LITMIR.BIZ

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Where has it gotten you? You called Ally, she came—where’s the crime?”

      “The crime is if she turns around and goes back to California without taking care of her mother.”

      Again Bubby looked at Nina. “He wants this one to be so perfect.”

      “He does seem to want her to live up to something, doesn’t he?”

      “He wants her to be as good as she looks.”

      “I just want her to do what she needs to do. For Estelle,” Jake insisted.

      “Well, she did—how does that make you think of her?” Bubby challenged.

      “What did she do?”

      “Between the both of us we got Estelle to say she would have your tests.” The victory was all Bubby’s now.

      “You got Estelle to agree?”

      “We did. She won’t see her own physician, though. She likes you—that’s what Ally used to make her say she would.”

      “I’ll get right on it, then,” Jake said.

      “And say some sorries to that girl, Jacob,” Bubby ordered. “You’re too hard on her.”

      “I have not been too hard on her,” he defended himself. “I’ve been as hard as I needed to be to open her eyes. Why? Did she complain to you?”

      “No, but I can tell from her attitude. Enough, already! She’s scared enough. This is bad, don’t make it worse.”

      Bubby stood, picked up the pile of dirty dishes that Nina had stacked and headed for the kitchen.

      But while the elderly woman may have seen the subject of Ally Rogers as closed, Jake had one more question.

      “Do you know what Estelle blames Ally for?”

      Bubby stopped short to look at him. “Blame? What’s to blame?”

      “I don’t know. Last night Ally said Estelle blames her for something, but she wouldn’t say what.”

      “I don’t know about that. I just know this—tonight is the night to celebrate the end of the week, to reflect, and then to usher in the start of a new week. A new week brings a new chance to do right. Start the new week by being nicer to that girl, Jacob. You’ll get further.” Then Bubby smiled slyly at him. “And who knows? Maybe you could end up with that family of your own after all.”

      Bubby disappeared into the kitchen and Jake turned his focus to his old friend, thinking Nina would be on his side and understand that there was nothing personal going on between himself and Ally Rogers.

      But Nina seemed to agree with her grandmother, because she was barely hiding a knowing smile of her own.

      The knock on Ally’s apartment door at nine on Friday night startled her.

      Her initial, panicked thought was that her mother had gotten out of the house without the alarm going off.

      But then it occurred to her that if Estelle got out of the house, the last place she was likely to come was here.

      She peeked out the curtain over the window that allowed her a view of the outside landing. And then the late visit made sense—Jake Fox again. He had said he would check in with her today.

      Better late than never. Not that she cared.

      “I wondered who would know to come back here,” she said in greeting when she opened the door.

      “The house was all dark so I figured Estelle had gone to bed early again. I took the chance that you’d still be up and came around,” he explained amiably.

      In fact, nothing about Jake’s demeanor said he was on the offensive tonight. He actually seemed relaxed—more even than when he’d perched on the arm of her sofa the night before.

      Ally couldn’t help being suspicious of it, though. Even as she found herself unwillingly attracted to it.

      “Come in,” she invited.

      “Thanks.”

      She couldn’t help sneaking a glance at him over her shoulder as she closed the door behind him. He looked great. Whatever had occupied him earlier in the evening must have begun immediately after work because he was dressed much the way he had been on Thursday—casual cocoa-colored twill slacks and a pale yellow dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The only thing missing was a tie. Plus, there was the slight shadow of beard darkening his face, but it only added an appealingly masculine scruffiness that Ally didn’t want to like as much as she did.

      “I talked to Bubby,” he announced as soon as Ally turned to face him.

      “She brought lunch over and stayed most of the afternoon—it was really nice of her,” Ally informed him.

      “And she said you two finally got your mother to agree to let me order tests.”

      “It took some work but, yes, we did. Mother won’t have a full physical, but she said she’d let you do what you want. I’ve reminded her about a million times since then that that was what she’d said she would do so she wouldn’t forget.”

      “How did that go?”

      “She got annoyed and irritated with me, but as of when she went to bed, she was still saying she’d go through with it.”

      “Great! I made some calls, pulled some strings, and even though tomorrow is Saturday, I’ve arranged for her to have a brain scan and blood work at the hospital. The labs will tell us if anything systemic is going on, the brain scan will let us know if she’s suffered a stroke—”

      “A stroke? That’s the first you’ve said anything about that.” Why was it that every time she talked to this guy, things seemed to get worse?

      He sighed. “You’re right. I’m getting ahead of myself. A stroke is another possibility, yes,” he said. “She could have had one in the part of her brain that affects memory, and we could be seeing the damage from that. Or there could be a small aneurysm that’s bleeding into that portion of her brain—”

      Worse and worse…

      “That’s why we need the scan, to rule out these other things. If there’s no evidence of a stroke or an aneurysm, and nothing systemic to explain what’s going on with her, then we move to the second stage and I’ll do cognitive tests for Alzheimer’s.”

      Just when Ally thought she might be getting a grip on what she could be dealing with, he added to the list of scary possibilities and made her feel overwhelmed again.

      There was a tiny two-chair kitchen set against the wall near the door. Ally pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, not caring any longer if it was rude to sit when she hadn’t asked him to.

      Jake didn’t wait to be invited to join her. He just did, pulling the other chair from the opposite side of the drop-leaf table to the front of it so he was closer to her when he sat down. Close enough for her to catch a whiff of an outdoorsy cologne.

       “I know, I’m the bearer of bad news,” he said as if he’d read her mind. “It’s not a role I like.”

      Had that contributed to his harshness of before?

      She expected him to talk more about the tests and what they could reveal and how bad it could all be, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “You and I haven’t had a wonderful start, and I think I owe you an apology.”

      Ally stared at him, trying to figure out if she’d missed something.

      “Bubby says I’ve been too hard on you,” he added.

      “I didn’t say anything like that to her,” Ally defended herself.

      “I know. She said she could just tell. But she’s right, I have been a little rough on you. Partly because I

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