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“What do you need?”
“Not for me,” I told him. “I want to pick up some roses.”
She needed something pretty, and roses had made her smile before.
“Well, well,” Coop said with an almost satisfied sigh. “It’s about time.”
“Shut up,” I told him over my shoulder, but Jake chuckled.
“Not gonna happen. You gonna write her a poem, too?”
“Nope,” I answered as he pulled up to the front of the store. “Don’t have to. I wrote her a song.” Then I was out of the SUV before they could say anything else.
Let them give me shit.
If roses could make her smile, then I’d get her roses, and if those didn’t work…well, I’d come up with a plan B.
Then a plan C.
And I’d go all the way down the damn alphabet until I found one that did.
Chapter Two
Don’t Read the Comments
Archie
The phone vibrating nudged me out of my doze, and I eased my arm out from under Frankie then flipped the phone over to see Jeremy’s name on the screen. After pressing a kiss to her forehead, I slid out of the bed and pressed answer before I murmured, “Hang on.”
Two of the three cats were curled up with her, and after the nightmares from the night before, when she’d wanted to go back to sleep, I hadn’t argued. Hoping Tory was hiding out under the bed, I pulled the door mostly closed before hustling down the hallway.
“Sorry, Jere, I didn’t want to wake Frankie up. What’s up?”
“I understand, Mr. Archie,” Jeremy said, his calm and patient voice settling me before he’d said more than four words. He just had a way of responding to even the worst situations with such confidence that I knew it would be all right, even if I didn’t know how. I tried to emulate that sometimes, even if I didn’t know how to fix something, I always wanted Frankie to think we would figure it out.
Because we would.
“I have located Mr. Edward and Ms. Curtis.”
Yay? “Not sure I actually care anymore, but where are they exactly?”
“It would appear they’ve traveled from Paris to Berlin, and are currently en route to Prague.”
Didn’t Frankie’s mom still have a job?
Or maybe Edward was her job. I shuddered at the thought. This was so not going to end well. His affairs never did.
“Great, do you know where they’re staying? Maybe we can get a message ahead of them, since Edward’s secretary is useless.” The woman was nice enough, but she’d filtered his messages for so long, I seriously doubted if she even passed on anything that came from Muriel or myself. Jeremy had a slightly better than average chance of getting one through.
“I’ve taken the liberty of leaving a message for them to contact me,” Jeremy said as though reading my mind. “I’ve also packed a bag for you, and I’ll bring it along with lunch to the apartment shortly, unless you’ve been able to persuade Miss Frankie to come back here to recuperate?”
To be honest, I hadn’t made the offer. She wanted to be safe, and this apartment, small and cramped as it might be, was hers. So here we stayed. We’d all taken shifts sleeping with her, and someone inevitably ended up on the sofa or on the floor in her room. It didn’t matter as long as she wasn’t alone.
Hell, I doubt anyone would have gone to school today if we didn’t have to start rotating absences. Jeremy had me covered today, but I would have to put on an appearance the next day. Frankie had a doctor’s note keeping her out all week. Her wrist hurt, and so did her face.
She didn’t even have to tell me how much it hurt because she was taking the painkillers we’d had filled for her. That told me more than anything she was in pain.
“No, she needs her place and the cats,” I told him. “So it’s better we’re here, and thanks. You don’t have to bring the bag over. I can run and get it when the guys get home.”
