “You nap for an hour, and then I will, just like we said.”
“Seriously, I’m used to this. I won’t fall asleep.”
“You’ve done this before? Sat up all night? Checking on her every hour?”
He was tired, but fine. The important thing was that Nonnie was out of danger. “I was sixteen the first time her blood pressure dropped. She was unconscious at first, but as soon as they got her back up and running, she refused to stay at the hospital. She insisted that I was too young to be left home alone. Too many temptations.”
“Like you’d have gotten into trouble with her in the hospital sick.”
“She wasn’t really worried about me getting into trouble. She was worried that the state would come and take me away from her if she wasn’t well enough to care for me.”
“So what did you do?”
“I charmed a young nurse into showing me how to use a blood pressure cuff, and then marched into Nonnie’s room and show
ed the doctor that I was fully capable of taking care of her at home. I was already nearly six feet tall and clearly able to lift her. It didn’t hurt that I had my driver’s license in case of an emergency.”
Addy was sharing the couch with him, but she hadn’t touched him. He hadn’t touched her, either. He knew better than to play with fire.
“I’ll never forget the look on Nonnie’s face when I proved to the doctor that I knew what I was doing. It was the first time there was a switch in our roles, and as a guy who’d been fighting to prove his manhood, the moment was sweet. I also think that day was the first time she realized that I would always be there for her, able to take care of her, no matter what.”
“Was that when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis?”
“No, her blood pressure problems aren’t directly related to the MS, although both can be triggered by stress. The MS diagnosis came about three months later, after a lot of tests that didn’t turn up anything else.”
That had not been a good day. The day he’d sat with Nonnie and heard she had an incurable disease had been the first time he’d realized he was going to be alone in the world someday.
Completely alone.
* * *
BY MONDAY, NONNIE was back to her usual self—maybe even a bit better, since she’d been forced to rest for forty-eight hours. Though Addy hadn’t known the woman a long time, she felt pounds lighter as she let herself into her side of the duplex that afternoon after coming home from class and spending the next hour visiting with Mark’s grandmother.
Thoughts of the night ahead were turning her joints to jelly and she had work to do. She also had no idea whether she’d even see Mark that night. He was off work at eight and probably had homework to do.
But if she did see him...
Would he...?
She’d driven out to the big-box store after class and purchased birth control. Every time she thought of it nestled in the bottom of her purse, her nerves got a bit more jittery.
Oh, she’d had sex before. But none of her lovers had moved her to the point of fantasizing about them nonstop.
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