Chapter 7
C ash arrived at the Brown House Cafe shortly after nine in the morning. This was the best time. He missed the breakfast rush and Frankie could take her coffee break with him after having opened the diner and worked her ass off all morning.
He picked one of his three usual booths. Always in Frankie’s section. He couldn’t find her, but maybe she was bustling around in the kitchen. Frankie didn’t quit moving even if he urged her to quit working herself into the ground.
“Cash?”
Abbi’s voice was a balm, overriding the flush of panic that he’d have to explain why he was here. “Morning, Abbi.”
She slid in across from him. Her hair hung damp and she was in the jeans and sweater he’d recommended for riding. She must’ve done laundry at the hotel; she was wearing the sweater she’d gotten sick in. Still cute in it, too.
“I’m not stalking you, I promise. The girl working the front desk of the hotel swore this was the best place to get an omelet.”
“She wasn’t lying.” Cash smiled politely as he searched for Frankie. His smile vanished as one of the other servers bustled toward him.
“Cash, are you here for Frankie?” Carol, a good friend of Frankie’s, stood barely above five feet tall with hair long gone gray.
The way Carol asked him spiked his worry, but the way she ignored the woman across from him was downright troubling. He’d never brought someone with him in all the Mondays he’d met with Frankie. “What’s wrong?”
Carol laid a hand on his shoulder. “She was admitted to the hospital last night.”
Cash was already scooting out of the booth. Abbi was doing the same.
“What happened?” he asked.
“We’re not sure, yet, but you let her know we’re thinking about her.”
He pulled Carol in for a half hug. “Thanks for letting me know.”
She patted him on the back. “Tell her I’m stopping by and forcing my help on her whether she likes it or not.”
“Will do.”
Abbi was on his heels as he left the cafe. “Who’s Frankie? And how’s your mom?”
Cash should’ve realized that after last night, this morning would roll downhill quicker than shit in a rainstorm.
He’d answered Abbi’s questions only because she appeared genuinely concerned, and dammit, his family drama was piling so high that it was nice to have someone to talk to.
“Frankie’s like a grandmother to me.” Not a lie.
“My mom and dad are getting divorced, so what you saw yesterday is pretty much how she’s doing. ”
Abbi went around to the passenger side of his pickup and he didn’t hesitate to let her in.
“Aren’t you going to miss breakfast?” he asked as he backed out of his parking spot.
“Yes, but the cafe will be here tomorrow. And the next day. You looked a little haggard when I arrived, but after you heard about the hospital…” She shrugged. “I didn’t want to leave you alone.”
He looked like he felt and he didn’t care. If Abbi was coming with him—and he wanted her with him—he didn’t want to censor himself. He found himself spilling the history that he never talked about and that no one ever brought up. Not even his mom—she just constantly alluded to it.
“Frankie is more than like my grandma.”
Abbi’s forehead wrinkled in confusion.
“My mom that you sort of met yesterday isn’t my birth mom.
” He blew out a gusty breath and explained.
“My dad cheated on her with Frankie’s daughter shortly after they were married.
My birth mom didn’t want me, already had some other guy and wanted to move away, so she called Dad from the hospital and told him to pick me up or she was signing me over to the adoption agency. Frankie’s my grandma.”
“Holy shit!” Abbi grabbed his hand and squeezed it. Her gesture reminded him of when he’d done the same thing in the combine when she’d been upset thinking about her brother.
Had he ever spoken his personal details out loud?
No, he hadn’t. It wasn’t necessary when living in a small town where everyone knew his business.
Most days, he could pretend no one knew, or that no one cared, but they did.
Whether it was whispers from the older ladies at church, or the knowing glances from Frankie’s crew at her work, his origins made great fodder for gossip.
His cousins never mentioned it. To them, his mom was Aunt Patty, their aunt, and he was their cousin. His mom never mentioned it, either—directly. She was his mom. Period. He was her son. Period. But it didn’t mean his mom wouldn’t hold his dad’s and birth mom’s behavior over him.
He knew Mom hadn’t meant to. She’d wanted to raise him right. Raise a gentleman, a man worthy of a woman’s love. The intended effect hadn’t happened. Instead, he avoided relationships to avoid becoming the man she feared.
Abbi was watching him. He reluctantly withdrew his hand to navigate the roads.
“Mom forgave Dad, at least that time, and raised me like her own.”
“At least that time? Do you have more half siblings?”
Discussing his family’s worst-kept secret left a sour taste in his mouth.
It was freeing to openly talk about it—to a point.
It was still about his dad, a man he looked up to, promiscuous ways aside.
“Just my sister, Hannah, but she’s not from another woman.
As far as I know, my dad often seeks company in someone else’s bed, but he hasn’t repeated the same mistake he made with me. ”
He fisted his hands around the wheel.
“I’m sorry.”
“He’s a good guy, but his strengths aren’t in being faithful to his wife.”
“Where’s your birth mom?”
“Dead, and before you say sorry, I never met her. Not that it isn’t terrible,” he added quickly. “I just never knew her and she never wanted me. But her death almost killed Frankie.”
That was the real tragedy about his birth mom’s death. He couldn’t summon anything beyond ambivalence, but he had a huge family and a lot of support. Frankie was alone.
“What happened?” Abbi’s presence washed over him. His anxiety over Frankie would’ve chewed him up on the way to the hospital, and even though the subject was an ever-healing wound, having Abbi here made it bearable. He was terribly glad she’d come with him.
“Suicide. The guy she left with was an over-controlling bastard. Frankie ran herself dry trying to help my—Holly—get away, but she must’ve felt trapped. I guess I was only five when she killed herself.”
Abbi probably noticed his quick switch, but he tried not to refer to Holly as his mom. She’d birthed him, but Mom was his mom.
“I’m still really sorry. Have you and Frankie been close your whole life?”
He wished, and he had serious regrets that they hadn’t been.
“Actually, no. She found me when I was eighteen and told me about Holly. Thought I should know because Mom and Dad told her they refused to talk to me about her, which meant they didn’t want Frankie around, either.
She waited until I was old enough to decide for myself.
After that, I started stopping in at the cafe now and again.
My parents, of course, avoid the place.”
“That’s so sad. You didn’t know you had another grandma in town?”
He maneuvered into the hospital parking lot. “No. I never gave Holly much thought. By the time they told me Mom had adopted me, it mattered, but it didn’t.”
Maybe he’d buy that line himself one day. It’d fucked him up. And then he’d gotten over it. Mostly. Until he was eighteen and Frankie had caught him gassing up his pickup one night before finding a bonfire and some girls to party with.
Forget the girls. That night, he’d drunk whatever he could get his hands on and gotten shit-faced. Not long after that, Dillon had spouted off about enlisting and there was Cash’s ass next to him, raising his right hand and swearing an oath of enlistment for the army.
He and Abbi rushed into the hospital and inquired about the room number at the front desk. Abbi had claimed his hand somewhere en route.
“Frankie?” the matronly receptionist asked.
“Frances Samuelson,” Cash answered, grateful he knew that much about his own grandmother.
“Room 205.” She leaned over the desk and pointed down the hall. “Catch the elevator at the end of the hall, and once you get off, the room will be on your left.”
He thanked her and took off, towing Abbi behind him.
Abbi clutched Cash’s hand. Distress pinched the corners of his eyes as they rode the elevator up.
The story of his life was tragic . Her parents were a pain in her ass, but her dad had showered her mom with romantic gestures. Did he still? Abbi would have to remind him, make sure he was keeping the love alive after Perry’s death.
When they stepped onto the second floor, warmth surrounded her. It felt good after being outside in the chill with just a sweatshirt, but if she had to work here all day, she’d suffer heat exhaustion. The temperature hike must be for the patients’ benefit.
They located room 205 and Cash peeked inside.
She waited to follow his lead. She’d expected a grandmotherly woman, but a lady with graying blond hair rested on the bed.
She was probably a little shorter than her and slender, like she’d run her ass off at her serving job her whole life.
Lines of stress and worry marred her ruddy skin.
The sound of a blood-pressure machine filled the room.
Abbi followed the cord on the cuff around Frankie’s arm to a large standalone machine.
The screen of the machine was littered with numbers.
Frankie’s pale brows rose in surprise. “Cash, what a surprise.” Her gaze touched on Abbi and her eyes brightened. Frankie shifted in an attempt to cover herself, but two cords draped out of the neck of her hospital gown.
“Hey, Frankie. I hope you don’t mind that I brought a friend, although I don’t think I could’ve stopped her.” Cash gave Frankie his award-winning smile. “This is Abbi Daniels.”