Twenty Wishes (Blossom Street #5)(44)

Mark stopped, then reluctantly spun around to face her. “What happened?” he asked, none too sympathetically.

“I tripped.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Yes. Look, there’s blood.”

“Should I call 911?”

He was making fun of her, but Barbie didn’t care. She peeled up her pant leg to examine her knee.

“That’s what you get for wearing those ridiculous shoes.”

She let the insult pass.

“Do you need help getting up?”

“No, I can manage.” When she scrambled to her feet, she discovered that she’d broken the heel off her left shoe. “Would you look at this?” she cried. “If you knew what I paid for these shoes, you’d be as outraged as I am.”

“Next time don’t go chasing after me,” he said. “I’m not interested, understand?”

“Okay, fine,” she snapped.

“Fine with me, too.” He started to roll away from her.

Barbie sniffled and limped off. She’d made an idiot of herself and now she was paying the price. So much for this supposed bond between them. He wanted nothing to do with her. Well, she got his message, loud and clear.

Her progress was slow with her knee aching and her broken shoe.

“Miss, Miss.”

Barbie turned to find a woman with a first aid kit in her hand. “I heard that you fell.”

“Who told you?”

“A man in a wheelchair stopped in my store and said you might need help.”

“Really.” So Mark wasn’t as hard-edged as he’d like her to believe. He was concerned about her but he didn’t want to show it. “I’m okay. My pride hurts a lot more than my knee. It was my own fault.”

“Are you sure I can’t help you?”

Barbie thanked the woman with a smile. “I think I’ll just go home.” She’d call her mother for sympathy and then have a cup of hot tea.

“The man told me you’d probably say that. If you’ll sit down, I’ll take a look at your knee.”

“I don’t suppose you have any glue, do you?” she asked, holding up her broken shoe.

“No, sorry.”

Barbie thanked her again and left, hobbling back to Blossom Street, where she’d parked her car. The injury to her knee was nothing more than a scrape but the blow to her pride would take much longer to heal.

Her one consolation was the fact that, despite everything, Mark had sent someone to check on her. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something. A tiny fracture in his resistance. It gave her hope.

By Monday evening, Barbie’s knee was healing nicely. Although she didn’t need to, she wore a huge bandage over it and a short skirt, short enough to reveal her bandaged knee.

Tessa was at the ticket window when Barbie approached.

“So, which movie should I see?” Barbie asked, the same as she had the week before.

Tessa’s dark brown eyes searched hers. “He isn’t here.”

“You mean not yet, right?”

“Uncle Mark’s not coming, period.”

“Why not?” Barbie couldn’t have disguised her disappointment if she’d wanted to.

“He figured out that I was the one feeding you information.” Tessa sounded as disgruntled as Barbie felt.

Because she was holding up the line, Barbie stepped aside until there was a break.

“I’m sorry,” Tessa murmured. “He told me he won’t be coming to the movies again and that I should make sure you knew it.”

“Oh,” Barbie murmured. “Do you see him outside the movies very often?”

Tessa shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“Next time you do, tell him I think he’s a coward.”

Tessa’s jaw dropped. “You’re not serious.”

“Yes, I am,” Barbie insisted. “Tell him that for me.”

She purchased her ticket, plus popcorn and a soda. Although she sat through the entire movie, she couldn’t remember a single scene.

Chapter 14

Monday evening Anne Marie put a meat-loaf-and-potato casserole in the oven. It was a favorite recipe of her mother’s and one she hadn’t made in years. The meat mixture baked with sliced raw potatoes, both covered in tomato sauce. Anne Marie had liked it when she was around Ellen’s age and she hoped Ellen would, too.

As she closed the oven door, she noticed Ellen approaching the large oak desk where she kept the scrapbooking materials for her Twenty Wishes book.

“What’s this?” Ellen asked, looking over her shoulder.

“My Twenty Wishes.”

“Twenty Wishes,” the girl repeated. “What are those?”

“Well, on Valentine’s Day, my friends and I had a small party. We started talking about all the things we’d wished for in our lives and then we each decided to make a list.”

“Just twenty?”

Anne Marie laughed. So far, coming up with twenty had been hard enough, and in fact, she was only halfway there. “This is fine for now. I’ll think of more later on,” she said. “In fact, I’m still working on my first twenty.” She had a total of nine: the five she’d written earlier, plus her most recent additions.