Rumor(35)
She knocked her fist against her skull, making Josh smile.
“Well, I’m hoping to convince her to let me stay around now.”
Carolyn searched his eyes for what felt like an eternity. “Do you love her, Josh? I mean really love her, not the way Isaac loved her.”
His stomach clenched. “How did Isaac love her?”
“As an afterthought.” Her steady, open gaze speared Josh’s heart. “Grace is a beautiful soul. She deserves to be treasured, not abandoned.”
“I agree,” he said. “And, yes, Carolyn, I really love her.”
Grace pulled up to Safe Haven, and her headlights shone on the trunk of Josh’s white Lexus sedan. She sat there, car running, frown deepening, unable to wrap her mind around his presence here. Her thoughts immediately darted to the negative—that there must have been a problem with her mother and Tammy hadn’t been able to get hold of her, so they’d called Josh.
She was out of the car and halfway to the door before common sense returned, and she realized that didn’t make any sense.
On the way up the walk, she glanced into the great room, the lights inside creating a fish bowl effect in the dark night. She saw Josh’s blond head first, then pushed up on her tiptoes and found her mother sitting at a table with him. And she was smiling.
Smiling.
Grace hadn’t seen her mother smile in months.
With her heart tripping over itself, she hurried to the door, gave a cursory knock, and walked in. Tammy met her in the foyer.
“Is everything okay?” Grace asked.
“It’s great. I’m so glad you could come. She’s having a wonderful day. Just like her old self. And she’s really enjoying Josh’s company.”
Grace’s gaze snapped back to Tammy from the direction of the great room. “She knows him?”
“Recognized him the minute he walked in,” Tammy said, beaming.
Grace pulled in a sharp breath and tented her fingers over her nose and mouth. Hope and happiness over the small change made her chest feel full and tight.
“He’s a positive trigger,” Tammy said. “Maybe that’s what she needed to get out of the funk she went through after Betty died.”
Josh had been a positive trigger in Grace’s life too.
“How long has he been here?” she asked.
Tammy glanced at her watch. “About an hour.”
“And she’s been lucid this whole time?”
“The whole time. They’ve been chattering like little girls,” she teased. “But I can tell she’s getting tired. Don’t be surprised if she slips a little.”
Grace nodded, squeezed Tammy’s arm in gratitude, and walked into the great room, her chest fizzing with anticipation. Josh sat with his back toward the doorway, but her mother looked over as she came in. Grace stopped in her tracks, shoulders tight, breath suspended.
Recognition sparked in her mother’s eyes, and her face brightened into a smile. “Gracie, you made it.”
Gracie. She hadn’t heard her mother say her name for so long, the word felt like a sweet stroke of her hand. Loss and love mixed, wrapping around Grace’s heart and freezing her in place.
“Oh, my, don’t you look beautiful?” Carolyn said. “What a pretty little dress. Come help with this project Josh brought. Look.”
She’d changed from her seductive, revealing work dress into one of her everyday simple knee-length flowy sheaths for the visit, but her mother’s mind was back on her project, lifting the black outline of a butterfly, its body and wings striped in colored tissue paper.
Josh stood and started toward her but paused a few feet away, his expression concerned. “Are you…okay? You look… Shit, are you mad?”
“Mad?” She didn’t understand the question.
“That I came to see her without telling you?” He took another step closer. “You were so busy, and I’ve gone as far as I can with the studio until the flooring comes in. I didn’t think you’d have time to get over to see your mom, so…”
A rough laugh bubbled from her chest. “So you came? And you brought butterflies?”
His brows pulled. His expression shifted from worried to defensive as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “She likes butterflies.”
“I know.” She laughed the words, but they sounded as mystified as she felt. “I guess I’m just…I don’t know…shocked. You come to visit her with time you don’t have, while here doing a favor for a friend, who also happens to be her own ex-son-in-law. An ex-son-in-law who has never so much as called her since she’s been here. Would never even consider visiting her here. And who sure as hell never had any clue she likes butterflies.”