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“I’m at the rehab facility with your grandma,” Nora said. “I went to make the monthly payment at the billing office. The account balance had been paid in full. Did you do it?”
Jillian was too busy wishing she had cranked the car and warmed it up before getting into it to really pay attention to her mother’s words. “Did I do what, Ma?” she asked as she leaned over to make sure the heat was coming on.
“Did you pay your grandmother’s bill in full at the rehab facility?” Nora asked.
Jillian sat straight. “Definitely not,” she said, shifting her eyes to her reflection in the rearview mirror.
“Maybe it’s an error,” Nora said, sounding concerned.
“Did you ask them who paid it?” Jillian asked as she reversed Cherry across the paved courtyard and accelerated forward down the long, winding driveway leading to the main road.
“They said an unidentified benefactor who wished to remain anonymous.”
Cole.
“It was Cole,” Ionie said in the background, echoing Jillian’s thought.
Could he?
With ease. The sum would be of little consequence to him.
Would he?
That was the question.
Did he?
She shook her head. Why would he do such a thing when they weren’t even speaking?
“Ifit was Cole, then we will have to pay it back,” Jillian insisted.
“Of course,” Norah agreed. “But still,ifit was him, it was a very generous offering. So very gallant.”
“Gallant?” Jillian drawled.
“Yes, it seems like the appropriate time to use such a word,” Norah said.
She chuckled with her mother.
“Call him. Ask him. And if it was him—thankhim, Jillie,” Ionie said, her speech still a little hesitant.
Jillian pulled to a stop at a red light. She felt nervous at the thought of reaching out to Cole. It was a mix of excitement at hearing his deep voice and fear that he wouldn’t answer. “I’ll call him,” she said. “Let me get back to you, Ma.”
She ended the call and dropped the phone onto the passenger seat. As she continued her ride home in silence, she thought of every possible scenario of just what might happen when she called him. None of it ended well.
But why would he pay the bill—ifhe paid the bill.
There was only one way to know.
And I have to know.
She had not yet struck up the courage to call him by the time she reached home and gave in to her desires for a foot soak. As she drew a hot bubble bath in her claw-foot tub, her eyes kept going to her phone sitting on the edge of the sink. Shewantedto talk to Cole.
And more.
Maybe we should give each other some space.
The last words he’d spoken had been enough to keep her from reaching out. She assumed he would decide the space between them was no longer needed. She hoped he would fight for her the same way she had laid her heart out on the line and fought for him. Wooed him. Chased him. Proved she loved him.
