“She’s coping.” Alex rose and carried her plate to the sink, just as her brother had done. She went him one better, though, and started automatically unloading the dishwasher.
“I talked to Katherine this morning,” Claire said. Without the lifeline of her telephone, she would have gone crazy stuck here at home while she healed, not being able to even reach out to her grieving friends.
“I haven’t called in a few days,” Alex answered. “How are things?”
“She said they were placing a feeding tube through Taryn’s nose.”
“That genuinely sucks.” To Alex, who loved food and everything about creating it, Claire imagined a feeding tube would seem the worst trial a person could endure.
“Katherine said they’re talking about a long-term rehab facility for her now. Doctors said they can give her another week at the hospital while the rest of her injuries continue to heal and if she doesn’t come out of the coma by then, they’ll move her.”
So much sorrow. She couldn’t bear it. She had to do something for her friends to ease the pain a little, but she had no idea what. The usual gestures of a warm meal or a lovely card seemed wholly inadequate. She needed to do more.
“Enough of this,” Alex said, her voice firm as she closed the now-emptied dishwasher. “Let’s do something fun. I don’t have to be at the restaurant until five tonight, so I’m hanging out here with you until then.”
“You don’t have to babysit me.”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Who said I was talking to you? I’m here to visit Chester.”
At his name, her basset hound lifted his head off the rug and gave Alex the happiest look he could muster out of his droopy eyes.
“That’s right, you gorgeous cuddle monkey. You’re such a good boy. Yes, you are.” Chester obediently rose and headed over to Alex to nudge against her leg. “Chester and I are going to snuggle up and watch Charade, aren’t we, you?”
He licked her hand, his tail wagging hard enough to churn butter.
Alex grinned at the dog, then looked up at Claire. “I guess you can join us.”
“Thank you,” she said dryly.
“A perfect afternoon, right? We can admire Audrey Hepburn and her hats and moon over the lovely Cary Grant.”
It did sound perfect, she had to admit.
The only thing better would have been sharing a longer kiss with Riley.
Nine
He wasn’t avoiding Claire over the next week, he was only busy.
That’s what Riley told himself anyway, as the unusually wet and cool May dripped along. He was still trying to settle into his new role as a small-town police chief, a task made more difficult by a few strident voices who didn’t want him there, led by J. D. Nyman.
He had plenty to do preparing for the preliminary court proceedings in the robberies—filling out paperwork, interviewing the other teens involved, trying to inventory the stolen items they’d recovered so that they could be returned to their rightful owners. And it wasn’t as if that little crime spree was all he had to deal with.
Throw in a half-assed knife fight at the Dirty Dog between a couple of drunk, stupid tourists, some shoplifters at the grocery store who tried to shove a couple of pot roasts down their pants and a pair of domestic assaults and he had plenty on his plate. His obligations didn’t leave much time for social calls.
That’s what he told himself anyway. He might almost believe it, too, if not for the annoying little voice in his head that whispered the truth.
In his heart, he knew he was avoiding Claire for one reason. That kiss they shared had rocked him off his foundation and he didn’t quite know what to do about it.
Claire wasn’t the sort of women he was used to. She was soft and pretty and homey, the kind of woman who could spend months fixing a crumbling old house so her family could have a comfortable nest. She was soft quilts and warm cookies after school and flowers brimming over weathered baskets on the porch steps.
All the things he’d been running from like hell since he reached adulthood.
As he headed home from the station on Thursday evening, nearly a week after he had seen those flickering porch lights as he passed her house, Riley mulled all the reasons he needed to ignore the urge to stop by her place to check on her, the same litany of excuses he’d been telling himself every day since their shattering kiss.
As stunning as he found the experience, he knew he couldn’t repeat it.