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And, so, neither did she.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE DUPLEX WASN’T BAD. On her fourth trip in from her car—a small decade-old American-made model that fit her alias just fine—Addy noticed an old woman glancing out the front window from the connecting unit. The frail hand shook on the edge of the curtain. From the woman’s height, Addy guessed she was sitting down. She couldn’t make out clothes. But the woman’s alert and unapologetically curious gaze struck a chord deeply within her.
As much as Addy had prayed as a little girl that the judge would let her stay with the Parsonses and not ship her off to Colorado with a grandmother she’d never known, Gran had been good to her.
Addy missed her.
Shaking herself, Addy looked up once more and the old woman at the window nodded. And dropped the curtain.
She’d met her next-door neighbor.
And she was glad.
* * *
PUSHING THROUGH THE DOOR, Mark left the air-conditioned hallway of the university and burst out into the blinding daylight. He’d never have believed that the same sun that had been shining above him all of his life could be so completely different here. Brighter. And more active. He didn’t just see the Arizona sunshine, he felt it clear to his bones.
But it wasn’t his bones he was thinking about as he hit the first speed-dial button on the phone he’d pulled from its holster the second he’d left the guidance counselor’s office.
Nonnie was alone in a new home in a new town where she knew no one and had no ability to go anywhere on her own.
“I’m fine, Mark,” she said, answering after the first ring.
Relief flooded him, and he gave himself a mental shake. He was thirty years old, not ten.
“I’m done with my meeting and on my way home. Do you need anything?” His carefully schooled tone wouldn’t fool her.
Nothing did.
“Nope. And you don’t have to hurry home on my account. When Caroline told me this place was wheelchair accessible she wasn’t kidding. I love that water dispenser on the refrigerator. And do you know, she didn’t just put all of the dishes in the lower cupboards, she put one of those As-Seen-on-TV reach things in the pantry, too.”
Slowing his pace, he glanced around the campus he’d barely noticed in his determination to get to and through his meeting quickly. He saw lots of green. Trees. A large patch of perfectly manicured grass in the midst of all the desert rock. Hundred-year-old stone buildings. And some newer ones, too.
Nonnie was telling him about the front-loading laundry machines. They’d missed those when they’d come in the night before.
Truth was, he’d missed pretty much everything except getting his truck parked, unloading the suitcases from the truck and helping his aching grandmother into bed.
Then, after he’d dropped down to the couch in lieu of putting sheets on the bed in the second bedroom, he’d texted Ella to let her know they’d arrived.
She hadn’t texted back.
But she would. As soon as she realized that he was not going to desert her.
“I’ve already washed the clothes we dirtied on the trip....”
Great. Something else to worry about. The standard top-loading machines that he was used to gave him one less battle to fight in Nonnie’s tendency to overtax herself. She couldn’t get clothes in and out of them, which meant she couldn’t go about folding them and trying to put them away, either.
Not many people around on this hot August day. Classes didn’t start for another week. And the pavement sent up blistering waves of heat.
“So?” His grandmother sounded unusually chipper for a woman who’d recently spent several days in a truck traveling across the country.
And who had to be in incredible pain due to the same.
“So...” His natural reticence holding his tongue in check, Mark kept the phone to his ear and walked toward the truck. And then he smiled. “Okay, Nonnie, you were right. I found it.”
“And what is it you decided on?”
