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“It’s early to get it now,” she said. It wasn’t even three thirty.
“We’ll eat early, but I figured I’d check things out while I was here. Gavin is at the brewery right now anyway.”
“It’s nice you always come to visit with your family.”
“Family is what it’s all about,” Jolene said. “Do you have any special plans tonight?”
They’d reached the top of the stairs and Jolene was almost hopping around in her excitement to get some juicy information.
“I’m picking up dinner,” she said. There, that wasn’t a lie.
“For you or a plus one?”
“A plus one,” she said. Not a lie either, but she wasn’t saying who.
“Mom,” Ella said. “I didn’t know you were stopping in, but I should have figured. Let me tell you about my appointment.”
“Oh,” Jolene said, looking at Kendra. Ella turned her head and winked at her so that Jolene couldn’t see and she all but ran back to her office with her skin still intact.
* * *
“I was talking to Kendra,”Jolene said to her daughter. “Why did you pull me away? Did something happen at the doctor’s?”
“Nothing important,” Ella said. “Just that baby McKinley has dropped. Hopefully not much longer, but who knows? Could be stubborn like his grandmother.”
“I can see you look very uncomfortable, but none of you know what uncomfortable is until there are five kids in you. You’ve got one and you’re tough as nails.”
Ella laughed. Jolene knew her daughter was trying to distract her. “I am. Getting up and down isn’t easy and I’m not sure how you did it.”
“Your father helped me up when I needed it. Toward the end he was rolling me more than anything.” She waved her hand not wanting to think of that. She’d rather think of the next generation and get them all set up. “What’s going on with Kendra?”
“Nothing,” Ella said. “Why?”
“She’s been wearing brighter colors lately. I pointed that out.”
“And what did she say back to you?”
“She said I was wearing this shirt too. It went with the day.”
“It does,” Ella said. “And her mother bought her new clothes for Christmas. I asked too.”
“Oh,” she said, her face falling.
“What’s the matter?” Ella asked. “Did you think she was buying bright clothes to wear to work for a guy that doesn’t work here and wouldn’t see them?”
Damn her daughter. “Of course not.”
“Liar. Let Kendra go. If she has something to share, she will.”
Jolene knew she wouldn’t get anything out of her daughter so she left a few minutes later and made her way to the kitchen. She might have more luck with her nephew Liam.
“Hi, Aunt Jolene. It’s busy here tonight. Coming to order from me or Aiden? Or trying to play the same games you did last Valentine’s Day with Margo and me?”
She frowned at Liam. Her family was on to her. “I saw Kendra down here ordering dinner.”
“She did,” Liam said.
“What did she get?”
