Chapter 22
Madeline had a crick in her neck, and her lower back was complaining about her seating arrangements when Grant finally drove off in his massive beater of a truck that you could see a mile off. Did he think he was subtle, lying in wait for her like that?
She released Boots, who had kindly let her squeeze him against herself and bury her face in his fur.
She’d been perched on a three-legged milking stool beside the big window, at an angle where she could see out but wasn’t visible from the street.
Thus, she saw Grant, but he couldn’t see her.
Oh, how cruelly accurate that was in all ways.
She walked through her dim shop, taking as much time as she had at her worst, inhaling deeply and gently straightening this or turning that.
Eventually, the awful fibrillating sensation in her chest ceased, and the tightest knots in her muscles eased.
She let herself and Boots out the front door, relocked it, and cut across the backyard.
She’d been sharing meals with Grant so regularly that she wasn’t sure what she had in the house to eat. It didn’t matter. She didn’t think she could swallow a bite, despite the fact that anticipating a big dinner, she’d skipped lunch.
“Don’t worry, though,” she said to Boots. “I definitely have Fancy Feast. It might even be a two-can night if you play your cards right.”
Boots softly bumped her calf with his broad head, and Madeline bent to pet him. Then she fumbled in her bag for her keys to unlock their little house, bone-weary and utterly depleted.