“That would be tremendously helpful,” Mrs. Battle said.
Alana remembered Mrs. Battle’s kids spread out all across the country, the grandkids she rarely saw. “I don’t think we can stop the people we love from leaving,” she said quietly. “But I do think we can make it easier for them to stay, or to come back.”
“To what?”
“Jobs where they work from home. Jobs they create. A well-educated workforce with a great work ethic is an entrepreneur’s dream. There is no reason why someone from Walkers Ford can’t be that entrepreneur.”
“Not to be rude, but why do you care?”
Alana considered her words carefully. “Anything worth doing is worth doing well,” she said. “It makes no difference whether the task is preparing materials for an international conference or proposing a major renovation to the Walkers Ford Public Library.”
“That’s a very vague answer, young lady.”
“Mrs. Battle, I’m thirty years old.” And I’m secretly sleeping with your chief of police, so I’m not a lady, either.
“And I’m seventy-seven, which makes you a young lady and me an old lady. Answer the question.”
“I left Chicago under difficult circumstances,” she said finally. “I would like to go home changed.”
“No one comes to Walkers Ford to be different.”
“I did. But,” she said, thinking of Marissa and Adam, “this place seems to have a powerful effect on people.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes. Then Alana said, “Nelson Ridgeway is Chief Ridgeway’s . . . ?”
“Uncle. His father’s brother. You’re living in his mother’s house.”
“Oh. Why didn’t he inherit it?”
Mrs. Battle smiled. “Lucas’s grandmother thought it should go to Lucas. She thought he needed a place he could go to get away from his life in Denver. He loved coming there every summer, and she loved having him. I think she was trying to stop him from becoming like his uncle.”
? ? ?
THEY WERE THE first appointment of the day at the eye doctor’s. Alana waited outside until the exam was over. The doctor opened the door and invited her inside. “You’re her granddaughter, right?”
“No, just a friend,” she replied hastily. “I’m not sure I should be in there.”
“She asked for you, so that’s good enough for me,” the doctor said.
Alana took careful notes while the doctor explained the aftercare instructions, then helped Mrs. Battle into her jacket and out to the waiting room. She made another appointment.
“We’ll have to find someone to drive you down next time,” she said lightly as she backed out of the parking lot.
“Don’t you worry about that,” Mrs. Battle said. “You’ve got plenty on your plate as it is.”
She sounded exhausted. “I’m taking you home,” Alana said. “There’s no need for you to come in to work today. Cody and I can handle it.”
“I think that’s for the best,” the elderly lady said. Both of her eyes were closed, including the one covered with gauze.
“I’ll bring you some lunch.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I know,” Alana said, “but you know I can’t eat the whole soup and sandwich from Gina’s by myself.”
She was fairly sure this wasn’t what Freddie meant when she cautioned Alana against getting entangled, but entangled she was.
? ? ?
THE TOOLBOX IN one hand, Lucas used the other to open the door to the cellar. Alana ducked under his arm, flipped on the light switch, and walked down the stairs. Duke followed her down, his tail wagging at the prospect of a new place to explore. Lucas inhaled. No mold. The room was chilly, as the earth held on to the remains of the cold air, even as spring gained a hold aboveground.
He set down his toolbox by the pipe draining from the sink into the sewer, then headed for the main shut-off valve and switched off the water coming into the house.
“It’s chilly down here,” Alana commented, rubbing her arms. She wore jeans and a thin T-shirt again, this one printed in swirls of grays and blues.
“You don’t have to hang around while I’m working,” he said.
“I wanted to go through your grandmother’s books. If you don’t mind,” she added hastily. “I’m curious to know what she did to get those roses to grow and bloom.”
He gestured at the boxes neatly lining the wall. “Help yourself.”
She pulled open the flaps of the box and began extracting them, studying them attentively before setting them aside. He turned off the water and drained the pipes, then applied a wrench to the aging joints. For a few minutes they worked in silence.
“How’s Cody working out?”
“Fine,” she said. “He’s an interesting kid. He reads to the kids at story time, but he doesn’t use the library’s books, which Mrs. Battle finds rather scandalous. He drags the easel over to the front window and draws them pictures as he talks. The kids are utterly entranced by him.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Lucas said.