When it came to grocery shopping, my mother and I had a good division of labor. She went to the store. When she got home, I put away the groceries. She hated the unloading part so much that it got me off chores for the rest of the day.
While I carried bags in from the garage, Mom made a cup of coffee and prepared to supervise me.
I targeted the refrigerator stuff first: eggs, milk, cheese.
Her attention wandered. “There’s someone standing at our back gate,” she said, spying through the window over the kitchen sink.
I hauled a cloth bag into the pantry. “Maybe he’s lost.”
“It’s a girl.”
“Uh-huh.” Not interested. I stacked cans on the lowest shelf.
“She looks Amish or something.”
“Amish?” Foreboding ripped through me. Could it be…? I charged to the window. “Holy shit.”
“Watch your mouth.”
I didn’t even register my mother’s remark because I was flying out the back door. “Susanna?” I shouted as I raced across the yard.
Her face crumpled when she saw me. Tears? From Susanna? This visit could not be good.
“Why are you here?”
She couldn’t speak for crying. I vaulted over the gate and skidded to a stop next to her. “What’s wrong?”
She extended her left arm. A massive, ugly blister bubbled on her skin. It had to hurt like hell. “Did your master do this?”
“Yes,” she choked out between gulps.
The world around us went out of focus, leaving only me, Susanna, and this horrible wound. “Did he do it on purpose?”
She nodded.
My body pulsed with a rage so deep I could’ve killed him had he been within reach. But there wasn’t time to plot revenge. For the present, my energies had to be directed toward her.
“What’s going on?” Mom spoke from the fence.
Where had she come from? I hadn’t heard her walk up. I hoped she hadn’t overheard anything. But I wasn’t sorry about her being here. We could use her skill.
“Susanna’s been hurt.”
“Let me see.” Mom went into professional nurse mode. Peeling the sleeve away, she studied the damage and made tick-tock sounds with her tongue. “How did this happen?”
Susanna hesitated. “It was an accident. I…burned my arm on a pan.”
Mom’s face was stern. “How did the pan connect with your arm?”
Susanna shook her head.
“Okay, dear. I’ll drop the interrogation for now.” My mother continued her inspection. “Susanna, we must take you to the emergency department.”
“We can’t, Mom. Just—”
“Mark.” She gave me her dont-question-the-expert frown.
“Wait here a moment,” I said to Susanna, then pulled my mother to the side. There was no good way to explain Susanna—at least nothing believable, even though she was standing there, in living color, looking every inch the eighteenth-century girl. With each second that passed, Susanna rasped with pain. She had come to me, and I wouldn’t let her down. I had to come up with a story my mother would buy long enough to make her shut up and pitch in. If it was totally made up, well, too bad.
“We can’t take her to the emergency department. We can’t take her anywhere. My friend lives in one of those freaky communes that won’t let her seek medical care. It’s us or nobody. You have to do the best you can right here.”
Mom’s lips pinched together against a gazillion questions she was dying to ask.
Susanna gave a hiccupping gasp.
“Fine,” Mom said and turned to her patient. “Let’s take you inside where it’s cool.”
Susanna’s gaze shifted to our house. She shook her head, her eyes wide and wary. “No, please.”
“Okay. We’ll take care of it outside. I’ll figure something out,” my mother said. She pushed through the back gate and hurried across the yard.
I sat on a strip of grass beside the greenway in the shade of the barn, drew Susanna onto my lap, and tried to imitate the soothing sounds my grandma used to make when I was little.
Pedestrians grew quiet as they passed us. Noisy—silent—noisy again. Not that I blamed them for their curiosity. We had to look pretty odd. Really, they should be grateful to us. We were giving them a story to tell later over a beer.
“The book,” she whispered.
Where had that come from?
“What book?”
“The one you gave me. Persuasion,” she said and laid her head on my shoulder. “He tossed it in the fire.” Her voice cracked on the last word.
A wave of guilt rippled through me. This was my fault. She had known he would hurt her, and I taunted her into keeping the book.
“I’m sorry. You predicted this.”
“No, please don’t be sorry. Reading the book gave me so much pleasure.”
She sounded a little bit calmer. “What did you like about it?”
Her face grew thoughtful. “Anne is the only person of value in a family of truly vile people, yet she doesn’t permit them to taint her. It’s such a hopeful story.” She glanced up at me. “My master burned your gift.”
Holy shit. He burned her. It didn’t matter about the book. “I’ll buy you another copy. A thousand copies. Whatever you want.” I kissed her on the forehead.
“I loved that one.”
My mother’s sneakers rustled in the grass. She set down a large tray full of medical stuff and then knelt before Susanna. After making sure the patient had downed a couple of ibuprofen, Mom opened the first aid kit, snapped on a pair of gloves, picked up scissors, and cut Susanna’s sleeve up to the elbow.
“I know this is against your religion, dear,” my mother said as she worked, “but you ought to see a doctor. It’s a second-degree burn.”
“Mom.”
“Okay. Just saying.” She bent over the wound, her movements gentle.
At first, the pain must’ve been bad. Susanna kept shuddering. But the agonized hisses faded and the little wiggles stopped. As her comfort level improved, she laid her head on my chest as we both watched my mother dress the wound.
Mom was amazing. I’d never seen her in action. It was intense.
When the cleaning and bandaging were finally done, my mother leaned back on her heels and sighed. She scrutinized her patient from head to toe, her gaze sharpening when they reached Susanna’s calves with their criss-crossing scars and scabs.
Susanna carefully adjusted her skirt so only her feet showed, and met Mom’s gaze calmly.
My mother nodded curtly at the implied don’task message, dropped her nursing stuff onto the tray, and ripped off the gloves. “All right, I think that’s it.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Lewis.”
“You’re welcome.” Mom picked up a bottle of Propel and held it out. “Let’s get some fluids in you.”
Susanna took the bottle and looked at me uncertainly. “What is this?”
I unscrewed the top. It would save me the embarrassment of having to explain that our patient hadn’t dealt with squeeze-tops before. “It’ll taste a little like lemonade. You probably won’t like it, but do what my mom says. Think of it as medicine.”
She took a sip, snorted, coughed, and smiled. “It’s quite tart. How much must I drink?”
“The whole thing,” Mom and I said together.
We all laughed, although I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t funny.
Susanna drank the rest of it, wincing the entire time. When she was done, she set the empty bottle on the tray. “You have been kind, Mrs. Lewis, but now I must go.”
“I was glad to help.” Mom frowned. “Are you sure it’s okay for you to return to your…to wherever you live? You may stay here, if you want.”
They exchanged glances. Susanna’s was full of pain; my mother’s, full of concern. Susanna shook her head. “Thank you. I shall be fine. Truly. But I am grateful for the offer.”
I rose and pulled Susanna up with me. “Do you want me to walk you home?”
“No. It would be best to return alone.” Susanna looked at me with her gorgeous brown eyes, bright with gratitude and shimmering with something more—something that caused a fierce protectiveness to roar through my veins. She was more than a friend. More than a girlfriend. She had become part of who I was. I loved her.
It all made sense now. The changed training schedule. The chick books and dorky costume. The journeys into the unknown. All because I loved Susanna.
I loved her in ways I understood, full of physical aches and the need to be near her whenever I could. But I also loved her in ways that were unfamiliar, with an intensity that made me willing to attempt the impossible.
“Hey,” I said with a smile. My doubts about Phoebe were gone. We were going to save her, and Susanna would be next. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I shall look forward to it.” Susanna pulled her gaze away from mine reluctantly. She turned toward my mother and bobbed a quick curtsy. “Good-bye, ma’am.”
Seconds later, she was running down the far side of the greenway.
Mom sent me a puzzled frown. “Why is she barefoot?”
“They only wear shoes in the winter.” I watched until Susanna was out of sight.
“I don’t think that burn was an accident.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Damn,” she muttered under her breath. “She’s been hurt before. Why did you let her go back?”
“She has a sister to protect. She won’t let us do anything for her until Phoebe is safe.” I opened the gate and waited for her to pass through. “Really, Mom, I can’t say anything else about Susanna right now, but I will someday.”
“Can’t the law do something to her commune?”
“The law’s on their side at the moment.” Mom and I had bonded over Susanna. It felt good. “I’m doing everything I can.”
“Okay. I’ll just have to trust you.”
I wrapped her in a quick hug. “You were great today. Thanks.”
* * *
I hadn’t found anyone to stay with while my parents were gone. Clearly, Carlton was no longer an option. He wouldn’t want me around, and I didn’t want to be there.
It would’ve been so much easier to solve if Marissa were here, but she wasn’t. So, time for the backup plan—my grandparents.
I called.
A gruff voice answered. “What?”
“Hey, Granddad.” What should I do? Dive right in, or suck up first? “How are things?”
“No need to suck up. What do you want?”
A man of action. I could respect that. “While Mom and Dad are in Michigan—”
“You want to stay with us.”
I needed to take control of this conversation. “Actually, I was hoping one of you could sleep over here.”
“Not going to happen. We like our own beds.”
Okay, the alternative to Plan B. On race morning, I’d have to wake up an extra hour early, but what other choice did I have?
“May I stay with you while Mom and Dad are gone?”
“Sure thing. It’ll cost you, though.”
Why hadn’t Gran picked up? “How much?”
“A month of mowing, and I want the deck power-washed.”
Wow. My mother must’ve inherited the Unreasonable Gene from her father. But at least this option didn’t involve negative cash flow. “Fine.”
“A fast answer. You must be desperate there, Mark. Must have put it off too long, waiting for a better gig.” His laugh slid into a dry cough. “I hear you want to buy a leaf vacuum.”
“Yes.” I wanted to turn all of my mowing customers into leaf-collection customers. It would keep the revenue up during the winter months.
“Good. I have a proposition for you.”
Did my grandfather sense blood in the water and was circling in for the attack? “What proposition is that, Granddad?”
“Promise to vacuum the leaves on my yard in November, and I won’t check the guest bedroom at night to see if you’re there.”
Wow.
My grandparents went to bed by nine PM. I could be back in Raleigh by ten. This conversation was totally working in my favor. Almost too good to be true.
“What’s the catch?”
“Your grandmother is never to know about our little bargain. So she has to see you at supper each night. And I get a text each morning by eight letting me know you’re all right.”
Oh, man. Did he really expect me to refuse? “Deal.”
“Nice doing business with you.”
Click.
Oh, yeah.
Less than an hour later, the front door banged. I tore down the stairs, taking them two at a time. My dad sprawled on the living room couch, laptop case at his feet, suit jacket tossed over a chair.
“Dad, I solved the problem.”
He didn’t open his eyes. “How?”
“I’m staying at the lake house.”
“You sound too happy about that. Do I want to know?”
“You do not.”
“Have you explained your plans to your mother yet?”
“No. But she’ll be fine with everything.” I smiled.
“How can you be so sure?” He rose to a sitting position and looked at me curiously.
“She met Susanna today. I think we’re good.”