Chapter One #2
It was only thanks to the 92-year-old that Cheyenne knew as much about some of the other hospital patients as she did. The woman was a regular clearinghouse of information.
The elevator settled to a smooth stop. “I hope Mewington hasn’t been hit by a car or something,” she admitted.
She rolled Mrs. Gentry out of the elevator and turned toward the main entrance of the hospital.
“He was supposedly spotted in town a few days ago—” an event that had sent her father off on an hours-long cat hunt “—but if something bad happens to him, it’ll break my dad’s heart. ”
And despite what some people thought about her father, Cheyenne knew he did have a heart. There were plenty of times in her life that his actions had made her want to cringe, but he was her dad, and she loved him.
She steered off to the side slightly as they approached the hospital entrance while she waited for the doorway to clear of a large family bearing balloons and a teddy bear the size of a full-grown adult.
“Isn’t that precious.” Mrs. Gentry fiddled with the bright red cast that surrounded her right wrist while the multiple generations of the family in front of them slowly progressed.
“Not that the mama there looks like this is her first rodeo,” she added in her typically unsubtle tone.
“She could be my Theresa’s age, and she is a grandma twice over.
” She suddenly pointed her finger at Cheyenne, looking sage.
“Don’t let ’em ever tell you you’re too old for havin’ babies,” she said. “Babies’ll keep you young.”
Cheyenne nearly choked. “I’m twenty-six, Mrs. Gentry. I think I have a few good years left in me to start a family.”
Mrs. Gentry raised a sparse eyebrow. “You suddenly have new prospects in that direction, do you?”
Cheyenne made a face. The elderly woman knew that Cheyenne hadn’t dated anyone since Brad because they’d talked about it.
A person had to talk about something when wiling away time at Sandy’s Beauty Corner.
“Hardly,” she admitted and pushed the chair forward again through the now-vacated doorway.
The vocation of being Dr. Bradley Trent’s wife was no longer an option since she’d broken things off with him in June.
Which left Cheyenne, as usual, without any real life plan at all.
So, she filled her days with working out and volunteering. That’s what a person did when they were qualified for nothing and too afraid to try something new for fear of failing. She knew people thought her lifestyle was aimless. But better they believed it was her choice than her only option.
“Right now, the only prospect I care about is becoming an aunt when my sister’s baby arrives.” Avery was six months along and if anyone could handle being a single mother, it was Cheyenne’s middle sister.
Mrs. Gentry pulled a thin tabloid magazine from the pouch affixed to the side of her chair to shade her eyes when they got out in the sun.
“Back when I was young and all of Emerald Ridge was one big ranch after another, it’d be cooling off more by now.
Now we’ve got all this concrete keeping it hot all the way into September. ”
“It’s worse in Dallas,” Cheyenne said, though she could feel perspiration already popping out on her forehead. She was glad that Sandy’s was only a block away.
“What’s the weather going to be like at your friend’s wedding? It’s hurricane season there, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am. But she and her fiancé have their heart set on this resort called Solara Cove, and they didn’t want to wait another year to get married. So the two of them took what was available.” She shrugged and started angling toward the corner.
“Too bad you don’t have a prospect,” Mrs. Gentry said. “Would serve your old boyfriend right if you went to that wedding with a new hottie on your arm. Someone to protect you when the hurricane hits.”
Cheyenne wasn’t about to admit that she’d had a few thoughts along that line herself. “Short of hiring a paid escort to save face, I guess I’ll have to survive.”
“That the same thing as a gigolo?” Mrs. Gentry sniffed, fully expressing what she thought of that notion. “You’re a pretty girl. All you need to do is show a little interest and you’ll have men lining up to volunteer their services.”
Her eldest sister, Maisey, kept telling her that, too, but Cheyenne remained unconvinced.
Her luck in the men department was on a par with her educational success.
Mediocre at best. If she’d been a better student, the notion of a nursing career that had burgeoned since she’d begun hospital volunteering wouldn’t feel so unattainable.
“The chances of a hurricane hitting are a lot better.”
“I’ve weathered a hurricane or two,” Mrs. Gentry told her. “I think July is the perfect month for weddings.”
July was the seventh month of the year—so it hadn’t even been in contention for Mindy. “Let me guess. You married Mr. Gentry in July?”
“I did, indeed.” Mrs. Gentry fanned herself with the magazine before shading her eyes once more. “Spent sixty years with him before the man upstairs took him home. Wilson drove me clean up the wall, but I wouldn’t have had him any other way.”
Cheyenne’s mother had told her something similar before she’d died. That Clemons wasn’t an easy man, but she wouldn’t have changed him.
“Sixty years is quite an accomplishment.”