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“Does Granddad have a caretaker living with him? Is he talking about ghosts? Is he selling the coffee shop? Because all that sounds serious to me.”
The pulsing in my temple slowly crept across my forehead, a little jackhammer delivering jolts of pain. It was hard to argue with him, because after hearing his side, he had every right to be mad. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“I’m not a kid anymore. You don’t need to keep things from me. To protect me or whatever.”
And the hits kept coming. I didn’t need the reminder that he was all grown up.
“Why is he selling the shop?” he asked.
“I’m not quite sure, but I’m going to buy it.”
There was another pause. “How?”
I searched in my desk for a bottle of aspirin and had to stop myself from slamming drawers shut when I didn’t find it. “Still working on that.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Focus on school.”
“Family’s more important. I’ll come home this weekend. See what we can figure out.Together.”
“The yard sale’s this weekend, and your grandfather is running around like a chicken with its head cut off.” I sent a silent apology to Cluck-Cluck for using that particular idiom. “Let’s hold off a bit, okay?”
He let out a deep breath. “All right. But I don’t want to wait too long.”
“I don’t know where you get this pigheadedness from.”
He laughed. “Yes you do. All right, gotta go find some coffee if I’m going to make it through the day. Love you.”
“I love you, too, Noah.”
With a sigh, I hung up and then rested my forehead on the desk, clunking it lightly. When my phone rang again, I thought it was Noah calling back and was surprised to see it was Amanda Parrentine.
I answered quickly.
“Hey, Maggie.” She let out a deep, weary breath. “You’ll be getting an official call later from my boss, but I just wanted to give you a heads-up on your loan application.”
My heart lodged in my throat. “Why don’t I like the sound of your tone right now?”
“I’m sorry.”
She didn’t need to say anything else. My application had been denied.
“Thanks for letting me know, Amanda.”
“Wish I had better news,” she said.
“Me too.”
I hung up, dropped my phone on the desk, and stared hard at the ceiling so the tears wouldn’t fall down my face.
What was I going to do now?
CHAPTER 22AVA
Maggie hadn’t been the same since talking to her son on the phone, and when I asked if he was okay, all she said was, “Hmm? Oh, he’s good.”
Too busy with customers, I hadn’t overheard her call through the closed office door and now wished I had. I wanted to help, because something had definitely gone wrong.
