Chapter 7

“Net, net, there must be a net,” Emma muttered to herself as she walked out of the office fifteen minutes later. If the crafty old bird was going to play games with her, then she’d meet the challenge, dammit. This place was huge, but it wasn’t that huge.

Halfway down the third hallway she hadn’t quite meant to be in, she met Katrina coming out of a patient room.

“Oh, hey, Emma. Did Brandy find you?”

“She did. And I’ll find you as soon as I have some answers, I promise.”

Katrina tipped her head. “Did Bette pull a Bette on you?”

“Um, not sure what that means.” Emma crossed her arms, then dropped them when she realized she’d done it. The last thing she needed was to look all defensive.

“I assume you’re looking for information you need? And it’s not where you can find it? Which shocks me completely?” Katrina rolled her eyes.

“Something like that, yes.”

“Well, usually, we’d call her.”

“She’s under general anesthesia.”

“Then that’s not a great plan, is it?” Katrina smiled. “She wouldn’t have left you without what you need.”

“Well, if she did, it’s well hidden thus far.” Emma sighed. “Jasper suggested I needed to get out of the office in order to find it.”

“That’s actually good advice. She never goes in there. I can’t imagine how you even found her chair.”

“It was a process.”

“Okay.” Katrina turned, pointing down the hallway as she started walking. “I have an idea.”

“I am all about ideas right now.” Emma followed her quick steps, hearing her own heels clack on the polished floor, while Katrina’s soft shoes barely made a whisper.

Three doors shy of a reading nook at the end of the hallway, Katrina stopped and knocked on the half-open door of a patient room.

“Mrs. Jenkins? Good morning!”

“Morning,” a gravelly voice replied, and Katrina motioned Emma to join her as she stepped into the room.

“I want to introduce you to our interim director, Emma Winthrop.” Katrina pointed at Em.

“Hello, Mrs. Jenkins. Pleasure to meet you.” Emma leaned down toward the wheelchair-bound woman, whose spinal curvature had her hunched painfully forward.

“Good to meet you, Emma.” Mrs. Jenkins held out a hand to meet Em’s, and she shook with surprising strength. “Don’t let Katrina here boss you around too much.”

Katrina patted her shoulder. “Don’t tell her my secrets this early in the game.”

Emma laughed. “Thank you for the warning.”

“So, as much as you love me, I don’t suppose you’re here for a social visit?” Mrs. Jenkins smiled slyly, making Katrina laugh.

“You suppose correctly.”

“Looking for the policies and procedures manual, maybe?”

Emma felt her mouth fall open. No. Way.

Katrina smiled. “Bette seems to have forgotten to leave it for Emma.”

“Eh, she didn’t forget.”

“We figured that.” Katrina leaned down. “Do you know where it might be?”

“Nope.”

“But you knew it was missing.”

“Yup.”

“Mrs. Jenkins?”

The elderly woman laughed out loud, her voice crackly. “I only know I’m supposed to send you to see Abe.”

“Abe.” Katrina’s eyebrows furrowed. “Does he have it?”

“Doubt it.”

“He’s going to send us to someone else?”

“Probably.”

Katrina put her hands on her hips. “I’m going to kill Bette.”

“She predicted you’d say that.”

Emma closed her eyes in frustration. “She seriously set up some sort of wild goose chase for me?”

Mrs. Jenkins smiled. “She wanted you to meet folks. Said this was the best way to guarantee you’d bother doing it.”

“Oh.” Emma swallowed hard, her voice fading as she processed the lack of confidence this Bette person must have had in her ability to run Shady Acres. “Oh.”

“Nothing personal.” Mrs. Jenkins waved a fragile-looking hand. “She’s a good one, Bette is. She’s got her reasons. And she might be out of the loop today, but you can bet your sweet patoot she’ll be on that phone tomorrow morning, wondering how things are going.”

Emma hoped she was on the phone tomorrow morning. She had a few things to say to this Bet— She stopped, closing her eyes. For God’s sake, the woman was in surgery.

“All right, Ivy.” Katrina leaned down to hug Mrs. Jenkins. “Thanks for taking pity on us and sending us in the right direction.”

“Ha. I don’t know if it’s the right one. More ’n likely, it’s the wrong one. But it’s the one she told me to send you in, so I’m following orders and sending you.”

Emma reached out a hand. “Thank you. I’ll see you again soon, I’m sure.”

“I hope so, dear. You come anytime. I don’t go too far.”

When they returned to the hallway, Emma turned to Katrina. “Okay, so I guess we need to find Abe?”

Katrina cringed. “Actually, I’m going to have to let you do that on your own. I’ve got morning meds to do.”

She pointed back the way they’d come, then crooked her finger to her left. “Abe Littlefoot is down Bobcat Street—the West Wing. Fifth door on the right. Nice guy. You’ll like him.”

“So this is going to be my day, isn’t it? Running from hallway to hallway, chasing down leads given to me by senior citizens who’ve been bribed to drive me nuts?”

“Looks like.” Katrina smiled as she pulled keys from her pocket and unlocked a rolling cabinet that sat against the hallway wall. “But I doubt any bribery was necessary.”

“Seen the new girl today?” Jasper’s dad raised his eyebrows as he speared a bite of pancake with his fork.

“New girl?” Jasper stalled, knowing exactly who Dad was talking about, but for some reason not wanting to admit it.

“The one you were talking to yesterday.”

“Oh, that new girl.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Yeah, she’s around.”

“Seems nice.” Dad slid another bite into his mouth, purposely not meeting Jasper’s eyes.

“Yep.”

Jasper picked up a slice of bacon, wondering just how Horace managed to overcook it every damn day. With a sigh, he put it back down.

“So you gonna offer to show her around town or anything?”

He shook his head. “Hadn’t occurred to me.”

“That girl’s out here all by her lonesome for three months, and you’re not gonna help?”

“I don’t think she needs anyone’s help, Dad. Least of all mine.”

Dad met his eyes. “Where’s she from, again?”

“Florida.”

“Which is a long damn way from Montana, now, isn’t it?”

Jasper nodded but didn’t respond. He knew Dad wasn’t done.

“So it seems to me, a boy raised to be a gentleman—which I happen to know you were—might take that young lady in hand and show her a good time while she’s here.”

Jasper choked on his coffee. “Um, that might be going a little far.”

“I mean take her for a drive over the weekend. Take her out to dinner. Show her the lake. Get her up to Whisper Creek and on a horse. She can’t know anything about this place, right? Hell, has she ever seen the Rockies?”

“I don’t think so.” Jasper smiled when he remembered Emma calling Brayden Hill a mountain.

“Well, there you go.”

“I’m sure the nurses will take her under their wings.”

Dad cocked his head. “Have you met women, Jasper? She’s the new boss. There isn’t a-one of them who’s gonna get all cozy with her. If she was on staff, maybe. But she’s coming in here from the central office, playing at managing the place with no experience, and all they’re thinking is that she’s taking notes behind their backs—I guarantee it.”

“Nothing like a positive attitude on this sunny morning, Dad. And how do you know how much experience she has, anyway?

“Bette mighta mentioned it. Innocently. Not in a hope-she-fails sort of way. Much. But, anyway, you telling me I’m wrong?”

Jasper rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“Because I’m right and you know it.” Dad stabbed a piece of sausage and brought it to his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “I usually am, you know.”

“Yes, Dad.”

Jasper smiled. Dad was in rare form this morning. If you didn’t know better, you wouldn’t even know he was sick. And that was why he came here every day at this time—because it was better than later. Easier. Less painful and scary.

“How’s the café? You running in the black yet?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“You putting away for retirement? Because this could be you someday, melting your bones away in a frigging nursing home.”

“Always, Dad. And you’re hardly melting away. You have yoga in twenty minutes. You’re stronger than you’ve been in ten years.”

“Yoga shmoga. That teacher’s a drill sergeant.”

Jasper laughed. Jess was about as far from drill sergeant material as a mouse was from a lion.

“I know it, Dad. But it helps. She’s busting your ass into shape, right?”

“One downward dog at a time, yeah. And who the hell named these poses, anyway? I did not spend thirty years in the Navy and twenty in Guards to end up here at Shady Acres doing animal poses. Jesus.”

Dad shivered in disgust, and Jasper felt a leaden weight of sympathy hit his chest. The man was right. He’d been the epitome of strength—a protective wall for his wife and family his entire life. To have that stripped away, bit by painful bit, was almost inhumane.

“You want to come out to Whisper Creek with me this weekend?” Time for a subject change. “Gunnar’s got a new horse he wants me to see.”

“Where you gonna keep a horse? Jesus, you’re already overrun with every other critter under the sky.”

“I’m not looking to keep a horse, just see one. And I am not overrun.”

Dad threw him a look of disgust. “How many cats you got running around right now?”

“Six, thank you. But they’re kittens. Not running yet.”

Dad shook his head. “Well, before you become a certified hermit, maybe just ask that nice new director out and pretend you’re normal.” He winked, tossing back the rest of his coffee. “Now I gotta pee before PT. Get out of here and go run your business. Stop wasting time with your old man.”

Jasper saluted. “Yessir.”

Dad pushed his wheelchair back from the table, wincing when he knocked his knee against the leg. Jasper started to reach out, then drew back when Dad fixed him with a steely glare.

“I don’t need help.”

“I know you don’t.”

“Don’t forget it.” Dad got himself turned around, then put his hands on the wheels to take off across the dining room. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you.” Jasper frowned at his retreating form—a military spine forced into a chair with wheels—and felt a clawing in his gut.

“Hey!” Dad called from ten feet away, stopping suddenly to spin around.

“Yeah?” Jasper stood up, gathering their plates to bring them to the kitchen.

“I give you three days.”

“For what?”

“To ask her out.”

Jasper froze. “What?”

“Three days. You ask her out, or I’ll do it for you. And believe me, you don’t want me to do that. I suck at romance.”

“Not asking her out, Dad.”

“Then you’re missing a golden opportunity.”

“I don’t even know if she’s single, or if she likes guys, for God’s sake.”

“One way to find out, then, isn’t there?”

“Jesus, Dad. You are the third person in, like, forty-eight hours to bust my ass about my dating life.”

“You don’t have a dating life. Maybe that’s why?”

“By choice, Dad.” Jasper felt his voice go quiet. And fierce. “And you damn well know why.”

“Yeah, I do.” Dad nodded, looking over Jasper’s shoulder at the windows beyond. “But I think maybe it’s time you stopped punishing yourself for Bridget.”

“I disagree.”

“You can save all the animals in the world, boy. It’s not going to fix what happened. You’ve done your damn penance for five years now.”

“It’s a start.”

Dad looked into his eyes, and Jasper was struck by how clear they were today—how direct and unwavering and downright soul-baring.

Dammit.

“You make your own decisions.”

“Thank you. I will.”

Dad pushed on his wheels. “But I give you three days to make the right ones.”