Nick shrugged. “I saw some perennials sprouting, so thought it would be nice to get things ready here so you guys can plant annuals whenever you want.”
“Nick is such a helpful boy,” Bobby said.
“Yes, wasn’t that nice?” Anna beamed at them as she slid another pancake onto Birdie’s plate. “Here, sweetie, have some more. Oh, I forgot. I left some groceries in the car.” She undid the apron she had tied around her waist. “I’ll be right back.”
Nick stood. “Let me get them for you.”
Anna waved him away. “You eat while your pancakes are still warm. It’s not much.”
“It’s all right. I’ll help her,” Cassie said.
Nick sat down reluctantly, then laughed when Birdie made a silly face at him.
Cassie narrowed her eyes at the scene, then slipped on her shoes and followed her mother outside. “You’re sure about him?”
Anna shot her an apologetic look. “I know you weren’t convinced by my bulb planting encounter with him, so I asked around, and I’ve heard nothing but nice things. I think Bobby is right. He’s just a nice guy who doesn’t have any family nearby.”
Cassie leaned into the trunk and grabbed the paper bags. “If you say so. It’s like Bobby adopted him as her surrogate grandson or something.”
“Bobby’s always felt motherly toward young people without family. When I was a kid, we had people who had nowhere else to go coming over for dinner or staying for the holidays all the time.” She paused and met Cassie’s eye. “He hasn’t done anything untoward to you or Birdie, has he?”
“No.” Cassie ground the toe of her shoe into the pavement. Even she could tell that her animosity toward Nick was excessive, but the alternative was way too scary to contemplate. “I mean, he read to Birdie the other day. For over a half hour. Actually, she really loved it. I haven’t seen her act that happy in a long time.”
“I thought she seemed a lot more comfortable around him today than she normally is around new people,” Anna said. “I think we jumped to the wrong conclusions. So far, all the poor guy has done is help an old lady without being asked or paid, planted bulbs for his dead grandma, and read to a little girl. Really, he seems pretty amazing. And that’s not even mentioning his killer smile.”
“Mom! Being good looking doesn’t disqualify him from being a serial killer.”
Anna scoffed as the sound of Birdie’s laughter filtered out the half open door. “Oh, come on. Would you let someone you suspected of being a serial killer read to your kid? You’re awfully defensive about Nick. Maybe you like him more than you realize, and it scares you.”
The grain of truth in her mother’s glib observation momentarily stunned Cassie, and it took a few seconds for her to choke out a response. “Oh, please, that’s not it at all.”
“Uh huh, that’s what I thought,” Anna laughed.
“Moving on from that wildly inaccurate accusation”—Cassie slammed the trunk with more force than necessary—"I didn’t get the chance to tell you that I dreamt about Henry last night.”
Anna cocked her head and appraised Cassie.
“Don’t look at me like that. I know you think it’s all a bunch of crap.” Cassie grew indignant. “But it meant a lot to me that he might have visited.”
“Visited?” Anna stopped and rested her bags against the car hood. “Really, Cass?”
“Bobby said I should ask him to come to me, so I tried it. I didn’t think it would work, but maybe it did.”
Anna rolled her eyes. “You don’t really believe in all that, do you?”
Cassie tried to shrug away her mother’s cynicism, but it stung. She wanted to believe in this. “I don’t know.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll bite. What did he say?”
“Be happy. Live your life.”
Anna pressed her lips together. “I’m glad if that brought you some comfort, but my theory is that it’s your subconscious telling you that it’s okay for you to have feelings for Nick.”
“Well, I don’t have feelings for Nick, so your theory is junk,” Cassie said with more venom than necessary.
She flinched at the wounded look on her mother’s face and tried a different track. “Didn’t you ever dream about Dad?” Cassie’s father had passed away from cancer ten years earlier, and for all of Anna’s talk about moving on and finding closure, she rarely opened up about that loss.