surroundings.
“We knew you were born in a small town near Billings,” Wyatt said. “But that was all you ever told us. We didn’t know the name of the town or that you still owned a house here.”
“The lawyer pays the taxes. I think he pays to have someone look after it, too. Grampa had it arranged that way for me years and years ago and it’s been happening automatically ever since. But I needed to come back now. I needed to, Wyatt!” Theresa said, suddenly sounding desperate and on the verge of getting upset.
“It’s okay, Gram. We’re just relieved that you’re safe.”
“Safe. I’m safe. I’m a bad person—you don’t even know it—but I’m safe…”
Neily had seen this happen several times the last few days—Theresa drifting off while talking, things creeping into what she was saying that didn’t make sense. In her brief experience Neily had already learned when that happened, talking to the older woman any further was futile. Pressing her only agitated her and nothing concrete or informative could be garnered from that point on.
Her grandson must have known that himself because he didn’t push her.
Like a small child, Theresa moved to Mary Pat’s side then, looping her arm through the nurse’s. “I want to go to bed now. Will you read to me while I fall asleep, Mary Pat?”
The nurse patted Theresa’s arm, tucked her in closer to her bulky side, and said, “I brought the book we started last week.”
“I hope you didn’t read any without me.”
“Not a word,” the nurse assured her.
Wyatt told Mary Pat that he would bring in her suitcase while she was getting his grandmother to bed, then he said to Theresa, “I’ll come up and say goodnight in a few minutes.”
“Yes, in a few minutes,” Theresa echoed before the nurse took her upstairs.
Neily and Wyatt Grayson watched Theresa and her nurse until they were out of sight.
“So,” Theresa’s grandson said then. “Are we all just going to be housemates?”
Neily turned to face him, recalling again how bad she looked and wishing even more, now that they were alone, that she’d somehow miraculously gotten cleaned up in the last few minutes.
“I won’t be staying now that you’re here. I’ll be leaving Theresa to you and Mary Pat,” she told him.
“We’ve at least passed muster that far?” he asked with a wry smile that—as difficult as it was for Neily to believe—made him even more drop-dead handsome.
Before she could answer, he said, “I know that once something like this has happened with a person who can’t take care of themselves, and Human Services has been called in, the situation and the people involved are called into question. I’m not thrilled about it, but we don’t have anything to hide and you’re just doing what you have to. We all want the same thing—what’s best for my grandmother.”
That attitude made Neily’s job much easier and she appreciated that.
“That is all we want,” she confirmed.
“And for now you think it’s best if we stay in Northbridge?”
“Theresa seems to have worked pretty hard to get here.”
“I’ll say. Ordinarily we have trouble convincing her to leave her house in Missoula. And she never leaves home alone. She hasn’t in years. She also hasn’t driven a car in years—I’m surprised she remembered how to do that. Of course, like I said, we still can’t believe she did any of this.”
“But now that she has, she feels strongly about staying here. I’ve conferred with the caseworker in Missoula and the Northbridge doctor who’s examined your grandmother, and we all agree that for the time being it’s probably better not to rock the boat.”
“We don’t have a problem with that. Whatever makes Gram happy, we’ll accommodate.”
“Good.”
“But you won’t be staying?”
“No, but I’ll visit every day until we get this all sorted out.”
“Fair enough. Anything you’d like to ask me now?”
Who Mikayla was and how she and a baby died…
But Neily wasn’t sure if that really pertained to Theresa, so she refrained. “It’s late. You probably want to settle in. And I’m wearing at least an inch of the dust and dirt we cleaned up around here today, so I think everything I need to discuss with you can wait.”
“We,” he repeated. “I saw that big group of people coming out as Mary Pat and I were coming in—were they part of that cleanup?”
“They’re people who live around here. They all came in today to help out.”
“Can I pay them?” Wyatt asked.
“That’s not how things like this are done in Northbridge—when there’s a need, people lend a hand to help out.”
“That’s really nice,” he said with a surprised arch of those eyebrows again.
“It is nice,” she agreed.
Then she caught herself staring too intently at him and decided it really was time to leave.
“I’ll just get my overnight bag from the den,” she said, clueless as to why her voice had suddenly gone quiet.
“I don’t have any idea what the layout of this place is, but it looks pretty large from outside. Couldn’t you have taken a bedroom upstairs?”
“There are five bedrooms upstairs, so, yes, I could have. But I couldn’t take the chance that Theresa might slip out so I slept downstairs. With one eye open most of the time,” she added with a weary laugh.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized again. “I really would have gotten here before if I could have.”
“It’s all right. You’re here now and after a shower, my own bed will feel that much better tonight.”
And why did it seem so risqué to be talking about her bed to this man?
Once again, Neily had no answer for what was going on with her except maybe that she was really tired. Maybe that caused some kind of weird vulnerability to hunks from out of town.
She gave him her business card, and he gave her his cell-phone number. As they left the living room and crossed the entry to the den, she offered a brief summary of the layout of the house.
Then she grabbed her overnight bag from the den and took it with her to the front door.
“I would have been able to rest better tonight even here,” she said, “because today I had our local contractor put keyed dead bolts on the front
