loved his drawl, his upbeat personality, but mostly, she loved their conversations that often spanned hours as she waited for her mother to finish her therapy and he wiled away early mornings and afternoons in his recuperation from chemotherapy. He’d wheel himself along the long corridor connecting the cancer center to the nursing home specifically to find her.
There was always something going on in his private wing as laughter spilled out into the hallways and Liberace’s music filtered softly between the chatter.
Colorful people strolled in and out during visiting hours, and he never lacked for dozens and dozens of flower deliveries, which he always donated to the other patients’ rooms.
When he’d found out she worked at the connecting coffee shop, he’d coaxed her—with his charming wit—into bringing him coffee every morning by telling her the coffee in-house tasted like piss-water.
From that day on, Cat brought him his favorite cinnamon latte each morning before she stopped to see her mother and head off to work.
Cat chuckled every time she recalled the exchange they’d had several months ago when he’d come to Oakdale and exactly five visits into their early morning, caffeine-laced affair.
“I’m gay, just so you know.” He made mention of it like he was commenting on the weather, leaning over the edge of his wheelchair, his expensive silk pajamas pressed and crisp.
She’d fought one of many grins he inspired. His honesty was refreshing, if not unnecessary. “I’m not. Just so you know.”
He gave the newspaper he held a sharp snap before opening it and said, “Just keepin’ you informed. I didn’t want you to think our chats and my request to have you personally make my coffee had anything to do with unbridled lust or the desire to sweep you off your feet. I just like the way you make the swirls in my whipped cream look like puffy clouds of white perfection. There’ll be no nursing-home affair here. So don’t you go fallin’ in love with me, hear?”
Cat had dramatically sighed, throwing a hand over her forehead while fighting a fit of laughter. “Thank goodness. I was gettin’ worried I’d have to lose a few pounds just so you could do the sweeping,” she’d joked as she rubbed her belly.
Landon had cocked his sandy brown head full of hair, which gleamed under the bright lights of the rec room, and asked, “Are you disappointed?”
“That I don’t have to lose a few pounds?”
“That I’m gay.”
“Are you disappointed I’m not?”
“Not even a little.”
“Ditto. So, a game of checkers?”
Since that day, they’d found a contentment with one another, a morning banter Cat looked forward to, so much so that she woke with a smile of anticipation, knowing Landon would be in the rec room each morning while her mother was in therapy. He’d sit at the same table in the corner by the big picture window, and smile that same engaging smile.
More importantly, their mornings together reminded her decent people still existed. And Landon was surely a front-runner in that category.
Landon’s specialty was kindness, and his genuine love of people. He’d sometimes sit for hours, chatting with the other patients or just watching people pass by the window on their way to some part of the facility. Didn’t matter what walk of life you came from, Landon wanted to know you.
He listened to the family members of the patients—complete strangers. Really listened, to everyone from tired mothers visiting sick relatives, who rocked crying babies in strollers, and whose only form of adult conversation all day might be the words they had with him, right down to Hans, the janitor who was earnestly trying to learn to speak English. Landon spent two hours with Hans every week, tutoring him so he could pass his citizenship test.
Landon’s benevolence at Oakdale was legend.
He donated not only large amounts of money to the chemotherapy wing, but also an extravagant amount of his time reading to the patients, playing the piano, strolling with them, pushing their wheelchairs when he’d grown strong enough and sharing meals with them.
Rumor also had it, he was filthy rich and just a little eclectic—or off his rocker if you listened to some of the meaner gossip at Oakdale. Judging by his clothes and Sanjeev, the man he called his “faithful friend in service,” who brought Landon’s visitors to see him in a shiny limousine each day, money wasn’t a hurdle Landon had to jump.
But Cat never paid any attention to the rumors swirling around Landon—his soul was warm and deeper than the deepest well. His gobs of money were unimportant to her.
Money wasn’t everything. Though today, it was something. It was something she needed buckets of if she hoped to continue to give her mother the best care in the state of Georgia.
“Move it on over, lady,” he teased, dragging her back to her current predicament with a swish of a finger at the place beside her on the bench.
Cat slid an inch or so on the cool stone, leaving the long curtain of her hair to hide the profile of her tearstained face. “So how’re you feelin’, Landon Wells? Stronger these days, I’d suppose from the looks of that handsome face of yours.”
He did look stronger, fuller in the face, and the color in his cheeks had returned.
Landon lifted his face to the sunshine and sighed. “I feel good, Kit-Cat. Life’s good. So good. How you feelin’? How’s your mama?”
About to be put out on the street? “She’s mending. Seems like it takes such a long time with her diabetes in the mix, but you know Mama. She’s a real trooper. So what’re you doin’ back here? I thought you were sprung last week?”
They’d thrown him a big party when he finished his last dose of chemo—Cat had blown up balloons and made a cake with the help of the staff and patients.
“Just a quick checkup to be sure all my parts are in workin’ order.”
She wrapped her arm around him and gave him a squeeze. “I never doubted we couldn’t get rid o’ the likes a you, Mr. Wells. I’m so glad you’re stickin’ around.”
“So, I stopped by the coffee shop to get some of my Kit-Cat love, but you weren’t there, and that Arlo was cowering in the corner while a big, gorgeous man gave him what for. Somethin’ about you being fired. What gives?” he asked.
A gorgeous man yelling at Arlo? Huh.
Landon nudged her shoulder when she remained silent, the clean scent of his cologne drifting to her nose on the warm air. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She swallowed hard, so angry with herself. “Nope.”
The crisp material of his suit rustled against his skin. Landon always wore suits and ascots in every color of the rainbow—even on the hottest of Atlanta days. “Surely, you don’t think I’d leave a damsel in distress, do you? It’s obvious you’ve been cryin’, Cat and I can’t have my favorite barista cryin’—so out with it.”
“I’m not your barista anymore.”
“Oh?”
