“Thelma and Louise!” I call out as I drive through the yard and over the sidewalk, hit the curb, and then plop down on the street.
“Who are they?”
“Female road trip movie. Excellent. Sadly, we don’t have Brad Pitt with us—oh, and don’t worry, we won’t drive off a cliff.”
“Joke. Funny.” She rolls down her window and looks up at the stars. “I woke up this morning and forgot Mama was gone. I thought everything was the same; then I remembered it wasn’t. Can we sing Dolly in the morning like she used to do when I had breakfast? Her singing—” Her voice stops, and I reach out and take her hand.
I swallow thickly. “You bet.”
She takes a deep breath. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“You’re just happy Grandpa isn’t your guardian.”
“He smells like peppermint and farts a lot.”
“And he lives in Phoenix,” I add.
She nods. “Everything will be fine. We’re different flowers from the same garden, but we’re perfect together. Mama always said so.”
Mama did say that, not necessarily because of Sabine’s diagnosis but because we’re opposites in personality and have a fourteen-year age difference between us. She had me at twenty-six and tried for years to have another baby, gave up, and then got pregnant at forty. Then my dad had a massive heart attack while mowing the lawn.
It’s just been me and Mama and Sabine for fifteen years, the Mighty Morgan Girls, and I try to cling to that thought, to be strong . . . like Mama.
She’s going to be a lot to live up to.
We’re different flowers from the same garden, but we’re perfect together.
My throat tightens with grief, with fear that I’m not enough, at the trust I heard in Sabine’s words . . .
We’re going to be okay.
Maybe if I keep saying it, it will be true.
Chapter 4
RONAN
My dreams wake me up, twisted and dark, and my hands clench the sheets as images flit through my head: a stormy night, lightning hitting the road, my Tahoe slamming into a bridge and then rolling down the embankment, Whitney’s scream piercing my ears—then her in my arms. She begged me to help her, to let her live, and I could do nothing as the light went out of her eyes. The memory crawls over me, and I sit up and scrub my face with hands that shake.
There haven’t been any thunderstorms here lately, yet something brought that dream on . . .
My dog, possibly an Irish wolfhound, puts his head on my shoulder, disrupting my thoughts. He showed up at the back door the day I moved in, mangy, skinny, and ugly, with no collar. I figure someone dumped him in the nice neighborhood. Or maybe he just found me. I give him a pet. “Morning, Dog.” He licks my hand, then rolls back over and puts his head on the pillow next to mine.
After I shower, my phone rings—Lois asking if I want to have breakfast at Waffle House and suggesting I focus on a rushing game against Wayne Prep next week. I hum a noncommittal reply, decline breakfast, and get off the phone.
Later, after I’ve gotten my workout clothes on and had a cup of coffee, another booster calls and invites me to First Baptist. “It’s the biggest church in town,” he tells me, “and oh, by the way, my daughter is just lovely and would love to meet you.”
My jaw grinds. I bet she would. The women are coming out of the woodwork to lock me down.
The people love me, but they’re meaner than a big-ass linebacker making a tackle when it comes to getting me a girlfriend.
Dog bumps into me, nearly knocking me down as he dashes to the french doors and barks. I hush him and follow his gaze out to the pool and see a naked cat standing on a chaise lounge. The thing is screeching like a banshee. Dog growls, and I push him back and go outside. The cat sashays over to me, rubbing in between my legs. Then it darts for the french doors to glare at Dog through the glass. Brave little bastard. I snatch him up by the scruff of his wrinkled pink skin—weird as hell—and read his fancy collar.
“Hello, Sparky,” I say in a dark tone.
I hold him in the crook of my arm, and he squirms to get away as I head to the pool house for a plastic container. I could call Nova—her cell was on the collar—but by the time she gets here, he might run.
I place the cat in the bin, gently, leaving the top vented. He doesn’t go in easy and scratches my arm, making blood bloom in a long line. “You’re a little shit,” I tell him as I frown at the memory of her, the only person to give me lip since I arrived in Blue Belle. Pompous jerk. Indeed. Even when I was young and brash, no one dared call me arrogant.