Chapter 19
GEMMA
“Meow.”
Looking down, I find Janet staring up at me, her topaz yellow gaze filled with confusion and concern because she’s watching the same thing I am.
Reese wrestling Riggs’s wheelchair out of the trunk of her car while he throws open his car door and begins to position himself for transfer.
Reaching down, he wraps his hand around his knee and works his lower legs free from the car while he pivots in his seat.
He hasn’t looked at me since they pulled up.
As a matter of fact, the second he realized who he was looking at, Riggs has been looking at everything but me.
Remembering our brief, emotionally charged conversation in the hospital the night before his surgery—the one that for some unexplained reason, prompted me to tell Reese that Riggs can stay here while he recovers—I feel my chest tighten.
“I know.” Reaching down, I stroke the top of Janet’s head. “But it’s only temporary. And with me being down a job, this is our best chance at saving the house.”
Janet flicks me a quick, bitch, lie to yourself, just don’t lie to me, sort of look before she goes back to watching Riggs and Reese grapple with his wheelchair with wary interest.
“Gemma, just look at you,” Connie Wheeler says as she hurries up the walk—undoubtedly hoping to steal a few moments to talk about what’s happening before her son is within earshot. “When did you grow up?”
Right after everyone I loved abandoned me.
Because it would undoubtedly hurt her feelings, I don’t say it out loud. “I don’t know, Mrs. Wheeler—it must’ve happened while I wasn’t looking.”
Amused by my answer, she returns my smile while she mounts the porch steps. “And so pretty…” Stopping in front of me, she shakes her head. “You look just like Sandy.”
My mother was the undefeated queen of Barrett High in her heyday—Homecoming and prom queen, all four years.
Head cheerleader. Student body president.
By all accounts she was friendly and bubbly.
Kind to everyone, no matter what side of the river you happened to live on.
She lived a charmed life until she got pregnant with Beck and married our father, right out of high school.
That’s when the charm ran out.
“I think you’re the only one around here who still calls her Sandy,” I tell her.
Once my mother left our father and moved back to Clearwater, she became Saundra.
A small measure to distance herself from the string of mistakes she made that ended with two kids and a failed marriage.
She kept the last name Pierce because it tied her to her children but she left Sandy—the naive, idealistic girl who married a budding alcoholic, believing her love would be enough to save him—behind.
“Well…” Connie gives me a smug smile. “She’ll always be Sandy to me,” she says ,while behind her, Reese and Riggs argue quietly. Reese is trying to help him into his wheelchair and Riggs isn’t having it. “How is she?”
“She’s good.” It’s not a lie, exactly. Even though I haven’t spoken to her in well over a year, I’m sure my mother is doing just fine.
She lives on a gorgeous, ten acre estate that is cared for by a full staff while she flits around the globe, funded by a bottomless trust fund.
“She’s on her annual spring/summer European tour but I’m sure she’ll be sorry she missed you.
” The only reason I know where my mother is, is because she called and left me a message a few weeks ago.
Gemma, I know you’re not happy with me, right now, but I’d love to spend some time with you this summer.
I’m leaving for Paris in a few days—come with me.
We can drink coffee on the patio of that little cafe you like—the one by the Louvre.
We can even have dinner at that Viking tavern you were obsessed with, growing up. I just… miss you. I miss my daughter.
Behind her, Riggs, finally fed up with Reese’s hovering shouts, Goddamnit, Reese—I didn’t come fifteen hundred miles to let some doctor cut me open and graft a fucking computer to my spine so I can keep letting people do shit for me.
Looking away from Connie, I watch while Reese finally decides to back off.
Holding the wheelchair steady, she watches and waits while a set of huge hands extend out of the top of the open car door.
Wrapping one around the door itself, Riggs plants the other on the roof of the car, using his upper body strength to pull himself out of the car.
Standing up straight and even bigger than I remember, he sends me a quick, guarded look over the top of the door before he moves.
His unsteady legs moving slowly, he fights to keep them untangled while he forces them to do his bidding.
Taking a few awkward, shuffling steps forward, Riggs pivots before lowering himself into his chair.
Reaching into the car again, he drags an olive drab canvas duffle across the seat and piles it onto his lap before slamming the car door closed.
When it becomes obvious to her what is happening—that Riggs has every intention of joining us on the porch—Janet makes a low warning sound in the back of her throat.
She barely likes me, but she loathes men.
The only men she’s ever tolerated were Dent and Colt Montgomery.
Dent because I think she recognized he was sick and Colt because he lives across the street and will occasionally leave an open can of wet food on his front porch for her to find.
Abandoning me to face Riggs on my own, Janet bolts through the open front door and into the house.
Startled by my cat’s growl, followed by her quick departure, Connie’s wide gaze dips to Janet’s retreating tail for a moment before it bounces back up to mine.
Behind her, Riggs wheels himself up the front walk, a subdued looking Reese trailing behind him.
“I’m so grateful to you for agreeing to let Riggs stay. I know?—”
“Like Reese said,” I say, cutting her off before she can finish.
I’m not exactly sure what she thinks she knows but it doesn’t really matter because whatever it is, she doesn’t know the half of it.
“I still have the equipment and my certification—it’d be silly to let them go to waste, especially considering I’m down a job. ”
“Well,” The look Riggs’s mother is giving me says she knows more than I’d like to believe. “I appreciate you opening your home to my son, just the same.”
From inside the house, I can hear my own recorded voice calling out to me.
No
No
No
Angry… man… go
When she hears it, Connie’s eyes go wide again. “Is that?—”
“Is that her giant, talking cat throwing a hissy fit? Yes.” Reese says, coming up the porch steps. “Yes it is. She called me a rude bitch the last time I was here.”
No
No
No
Angry… man… go
I’ve been second-guessing my decision to let Riggs stay here, ever since I made it. Right now, I’m sure this is a horrible idea.
“She can be temperamental,” I concede with a contrite smile while Riggs wheels himself up the shallow slope of the wheelchair ramp. “But it’ll be fine. Riggs can give her a few tubes of cat crack and he’ll be her new best friend.”
Connie and Reese both give me a nervous smile while inside the house, Janet keeps up her protest chant.
No
No
No
Angry… man… go
“I’m assuming the angry man is me,” Riggs says, wheeling himself toward me, across the front porch, his tone saying it all—he doesn’t want to be here.
I’d even go so far as to say that neither Reese or his mother saw fit to tell Riggs where they were taking him until it was too late for him to jump out of the car.
No
No
No
Angry… man… go
“Well, I don’t see another angry man here,” I shoot back with a shrug.
“So you must be the one.” Barely letting my gaze drift over him, I jam an imaginary fist down my throat, mentally stuffing my panic over suddenly being so close to him again after all these years, back into its box before I firmly slam the lid shut.
Riggs Wheeler is staying here.
It’s going to be my responsibility to look after him while he recovers from surgery.
And it is the last thing either of us wants.