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Neil leaned close to Isobel. “Aunt Iz?”
“Only my family uses that nickname, so don’t get any ideas.”
He inhaled the honeysuckle scent surrounding her and right away noticed her change of clothes to jeans and a powder-blue T-shirt with a sleeping cat on the front. Printed under the white feline, the print said Don’t wake me unless there’s an emergency.
When she spied him reading her T-shirt, she explained, “I always keep a duffel bag in my car with a change. It comes in handy.” Monitoring what her niece and nephew were doing, she warned gently, “Don’t pull on Grandpa’s arm.”
“I smell pizza,” the little boy said and came over to stand in front of Neil. “Who are you?”
Neil hadn’t been around children much, but he appreciated forthrightness in anyone. He crouched down to the little boy’s level, pizza boxes and all. “I’m Neil Kane. I’m working at the hospital right now with your aunt, and I brought supper.”
The supper part of the explanation intrigued Isobel’s nephew most. “Mom only lets us order pizza one time a week.” He held up his index finger and stared at the boxes with longing. “I like pepperoni. Did you bring pepperoni?”
Neil laughed and stood. “Yes, I did. Your grandfather said that was your favorite.”
“Can we eat now?” the boy pushed.
Isobel ruffled her nephew’s hair. “Why don’t you tell Mr. Kane your name first.”
“My name is Johnny, after Grandpa.” He pointed to his sister. “And her name is Meg. Now can we eat?”
“You get the napkins. I’ll get the silverware. Neil, can you set those on the table?”
Isobel was a manager, no doubt about that.
After they were all seated at the table and Isobel’s father had rolled his pizza so he could eat it one-handed, she asked him, “How did physical therapy go today?”
“They’re trying to turn me into a muscle man. I just want to be able to use my arm again.”
“You’re doing exercises with repetitions now?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Isobel’s dad studied his grandchildren happily munching their pizza and then turned to Isobel and Neil. “This was a good idea, Iz.”
“It was Neil’s,” she admitted, looking up at him, a slight flush on her cheeks.
Was she feeling the heat, too? Had she been fantasizing about a kiss between them? Maybe more?
As if maybe, just maybe, the same thoughts were running through her mind, she broke eye contact and concentrated on cutting her pizza into little pieces.
“Do you always eat it like that?” Neil asked her.
“I’m only having one piece and it will stretch it out.”
“My daughter believes she needs to lose weight,” John explained. “What do you think, Neil?”
“Dad!” Isobel protested, sounding horrified he’d bring up the subject at the table.
“I think Isobel’s perfect the way she is,” Neil said, meaning it.
John Suarez cocked his head and with a twinkle in his eye, asked, “How long are you going to be in Walnut River?”
“As long as it takes to finish my investigation. Probably about three weeks.”
“That’s a shame. Do you think you’ll ever consider settling down some day?”
“Dad!” Isobel protested again.
“I don’t know, Mr. Suarez. I’ve been doing this job for a long time. Traveling is a big part of it.”
“Life changes. Needs change,” Isobel’s dad advised sagely. “Have you ever been serious about someone? Just wanted to be where they were?”
This time when Neil glanced at Isobel, she didn’t protest, she just looked mortified. She murmured, “Dad doesn’t respect boundaries.”
“Boundaries, schmoundaries,” her dad muttered. “Maybe it’s a question you’ve wanted to ask him and didn’t have the guts.”
Isobel looked as if she wanted to throw her napkin at her father. But instead, she put it in her lap, her lips tight together. She was probably biting her tongue.
Meg and Johnny seemed oblivious to the conversation as they stole pieces of pepperoni from each other’s slices of pizza.
Neil knew he could joke off the question. However, if Isobel had wanted to ask it and was too shy to, he might as well give her the answer. “I was married once, but traveling was hard on the relationship.”
“That’s why you split?” John pressed.
“Not entirely. But it was a major stumbling block. My ex- wife and I were naive to think we would stay close when we were miles apart most of the week.”
Isobel’s father finished another roll of pizza and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Naive… Or maybe the two of you didn’t want to be close.”
“All right, Dad.” Isobel stood. “Meg, Johnny, if you’re finished playing with each other’s pizza, why don’t you wash up? We could set out the dominoes on the coffee table and we’ll all play a game.” She looked at Neil. “Unless you need to leave.”
He was still trying to digest the fact that Isobel’s father had gotten to the bottom of the problem with his marriage with such clarity. “No, I don’t have to leave yet.” Then he turned to John. “How long were you married?”
“When Brenna died, we’d been married forty-one years. We weren’t apart even one night, not even when she had our babies. I remember they tried to keep me out of the labor room with Isobel, but I wouldn’t let them. I told them Brenna was my wife and I was staying. When she got sick—” He shook his head as if the memories hurt him deeply to remember. “I stayed in that hospital room every night. My doctor got me special permission because he understood. When you love someone, you walk through hell for them. Getting a crick in my neck sleeping on one of those hospital chairs was nothing compared to the comfort of holding her hand.” He sighed. “But I don’t think young people understand that kind of love anymore.”
“You and Mom had something special. Jacob, Deb and I knew that,” Isobel remarked in a quiet voice.
“Then why can’t the three of you find it?” her father demanded. “Jacob runs off here and there as if he’s searching for something and he doesn’t even know what it is. Debbie…Debbie divorced her husband after his affair. They didn’t even try to work it out.”
“Dad, you don’t know—”
“What else Ron did to her,” he finished as if he’d heard it all before. “Maybe I don’t. She won’t talk about it with me. And then there’s you. You work, work, work. I think that’s the reason you and Tim broke up, though you’ll never tell me the truth about that, either.”
The tension and strain of having dirty laundry shaken out in front of Neil made Isobel’s body taut. Beside her, Neil could feel it. Then she took a very big breath, seemed to somehow relax her muscles, and said to her father without any anger at all, “I know you must have a good reason for wanting to talk about all this in front of Neil, but it’s making me uncomfortable and it’s probably making him uncomfortable, too. Can we just relax the rest of the night? Play a little dominoes and talk about anything that isn’t serious?”
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