Chapter Seventeen
“G
ood grief!” Libby exclaimed when she saw Benny.
His face was flushed and his eyes glassy. She rushed over and laid her hand on his forehead and found it hot and dry. “You’ve got more than a little cold, feller. You could have the flu. All this stuff can wait until morning. You need to take some medicine and go to bed.”
“I won’t argue.”
In all the emotional upheaval that was going on when he called, she hadn’t realized how hoarse his voice was. “You sound horrible. You need hot lemon tea, a couple of pills to bring that fever down, and maybe some chicken broth.”
“I haven’t got—”
She butted in before he could finish. “If you’re about to say that you don’t have any of those things, then rest assured. I’ve got everything we need at the station, so you can come home with me.”
“Would you look at that?” Benny tried to smile, but it came out more like a grimace.
She glanced over her shoulder to see Elvis lying down in front of the break table and Fancy licking his face. Right then, she was far more concerned with Benny than seeing the two animals getting along. “That’s great. You stay right here, and I’ll jog back to the station and get my vehicle.”
“I just drove for five hours,” he said. “I think I can walk that far.”
“Don’t try to convince me you are all macho,” she fussed. “You look like you are about to drop. I’m going to get my SUV.”
“I need to stretch my legs—and besides, we can be there before you would drive back to pick me up,” he argued and headed for the door with Elvis and Fancy right behind him.
“If you fall, I’ll leave you in the gravel,” she threatened.
“Elvis will drag me home by the shirt collar,” he shot back at her.
“If that happens, I’ll have the hot tea ready when he gets you there.” She forgot all about the letter in her hip pocket and handed him Fancy’s leash. “See you there.”
She jogged all the way to the station and put the teakettle on the stove. She wondered how she could be so lighthearted when she’d just found out that her family—such as it was—wasn’t even related to her.
“The truth will set you free. I think that’s in the Bible,” she said as she cut up a lemon. She dropped a few slices in a huge mug and added a little bit of grated ginger and a tablespoon of honey. The kettle had just put out the first whistle when she heard the door open. “Come on in and sit down,” she yelled. “Elvis is welcome if he wants to come in.”
Benny had already sunk down onto the sofa when she turned around. “Elvis is tired of being cooped up. He’s out exploring. Fancy flopped down on the cool tile under the table, and I looped her leash around a chair leg. I almost joined her.”
“Why didn’t you stop at a hotel and call me?” She poured hot water into the mug and covered it with a saucer. “I would have come up to wherever you were and taken care of you.”
“You’d do that for me after we’ve only known each other a few weeks?” he asked.
She ladled out the soup into an oversize mug and put a spoon in it. “You are my boss and my friend—and yes, I would.”
“Thank you,” he muttered. “Whatever you are making smells good.”
“What I make from scratch is better, but this will do for tonight. Crackers or not?”
“Just the soup,” Benny answered. “I’m too tired to chew. I haven’t been this sick since I was in college.”
“Me either, but then I don’t work three twelve-hour days and then drive all over the country the other four,” she fussed. “Your body is telling you to slow down and take a day off every so often.” She took his soup to the sofa, swept all the items that were scattered on the coffee table right back into the box. “You can eat right here, and when you finish, I’ll get you a pillow and a thin sheet.”
“Why not a blanket?”
She handed the mug to him and went back to make the tea. “Because we need to break that fever, not make you hotter.”
“So, you think I’m hot?”
Libby almost choked on a suppressed giggle. She strained the tea into a cup, took a bottle of pain pills from the cabinet, and carried both across the room. She set them on the coffee table; then she dragged a kitchen chair over and sat down across from him. “I don’t think, Benny Taylor. I know you are hot. Didn’t I feel your forehead in the store? You probably have a temp of over a hundred.”
“Are you afraid to sit beside me?” he asked as he ate the noodles out of the soup.
“Nope, but when you get through eating, you are going to stretch out on that sofa and go to sleep,” she replied.
He raised both eyebrows over his bleary eyes. “I’m going home to my trailer and my bed when I get done.”
She shook her forefinger at him. “You are going to stay right here until that fever breaks, or I will call an ambulance and have them take you to the hospital.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“You are my boss. I like my job, thank you very much. If you die, I won’t have a boss or a job, so I intend to get you well. Tomorrow, you will rest.” She pointed at the bottle of pills. “Take two of those. They are generic, but they work as well as the name brand.”
“I trust you not to poison me,” he said after a long sigh and shook a couple of pills out into his hand.
Fancy yipped, and Libby hurried out to the porch to bring her inside. “So, you’ve had enough exercise for the night, have you?” she asked the dog when they were in the apartment and she had removed the leash. The dog went to her water bowl for a long drink; then she hopped up on the sofa with Benny.
“See there?” Libby said. “She’s going to keep you company tonight, and I will be right across the room.”
Benny pointed to the box sitting on the floor. “Were you unpacking when I called?” He finished off the soup and swallowed the pills with a sip of the tea.
“Yes, I was.” She fought against the feelings that were slowly creeping back out of the imaginary box she had put them in.
“Opal called and said y’all did some target practice last night,” Benny said.
“We did, and I slept all night without nightmares or a light,” she said. “But right now, you need to stretch out and rest.”
“That box looks really old. Is that a baby blanket? Was that yours?” he asked. “I’m sorry. None of that is my business.”
“Those are just some keepsakes from my life—and yes, it was mine,” she answered.
“Fair enough. And again, I shouldn’t have pried. This is good tea. Where do you get it?”
“I make it from scratch from lemons, fresh ginger, and local honey if I can find it. You need to rest, so ...” She stood up and went over to the bed, picked up a pillow, and tossed it over to him to distract him from any more conversation about that box. Then she got a clean sheet from a cubicle, shook it out, and covered him with it when he had stretched out. “Sweet dreams.”
“You are bossy,” he muttered as his eyes fluttered shut.
“Yep, I am,” she whispered. I guess I do have a little Victoria in me! she thought.
He was asleep before she finished refilling Fancy’s water bowl. She tiptoed across the room, just like she always did when Victoria had a headache—that’s what she’d called a hangover when Libby lived at home. Fancy looked up but didn’t stir from her spot at Benny’s feet when Libby slipped out the door and through the front room with food and water for Elvis in her hands. The dog’s tail beat out a rhythm on the wooden porch when Libby opened the door.
“It’s not what you are used to eating for supper, but it’s what I’ve got. Fancy seems to like it.” She sat down in a chair and thought about what she had read earlier. The words seemed to be burned on her brain as if they had been branded there. She pulled the letter and her phone from her pocket and started to call Amanda, but then she changed her mind and laid them both on the table.
She tried to control the tears and force herself not to think about the words in the letter, but it didn’t work. They flooded down her cheeks and left spots on her shirt as they dripped off her chin. She didn’t even try to wipe them away, just let them flow freely. If her mother had acknowledged Daniel as the father of her unborn child, and the two of them had made a home and a family, Libby wondered how her life would have turned out.
You are looking into the abyss, a voice she didn’t recognize whispered softly. The past is gone. It made you who you are, but it doesn’t determine who you will be.
“I know that, but it doesn’t help with the pain right now,” Libby whispered back.
Benny awoke to the smell of coffee filling the small apartment. His fever had broken sometime in the night, and now his shirt was stuck to him from all the sweating. He had stayed in lots of hotel rooms, so it wasn’t unusual for him to be disoriented for the first few seconds after he opened his eyes—or to get a faint whiff of coffee since, when possible, he chose places that offered free breakfast. But he couldn’t ever remember a woman being in the room with him. He rubbed his eyes and focused on the lady, who was humming as she cooked. She wore jogging shorts and a gray tank top, and her dark hair was held up with a big clasp on top of her head.
What had happened the night before shot through his mind. “Libby!”
She turned around and flashed a brilliant smile. “Good morning. Are you ready for breakfast and a run?”
“Maybe breakfast.” He sat up, and the room took a couple of spins in slow motion. “If you want a jogging partner, you better talk to Elvis or Fancy.”
“Think you can make it to the table, or do you want me to bring it to you?” she asked.
“I can walk,” he declared, but when he stood up, he wasn’t as sure about it. “I haven’t felt this wobbly in years. The last time that it happened, alcohol was involved.”
Libby carried a plate of biscuits to the table. “Been there. Done that. Got the memories to keep me from doing it again.”
He made it across the room and sat down. “So, do you make breakfast for all the men who spend the night with you?”
“Only the ones who let Fancy sleep on the sofa with them,” she answered as she sat down across from him. “Help yourself. Food might help that weak feeling.”
“I said wobbly, not weak.” He slipped three fried eggs onto his plate.
She smiled again. “The sickness didn’t kill your machismo.”
He ignored the comment and added bacon, biscuits, and hash browns to his plate. “Thank you for taking care of me and for cooking.”
“You are welcome,” she said. “What’s on your agenda for today?”
“When I finish eating, I’m going to my trailer and taking a long shower; then I plan to unload the trailer, and ...”
She shot a look across the table that was so hot, it would have made a weaker man crawl under his chair and whimper.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
“You should rest,” she said.
“I don’t know how,” he admitted. “I worked eighty hours a week when I was a lawyer, and even though it’s a different job, I’ve kept up the pace since I took over the store.”
“Then I will teach you. After you finish breakfast, you can go to your trailer and get cleaned up. Then we’re going to the river for the day. I’ll pack a picnic and take the book I need to finish for the book club next week. If you don’t have something to read, I’ll grab a few from the shelves out in the front. You can choose whichever one you want. Your body needs to unwind.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you are on your own. I feel like I need a day of downtime, so I’m taking it,” she replied. “No phones go with us, either.”
He polished off the food on his plate and slathered butter on a second biscuit. “What if I’m too old to learn new tricks?”
She raised one shoulder in half a shrug. “Never know until you try.”
Was that a dare? Did she expect him to back down?
“I’ll be ready in thirty minutes,” he agreed as he pushed back his chair and headed toward the door with the biscuit in his hands. “What if—”
“If you are worried about Opal and Minilee, you can let them know what we will be doing so they don’t panic when they see our vehicles at home and can’t reach us,” she suggested.
He agreed with a nod and planned to call one of them after he had taken a shower. But then he noticed that they were both in the garden, so he walked across the street. Elvis followed him, stopped at the edge of the yard, and flopped down under the shade tree.
Opal straightened up from a bent position and touched Minilee on the shoulder. “We’re picking green beans. Want to help us?”
“Not this morning.” He covered the last few feet, and even that little distance made him realize how much energy the fever had taken from him. He told them about getting sick and how Libby had insisted he needed a day of rest.
Minilee wiped sweat from her brow with the tail of a faded apron. “That’s one smart lady. We’ve been trying to get you to slow down for a long time. Your body can’t hold up forever, the way you abuse it. You kids have a good time.”
Kids!
Benny chuckled under his breath at the idea of being called that when he was looking thirty-two right in the eyes. “I’ll try, but I’m not used to doing nothing.”
“A little nothing always helps clear the mind and soothe the soul,” Opal said and went back to picking beans.