“You’re going to start leaving marks.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and walked her toward the porch. “Imagine me trying to explain that.”
“You don’t have to walk me in. You make me feel ancient.”
“Wouldn’t matter if you were twenty-seven or seventy-seven, I’d still walk you in.”
At Gram’s door, Trace took her keys and unlocked the house, then stepped aside as Pearl entered and turned on the living room light.
“I’ve been thinking,” she began.
“Oh, man,” he said with dramatic dread. “Thought I told you to stop doing that.”
Trace wandered into the kitchen, where he checked the stove burners and the ovens, things Pearl sometimes left on absentmindedly.
“Why don’t you move George in with me?” She set her purse down on a side table. “I’m not doing anything I couldn’t put aside while you finish the café. Steady work ought to start pouring in once everyone in town sees what you’ve done with that place, which will give you the money to put him in a facility—at least during the day.”
“This move has been hard enough on him. I don’t want to move him again.” At the back door, he turned the dead bolt and closed the blinds, then returned to the living room. “He’s just beginning to settle into a routine and seems to be doing pretty well on his own between the time you leave and either Zane or me get him in the evening. I get by to check on him in the afternoon.”
At the wide picture windows, he drew the drapes, then checked the space heater at his feet, another device Pearl often forgot to turn off.
“Well, then, what if we trade houses?” Gram suggested. “I’ll move into your house, and you move in here. Then you don’t have to move him.”
Trace grinned, hugged Pearl, then kissed her foreh
ead and pulled back to look at her. “I really appreciate the offer, Gram, but Dad and I live in a dump, and I wouldn’t let you live there if you paid me. Besides, you already raised him once, and you’re doing a lot as it is. Let Zane and me pick up some slack now.”
“You’ve already given up too much of your life for him—”
“Ah-ah,” he cut her off. “We’re not talking about that, remember? Lock the door after me.” He turned and opened the door to the night, but the thought of where he was headed and what he still needed to do tonight made him feel heavy. Hopefully he’d get lost in his work and Avery would slip from his mind for a while, giving him some relief.
“How’s the café coming?” Gram asked.
He turned and met his grandmother’s gaze. “It’s getting there. Still have the roof and the appliances, lots of finish work.”
“Are you going to have it done for Avery’s grand opening? It’s getting close.”
“Hell yes. I won’t miss that deadline.” If he did, he may as well kiss future work and all the recommendations he’d cultivated from this job good-bye. To say nothing of disappointing Avery, which would kill him.
“Did you hear that Shiloh is pregnant?”
Trace shook his head. “I don’t even know who that is.”
“A friend of Delaney’s.”
“For a girl who left town under a cloud of suspicion and returned kicking and screaming, she sure has developed a lot of friends around this place.”
“Sort of like her aunt.”
“Sure thing.” Phoebe Hart not only knew everyone in town, she knew everyone’s entire family tree.
“Well, Shiloh and her husband are trying to get financing for a room addition on their little house on Picket Street before the baby comes. Delaney recommended you for the job.”
Trace lifted a brow. “And you know this how?”
“Phoebe.”
He grinned. “Of course.”
“She also told me that Finley’s Market is planning to expand. You might want to stop in and talk to Caleb.”