Part of Your World(26)

We’d ended up in the shower last night. She didn’t have any on when she went to bed, and she got up when I did. At least I thought she did.

“Yeah,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Why?”

I looked at her, confused. “When?”

She paused. “Before you woke up.”

I blinked at her. “You got up just to put makeup on? Weren’t you tired? You didn’t want to sleep?”

She didn’t answer me.

“I hope you didn’t do that for me,” I said. “I don’t care what you wake up looking like.”

I meant it. I didn’t.

Her face called bullshit.

“I don’t care about that stuff,” I said. “I’d rather you sleep. If we’re gonna be pulling all-nighters, I need you to keep your strength up.”

She laughed. Then she bit her lip. “Okay.”

I nodded at the house. “I’m gonna clean up a little. When he’s ready we can take him to go eat at Jane’s.”

But she shook her head. “I think I’m going to head out.”

My lips fell. “You’re not going to stay for breakfast?”

She slipped her hands into her back pockets. “No, I have stuff to do at home. You don’t have to drive me back to the house, I remember the way, I can walk. It’s not far, and you didn’t lock the garage. You take him to eat.”

She didn’t want to be seen with me.

Not out in public anyway. She’d been perfectly willing to stay for breakfast when we were back at the house…

I didn’t know what I expected. I guess it was a tall order, asking her to go around town with me. Things were new and we didn’t really know what this was yet. But it still bothered me.

“Okay,” I said. “When can I see you again?”

She gave me a noncommittal one-shoulder shrug. “I don’t know. I’ll text you.” She stood on her tiptoes and gave me a quick peck. “I had a really good time.” She smiled. “Thanks for having me.”

“Yeah. Thanks for coming.”

I watched her let herself out, disappointed that the visit was over.

While I waited for Pops, I went around combing for dishes. Then I grabbed a trash bag and started chucking old newspapers and take-out containers. The place was wrecked. Dusty and cluttered. A long double-barrel shotgun lay across the coffee table. It was bigger than Popeye was. He’d been cleaning it, and a metal rod and oil-soaked rags lay tossed around next to a box of shells.

I hoped he wasn’t planning on shooting Jean’s dog.

Or Jean.

I came back into the kitchen and pulled out the kitchen trash. When I heard the shower shut off, I went to get him, and a few minutes later he came out dressed and clean.

Popeye wouldn’t let me help him into the truck. The diner was only a block away, but I could tell by how slow he was moving that he was a little sore from his fall. The second giveaway was that he didn’t fight me to let him walk there. I pulled up as close to the door as possible without it looking like I was trying to baby him, which he’d hate.

Doreen was relieved to see him, and we sat at the counter.

Doreen poured coffee in our cups, and when she was gone, Popeye mumbled at me. “She’ll come calling.”

I poured half and half into my mug. “Who?”

He pivoted to look at me. “The doctor! Acting like you don’t know who I’m talkin’ about…” he muttered. “The town’ll get ’er back.”

I wrinkled my brows at him. “I don’t follow.”

“The town! It’ll get ’er back! It picks who it wants. I’ve known every lifer going back ninety-six years. I know one when I see one. Your grandparents, you, Doug, Doreen. Not your mama. I knew it the moment she came into the world, she weren’t for here. The town knew it too, let her leave.”

I blinked at him. “Let her leave?”

He looked at me for a moment, squinting with his good eye. “It’s alive, you know.”

“What’s alive?”

“This place. It breathes like you and me. It’s got magic in it.”

I grabbed the sugar jar, amused. “Magic, huh.”

He glared at me. “Go ahead, poke fun at me. But when things start happenin’ you can’t explain, snow in July, lucky coincidences, you’ll change your tune. There ain’t no coincidences here, boy. It’s the town, protecting itself. And I’m tellin’ ya, it likes that girlfriend of yours and it’ll get ’er back.”

I sighed. Maybe he was getting a little confused in his old age after all.

Not that I couldn’t use some mystic intervention…

She was a doctor.

We didn’t have people like that here. Hell, I think there were less than a dozen college-educated people in the whole town. We were all in the service industry—we didn’t have white-collar jobs in Wakan. We didn’t have a clinic where she could work, let alone a hospital. We didn’t even have a blood pressure machine in the pharmacy.

I finished breakfast and took Popeye home. When I got back to my place, Alexis was gone. I sat on the bottom of the spiral steps, looking out into the garage. Hunter trotted over and sat next to me.

I looked at my dog and scoffed. “Please tell me you’re kidding. Is this how you looked when she came back? We’re trying to make a good impression and both your ears are inside out.”