The Best of Us (Sullivan's Crossing #4)(36)

“I haven’t been in a bathtub for about sixty-five years!” he snorted, offended.

She sniffed toward him. She zeroed in on his hands. “It’s you,” she said.

“Oh, that,” he said. “I helped myself to some of Enid’s hand cream.” He turned his hands over. “Garden hands.”

She grinned at him. “Well, you smell lovely, Sully.” Then she skipped off to the supply room to see what work might be waiting for her.

He followed her. “Maggie, you hear about that young girl from town? The one with the brain tumor?”

“Well, if I did, I wouldn’t be able to talk about it, would I?”

“If you heard about it professionally, I guess you couldn’t talk about it. But if you heard the rumor, you could.”

“As it happens, I didn’t hear the rumor...”

“Well, let me just fill you in,” Sully said, and proceeded to tell her about Maia. “You must have heard about it.” Then he looked at her face. “You heard about it,” he finally said. “Well, you must be in on it, then. That makes me feel better about things. I hope you can help her.”

“Dad, I didn’t say anything,” Maggie said.

“I just hope it’s you and that you can help her,” he said. “Imagine, a pretty and smart young girl like that, stopped by a brain tumor! Makes you wonder if there’s a God.” Then he stretched his neck to look down the road, watching for Helen. Didn’t she want to write that grisly stuff on his porch anymore?

“Is your neck bothering you?” Maggie asked. “That’s about the fourth time you’ve stretched it out like you have a cramp.”

“It’s nothing,” he said.

“It looks like you’re in good shape here. Hey, do you have help lined up for the summer? Jackson’s working with his dad and going to college in the fall...”

Since meeting Helen, he’d been thinking more seriously about getting some extra help. “I’m going to get on that,” he said. “I’ll check with Tom and ask if his daughter Brenda is interested, since Tom is my regular handyman when Connie can’t help.”

“What are you reading?” Maggie asked, picking up Helen’s book.

“Someone left it here,” he said.

They had a bookcase in the store—the books were free. People dropped off books they’d read on the trail and picked up a new one to take on the next leg. Hikers lightened their load at every stop. That Helen hadn’t left it on that particular bookcase was a minor detail.

“Oh, look at this! Hey, I think this might be Leigh’s aunt. The author. And she signed the book! She must have come through here or something. Or someone left a signed book behind. ‘With love, Helen.’ That’s interesting.”

He grabbed it out of her hand. “Hmm. I hadn’t noticed that.” Love? Then where is she? Oh, I’m way too old for this!

Maggie kissed his cheek. “I’m going over to the house to use the bathroom, then I’ll be off. Listen, I’m going to Denver tomorrow and won’t be back till Thursday late afternoon so if you need anything, give Cal or Connie a call, will you? Don’t be doing too much. Let’s get you a nice, strong teenager to help out around here. How about that?”

“I said I’ll get right on it.”

“Yes, you did.”

When Maggie got home, she poked her head in Cal’s office. He was on his computer and Elizabeth was playing with her toy kitchen set nearby, having a very interesting conversation with herself in a completely foreign language. “Elizabeth,” she said sweetly. “I’m home.”

“Mama,” she said, scrabbling up to her feet and running to Maggie.

“Have you been playing kitchen?”

Elizabeth babbled something that had a very serious tone and was completely unintelligible. Maggie said, “Really?” as though she understood every word. “And have you been good for Daddy?”

She acknowledged another stream of babble. Then Maggie asked for and received kisses and a hug.

“Cal, have you spent any time with Sully lately?”

“Last week Elizabeth and I helped in the garden and did a little raking and composting around the house.”

“Did you notice anything weird?”

“Like what?”

“He’s using hand lotion. A lot of it.”

“Maybe he has dry skin,” Cal said.

“It’s scented! And he keeps craning his neck—I think he’s looking down the road for someone. Someone who didn’t come. And he’s reading a woman’s book—a mystery written and signed by a woman. Sully has read about three books since I was born.”

“Is that Leigh Culver’s aunt? She’s visiting, I take it.”

“Have they met?” she asked. “Leigh’s aunt and Sully?”

Cal shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t keep his calendar.”

“His house is spotless. He has vacuum cleaner tracks. And the bathroom is so clean it winked at me.”

Cal grinned at her. “Sounds like Sully might be trying to impress someone.”

“With soft hands?” she asked, outraged. “The thought is kind of gross. He’s seventy-two!”