Chapter 20
McKenna double-checked that she had everything.
Purse. Phone. ID. Wallet. Camera. Keys. Carry-on.
Yep, that should be everything. She was only planning to be gone a night or two, so it wasn’t like she needed to pack a whole lot.
She didn’t even know why she was bringing her camera along, except that she brought her camera along everywhere, so why not?
She gave the house one last quick walk-through. Bobbi’s room looked like it’d been pillaged by rioting villagers on the hunt for a beast. So . . . like usual.
McKenna’s bedroom further down the hallway looked like it had been staged by a Realtor trying to make a sale. So . . . like usual.
Same for Momma J’s master bedroom. Probably because other than the occasional guest, nobody used that room.
But once Bobbi and Oliver married, McKenna assumed they’d settle into that room since it was by far the largest. And also because from the time she was ten years old, Bobbi had been stating at least once a month how she wanted to live in this house forever.
Which is why McKenna had budgeted hardcore and worked her fingers to the bone hoarding every penny she made the past dozen years to keep this white storybook house tucked on the end of a quiet cul-de-sac within their possession.
Hadn’t always been the simplest task, especially while paying for all of Bobbi’s extracurriculars, then supporting her through college and grad school.
But all McKenna’s efforts had been worth it.
She now hummed with excitement knowing she could leave Bobbi this house as a wedding present once she and Oliver got married.
Should help ease the sting about moving away.
Oliver obviously wouldn’t care about McKenna leaving, but Bobbi . . . Well, Bobbi would care.
McKenna closed the front door, locked it, and spun, needing to focus on getting to the hotel for her early-morning flight tomorrow before she got ahead of herself with marriage and houses and future plans.
Shoot. She should’ve watered the potted flowers on her porch steps.
Ah, well. She’d be back in a day or two.
They could survive. Maybe. She picked off a dead bud from the geraniums as movement approached from the shadows.
Her carry-on fumbled to the bottom steps when she recognized the frail, thin figure walking toward her in the early twilight.
“Mr. Sullivan? What are you doing here?”
“More people die in vehicle crashes than plane crashes, McKenna. Did you know that?” He bent to grab the rolled-up morning newspaper that she hadn’t brought inside yet. “Just read the obituaries.”
McKenna tossed the paper by the front door and reached for her carry-on. “I’m a very safe driver.”
“I’d still feel better if I was the one who drove you to the hotel tonight. At least then I’d know you had a chance of making it onto the plane tomorrow before you crashed and blew up. Are you absolutely certain you have to find that ring?”
As if on cue, her phone started playing the song “Sisters” from White Christmas as Bobbi’s name popped up on the screen.
“I am. My sister is counting on me.” Even if her sister had no idea.
McKenna gave Mr. Sullivan’s thin hand another gentle squeeze.
“I need to go. But don’t worry. I’ll be back soon. I promise.”
Side note—probably shouldn’t make promises to anxious bosses either.
“Hey, Bobbi,” McKenna answered, giving an evening walker across the street a quick wave before popping open the trunk to her silver Toyota Prius parked beneath their carport.
“Or should I say Buongiorno, principessa!” McKenna said in her best Roberto Benigni impression from Life Is Beautiful. Or at least the best impression she could do when she was stressed and tired. Mr. Sullivan wasn’t the only one who’d been wringing his hands all weekend.
“I’m so worried,” Bobbi said with a sniffle.
Oh, good grief, couldn’t McKenna call dibs on being the worrywart for once? She forced herself to sound nonchalant. “Worried? Why? Didn’t you make it to Italy okay?”
“I did. But I feel like I shouldn’t be here.”
“Of course you should be there.”
“Not while Oliver’s in the hospital. Not when I’m starting a new job so soon. I just feel like everything’s too unsettled for me to be hanging out across the ocean right now. I feel . . . queasy.”
“It’s the jet lag. Give it a few more days and you’ll feel fine.” Maybe. McKenna had never experienced more than a two-hour jet lag.
“Has Oliver said anything to you?”
“About what?” McKenna slammed the trunk closed.
“I don’t know. Anything. He sounded off last time I talked to him. Like something’s on his mind, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. Why wouldn’t he want to talk about it? You don’t think he’s still thinking about that Germany position, do you?”
“No. I’m . . . I’m sure it’s something else.
But even if he was thinking . . . things.
” McKenna lifted her gaze to the cottonwood tree where a robin had built its nest in the spring.
Why was it so easy for those little birds to learn how to fly away when here McKenna was, at thirty years old, still trying to figure out how to leave the nest?
“It’s not like it would be the end of the world.
You could still make it work. I mean, Oliver would only be gone for three tiny years. And you’re both so very young.”
“Are you nuts? Three years is forever. There’s no way it would work. You know how all my long-distance relationships in the past have turned out.”
She did? “Who have you—oh my word, you’re not talking about the boy you met at band camp, are you? That was back in high school.”
“It was two boys, McKenna. Two. One I met after my freshman year and the other at the camp session before junior year. Neither of them were from Nebraska, but oh how they both swore that distance wouldn’t matter and we could still be boyfriend and girlfriend.
Ha! We didn’t even make it to the end of September before the maybe-we’re-better-off-as-just-friends talk came up. ”
“I thought you said they were dorks. And weren’t you the one who broke things off?”
“They were dorks, so of course I had to break things off. But the lesson still applies, doesn’t it?”
McKenna waved goodbye to Mr. Sullivan even though he was still parked at the curb with no obvious intentions of leaving.
“Oliver’s not a dork.” Actually, Oliver was the very definition of dork, but so was Bobbi in many ways. “You and Oliver are perfect together. Stop worrying about Germany. Just eat some good food and have fun. You’re in Italy!”
Italy. How much would McKenna love to be able to say that someday?
How much would she love to just say she was anywhere but in her hometown in Nebraska?
All the more reason to find that ring.