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“Why wouldn’t you—?”
Mia held up her phone. On its screen was a picture of him signing books. But the scene wasn’t one from Brooks Books. Rather, it appeared to be captured from a live news report…at Books-A-Plenty.
Alex felt his cheeks catch fire.
“You saw that, huh?”
Mia tucked her phone in a back pocket, then crossed her arms. “Really, Alex? That’s how you’re going to respond? ‘You saw that, huh?’”
He’d seen that look before, the silent fury burning just below the surface. It’d been many years, but damn, he’d hoped to never be the source of it again. Or on the receiving end.
“Let’s just say, I was hoping to tell you about it myself.”
She gave him a flat look. “I guess you should have thought about that before posing withJenniferfor Channel Ten’s reporter.”
Who the heck was Jennifer? Did she mean Jenn, their happily married to another woman store manager? Also, he didn’t even recall seeing the reporter or any cameras. But then, the crowd was much larger at Books-A-Plenty than in Bourbon Falls—a fact he chose to keep silent on for now.
“Yes, you’re right, of course. I didn’t think that far ahead. And it was completely stupid on my part not to tell you. But there was this big miscommunication with my parents, and by the time I found out about it, it was too late to back out.”
“Alex, you told us you canceled the Books-A-Plenty signing two weeks ago. Or was that just lip service?”
Oh no.The jabs were starting to come out. He prayed for strength and clarity of his words.
“I did, and I made sure to tell my mom about it. But, well, there’s something else that I haven’t told you yet. It’s something I’ve been struggling with all week. I didn’t want to even bring it up until I’d had time to process.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Which is?”
“Can we?” He motioned for the couch, and at her nod he took a seat at one end and watched her reluctantly take a seat at the other. Fair enough, him being in the doghouse and all. Hopefully, it would be short-lived.
“When I finally made it to my parents’ on Monday, my mother was sleeping in her recliner and Dad was asleep nearby on the couch. He must have heard me come in, because he woke and asked that I not wake her. Dad filled me in on the fall, then dropped a second bomb on me. Mia, my mother’s been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.”
The angry set to her brows shifted to shock. “Wow, Alex, I’m…so sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you. I didn’t want to believe it, you know? My mom was always the organized one in our family. The one making plans for everyone else then ensuring we stuck to them. But once Dad told me about her diagnosis, some recent miscommunications started to make more sense. Like the first weekend I was here—I’d told her about my car issues and that I wouldn’t make it back for Sunday dinner. She didn’t relay that to Dad, who was all sorts of put out because he thought I’d just blown it off. Which, by the way, I don’t ever do.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
There was an edge of hurt to her voice. “Because I was scared. Scared for my mom but also scared for me. Some types of early dementia have a high risk of being passed down to the next generation. I worried that if you found out about Mom’s diagnosis…”
“That I wouldn’t want to be with you? Alex.” Mia sighed. “I’m sorry that you’re going through all of this, and if it had been me, I’m sure I would have been scared, too. But I can’t help you through these tough times if I don’t even know about them.”
He nodded, fighting to clear the lump in his throat. “It’s just…I just got you back and didn’t want to lose you again.”
“Well, lying is about the only way to guarantee this won’t work,” she said with a humorless laugh. “Which leads us back to yesterday.”
“Oh, right. Well, that wasn’t exactly a lie, more like a truth I’d planned to tell you after the fact.” Her look darkened again. “I swear, I didn’t even know about it until Thursday.”
“Thursday! You kept it from me since Thursday?”
“Are you kidding? After all the work you’d put into your event and how excited you were when I got into town on Friday, there was no way that I was going to rain on your parade.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “If you’d told me as soon as you knew, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”
“But the whole reason it happened was because my mother forgot I’d changed locations, and I hadn’t told you about her condition yet. Apparently, in a lucid moment a few weeks back, she asked my niece to help make invitations for the book signing. They mailed them out to family and friends, then ordered balloons and designer cupcakes. That’s why my agent shipped your box of books to B-A-P—because the store told her I’d changed my mind. But I hadn’t—my mother had just gotten the information mixed up.”
“What a mess.” She ran a hand over her hair. “Again, if you’d just been honest with me from the start, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. And I get it, you were processing, but none of this explains another item you’ve been keeping from me.”
Alex froze. How? How had she found out about the Rover?
