“Please,” she said, cutting him off. “I’ve had a really crummy afternoon, and I could use some high-calorie, high-fat comfort food. Along with an ear to bend. I promise you won’t have to contribute much to the conversation. I’ll carry it all. I’d invite you for a beer,” she blurted out when she sensed a refusal forthcoming, “but you can’t have alcohol with your pain meds.”
Just when she had decided her efforts were in vain, he muttered, “Sure,” under his breath.
Miranda smiled for the first time that afternoon.
Chapter Three
The ice-cream parlor, across the street and up half a block, had recently reopened after sustaining significant damage in the fire. Miranda liked the remodeling job, though the place lacked the ambiance of the old one.
A few of the original furnishings had been salvaged, including a pair of wrought-iron chairs with heart-shaped backs from the fifties, glass root-beer mugs from the sixties and a Coca-Cola poster the owner swore was his great-great-aunt’s from the roaring twenties.
All the spared items were currently stored and on display in the brand-new Sweetheart Memorial Museum. Annie Wyler, Will’s boss’s new wife, had donated the land—on which her family’s inn had once stood—to the memorial and paid for its construction out of the insurance settlement money. It was a grand gesture and much appreciated by the folks of Sweetheart.
Miranda had been by the memorial three times so far. She particularly enjoyed seeing what new items had been donated, most of them stirring happy memories of her childhood from age seven on, when she’d come to live with her foster parents.
Before age seven had been less happy. Miserable, actually. She didn’t forget those days, either. Miranda accepted the cards life dealt her, learned from them and moved on. What else was a person to do?
Sneaking a glimpse at Will sitting across from her in the booth, she supposed there were other options. One could hang on to the past. Retreat into it. Let it disempower them. In her opinion Will had done all those things.
She took another spoonful of her brownie delight hot-fudge sundae and almost groaned in ecstasy. “How’s your...” What was it he’d ordered? “Scoop of plain vanilla ice cream?” She failed to mask her disdain.
“It’s okay.”
“You should have ordered a little hot fudge with that.” She relished an even larger spoonful of her sundae.
“Maybe.”
“Seriously, Will, what does it take to wring more than one or two words out of you?”
He observed her from over his spoon. The small glint of heat she’d seen the other day in her kitchen reappeared, lighting eyes as dark as the hot fudge that had been generously poured over her ice cream.
Proximity. To her. That was what it took to wring more words from him. Well, she could certainly arrange for proximity. Lots of it.
“What went wrong?”
“I beg your pardon?” She dabbed at her mouth before melted ice cream dribbled down her chin.
“You said you had a crummy morning.”
“Oh, yes. That.” For a brief second she lost her appetite. Fortunately it returned, and she dug into her remaining sundae. “My appointment at the bank didn’t go well.”
“Your appointment?”
“I’m trying, hoping, to refinance my house. Problem is I’ve had a little trouble making the monthly payments on time since losing a resident.” Miranda didn’t wave her dirty laundry in public. But she was also a plainspoken person, and Will had asked.
“The bank won’t cut you any slack?”
“No. Rules are rules and policies are policies. I can possibly refinance if I bring my account current.”
“How far behind are you?”
It was a rather bold question for someone who rarely spoke. “Two months as of next week. Then, when I make November’s payment, which I will on Tuesday, I’ll only be behind one month.”
“What are you going to do?”
She sighed and set down her spoon. “Whatever I have to. I’m not losing my house or my business. I have worked too long and hard to get it off the ground. My residents need me. I’m the only certified elder-care facility in Sweetheart run by a registered nurse. If I go under, they’ll have nowhere to live.”
All right, she was being melodramatic. Other than Mrs. Litey, all her residents had family to go to.
“Any prospects?”
“No. Not at the moment.” She didn’t fib to Will as she had to the banker.
“You can’t go under.”
No, she couldn’t. Will stating as much piqued her interest. Did he care? For her or Mrs. Litey?
“Thanks for the support. If you by chance have a relative needing supervised care hiding in your back pocket, I have a room available.”
“I wish I did.”
His sincerity touched her. Without thinking, she reached across the table and laid her hand atop his uninjured one. For several seconds he froze. Then he jerked his hand away with such speed, he knocked her arm sideways.
Miranda gathered herself, feeling a little hurt. “Sorry about that. I’m a touchy-feely kind of person. Goes with the territory, being in the medical profession and from a large family.”
He remained silent.
“Look, Will, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She noticed then that he was breathing regularly. Really regularly. As if he was counting his breaths. His hands had disappeared beneath the tabletop, and she thought she heard the snapping of a rubber band against skin.
Well, wasn’t that curious?
She wanted to ask him about the snapping—who wouldn’t?—but, for once, she curbed her impulses. What she’d learned about Will during the past few months was that he defined the term “private person” and wouldn’t appreciate her prodding.
“I didn’t... I wasn’t expecting it.”
She hadn’t been expecting it, either. Reaching for Will’s hand had been an impulse. The response to a moment of feeling connected to him. She’d thought—hoped—the connection was reciprocal.
“Hey, no worries.” She grabbed her spoon and polished off the last of her sundae. “I’m not easily offended. If I was, I wouldn’t surround myself with crotchety old people and a smart-mouthed aide.”
“Are they really that bad?”
“Other than Mrs. Litey? Heavens, no. I love my job. I even love her. On her good days.”
The reminder that he hadn’t been around much wasn’t lost on him. “Give her my best,” he said with an end-of-discussion abruptness.
As if that would stop her. “Which is it? Your work or visiting Mrs. Litey?”
Now it was his turn to ask, “I beg your pardon?”
“What don’t you want to talk about?”
He developed an avid interest in finishing his boring single scoop of vanilla ice cream.
“Fine. None of my business.” Except she wasn’t able to keep her mouth shut. “The thing is, I’ve come to depend on your visits, and I shouldn’t have. Mrs. Litey is my responsibility.”
“I like visiting her.”
“So it’s work,