Page 101 of Never Fall Again

“Okay.” As soon as her feet hit the sidewalk, she took off like a rocket.

Lisa quirked an eyebrow. “Getting domestic, are we, Cal?”

He gave her his politest smile. “Just helping a friend. Landry has strep throat, and she’s pretty sick today.”

Genuine concern replaced her sarcasm. “We have three teachers out, and my guess is we’ll have a lot of students out today too. It’s going around something awful.”

“Mom said it was bad.”

“She’ll be hopping today, I’m sure.” Lisa nodded toward where Eliza now stood with some other kindergarteners. “We’ll keep an eye on her. I’ll make sure Mrs. Wilson knows about Landry.”

“Thanks.”

Cal drove straight to Meredith’s house.

When he walked inside, Mo walked out. “She’s asleep. Maisy’s still with her. You going to work?”

“No. I’m going to take a nap on the sofa. Then I’ll work from home. Can you go to the pharmacy in a little while and get her medicine? Mom was going to call it in when Heather opened.”

“I’ll take care of it. Get some rest.”

“Thanks.”

Cal couldn’t resist peeking in on Landry. Just like Mo had said, she was asleep. He reached a tentative hand to her forehead. It was warm but not blazing like a few hours ago. Good.

He’d made sweet tea while Eliza ate breakfast. Now he put it in the fridge to chill, took five minutes to clean up, then set an alarm for two hours and lay on the sofa.

When his alarm woke him, he noticed a distinctive white bag sitting inside the door. He picked it up and found a note in Mo’s scrawl that said, “You were asleep. Figured you needed the rest more than anything else.”

Cal hated to wake Landry, but he did it anyway. He cajoled her into drinking some tea and swallowing the meds Mo had dropped off. He helped her walk down the stairs to the bathroom, thenback up before tucking her in. She was a little loopy and said her body still hurt all over, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been. She was asleep again ten minutes later. Maisy resumed her guard post.

He set a new alarm on his phone for 2:00 p.m. and lay back down on the sofa. His phone ringing woke him, and he stared at the screen in confusion. For one thing, the phone claimed that it was 1:15 p.m., so this wasn’t the alarm he’d set. The number also confused him. Something was familiar about it. “Cal Shaw.”

“Hey, Cal. It’s Aunt Laura. Carol called and told me what was going on with Landry. How’s she doing?”

Cal rubbed his hand over his face. “Resting.”

“Good. Listen. I hate to do this to her, but I need her to come pick up Eliza from school.”

“What?”

“Eliza’s sick. Sore throat. Fever.”

“Oh no.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll come get her and take her to Mom.”

“Landry and I had a meeting at the beginning of the school year. She was very clear that the only other person who could pick up Eliza was Bronwyn Pierce. I can’t violate that trust, Cal. Not even for you.”

“I know, Aunt Laura. And I appreciate that. But if you check Eliza’s records, you’ll see that the list of people approved to pick her up has grown since school started.”

“Are you on the list?”

“I am.” He’d been on it since he volunteered to pick up Eliza and Abby one day a few weeks earlier. “So are Naomi and Chad.”

“Oh, thank heaven.” Aunt Laura blew out a long breath. “So can you come get her? Or should I call Naomi?”

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