Page 89 of The Marriage Auction 2: Part 3

“How’s Emily?” Alana asked.

“Sleepin’. Rhodes is awake but staying with her. We promised she wouldn’t wake up alone. I’m here to get us both a cup of coffee, if that’s okay?”

Alana smiled. “Anything of mine is yours,chérie.” She gestured to the coffee pot. “Cups are in the cabinet above.”

I grabbed a couple mugs. “Soooo…tell me about Celine. Unless it’s too painful to talk about her,” I quickly amended.

“Non. It isn’t too painful. She was sunshine and light. My opposite. Easy to laugh. Easy to make friends. Beautiful inside and out. I miss her a lot. Every day in fact.” Alana looked off into the distance with a dreamy expression.

“I feel that way about my mom and siblings,” I blurted, then covered my mouth, shocked I was openly talking about my family.

“Oh?” she responded, allowing me to fill in the blanks.

“It’s been years since I’ve seen any of them. They probably wouldn’t even recognize me or vice versa.”

Alana’s brows furrowed deeply. “Are you planning to see them anytime soon?”

Leave it to Alana to dig deeper without sounding intrusive.

“That’s the plan. Rhodes has promised to help me. My stepfather is not a good man. I’d like to get my mother and siblings away from him, and now I have the money to do so.”

“I see. And they are in Colorado,oui?”

“Yeah. I’ve put calls in to my grandmother’s nursing home but hadn’t received a call back from my mother. It’s been months since I’ve spoken to her, and I’m really worried.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cellphone. “Then by all means,chérie, give them another call.”

“Right now?”

Alana shrugged. “Do you have somewhere else to be?”

“I need to take the coffee up to Rhodes.”

“No need. I’ll do it for you. I wanted to check on Emily and Christophe anyway.” She wiggled her fingers in a ‘go-on’ gesture.

“It’s international…” I tried one last time to avoid calling.

“Well then it’s good that my phone has an international plan, darling,” she cooed then grabbed the cup of coffee I’d made for Rhodes and sashayed out of the kitchen and up the back stairs. I’d forgotten about those, which were a direct shot to the second level.

I stared at the phone and let out a long breath then dialed the country code and the number to the nursing home. I’d had the number memorized for years. It rang three times before being picked up.

“Community Oak Convalescent & Rehabilitation Hospital,” the operator answered. “How may I help you?”

“Hello, my name is Maia Fields. My grandmother, Evelyn Fields, is a patient there…”

“Oh goodness me child, I hate to share this kind of news over the phone, but Evelyn Fields has passed away.”

“What?” I gasped. “When?”

“I’m so sorry. It happened yesterday evening. Mrs. Burke was with her, as were her other two grandchildren.”

My heart sank. Not because my grandmother was gone, but because I no longer had access to my mother. I didn’t know my grandmother well, had only seen her a handful of times when she’d been put into the nursing home. It was the one instance where I remembered my stepfather Damon being kind. He’d helped move Grandma across states and put her in the nursing home so that she was close to Mom. Grandma had arrived at the facility already unwell with the beginning stages of dementia.

“Um okay, thank you. Oh, did Mrs. Burke happen to leave a note of some type for me? She would have expected me to call and check on grandma.”

“Let me check, just a minute.”

I crossed my fingers and waited with my heart in my throat.

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