Page 65 of A Break in Communications

“Stubborn woman. I am, too, though.”

“Maybe you’ll have better luck getting through to her than I have.”

“Trying to. I sent her off to go take a nap.”

She scowled. “That woman has been subsisting off vending machine snacks for days now. Forget me. Go cook for her.”

I stood up, all too happy to take the offer. “I’m taking over talking to the insurance, and hopefully we’ll figure something out together. But I’ll be back around soon with good news about your granddaughter, good news about your insurance, and some damn good chili.”

“I’m crotchety and in a foul mood all the time right now. It better be some damn good chili if you want me to not yell at you about it.”

Ah, well, I could manage that. I mean, I’d be cooking it for Lucy, and for some reason, I wanted to make her the best food I possibly could.

I mean,for some reasonwas probably because I was hopelessly in love and couldn’t imagine my life without her around, but I wasn’t quite ready to deal with that whole thing yet.

Chapter 18

Lucy

I was pretty sure I was dreaming this whole thing—that I’d hit the level of sleep-deprived where I’d just crashed onto a couch in the waiting room and I’d had a beautiful dream of Anna Preston showing up and telling me she wanted me to be okay and that she was going to help me.

So imagine my confusion when I woke up in the middle of the afternoon on the couch back at the house and saw, over the sofa arm and in the kitchen, Anna Preston in the kitchen wearing headphones and humming something to herself as she cooked.

Honestly, all things considered, that was a bad sign. I must have fallen asleep going down the stairs, hit my head and died, and somehow the papers had gotten mixed up and I’d been let into heaven. I hoped someone would be available to look after Grandma. Maybe she’d seduce Elliott the nurse after all.

Anna glanced back my way, reaching for the spice rack on the kitchen island, and she paused, seeing me, before she relaxed into a small smile. “You need more sleep,” she said, tugging her headphones off and sliding them down over her neck. “Pretend I’m not here.”

“Are you… making chili?” I said, my voice groggy, sniffing at the rich scent of tomato in the air. She put her hands up like I was accusing her of something.

“Hey, you started this chili thing. Now I have to come up with a secret recipe. I’m very mad at you for that, you know.”

She didn’t sound mad at all. Sounded more like playful teasing from a lover. I’d definitely died. Guess it was no surprise that Heaven itself couldn’t render a version of Anna Preston more perfect than the one that lived on earth. “I think you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

She rolled her eyes, smiling drily, as she went back to the stock pot on the stove. “I hear you’ve been barely sleeping and subsisting off vending machine food. I’m not forgiving you for that. Why did you go back to your house and sleep on the couch instead of bed?”

“Ah… I’d have slept too much if I took the bed.”

“Always the overachiever, Lucy.” She tossed something into the pot, stirred it, gave it a taste, and covered it to turn around and face me, folding her arms and giving me a serious look. “Talked to insurance, and they’re being dicks, but I think I’ve made some headway. Got to chat with orthopedics a bit and work out what your grandmother’s long-term care looks like, because this is unsustainable, but we’ll go over the options together and see what works best. Got a bit of time in to clean up around this place, and I’m trying to make sure not only does your grandmother eat properly, but that you do too.”

I stared at her blankly for a while, trying to make the pieces fit together in my mind, like trying really hard to make the square peg go in the round hole. Finally, Anna flushed, furrowing her brow.

“What? Quit… staring like that.”

“Are you really… doing all this just because you want competition for the promotion?”

“Ugh—” She looked away. “It just doesn’t feel right otherwise.”

Did that mean Anna wasn’t going away just because of the promotion? Because if this meant Anna wanted me in her life somehow or other—no matter what it looked like—I’d doanything to make it work. I stood up, slowly, every muscle in my body aching, and I walked into the kitchen to where Anna was busying herself with the chili, stirring it when I was pretty sure it didn’t need stirring. Looked delicious, too.

“It smells great,” I said, leaning on the counter next to her. “Is that… you put cloves?”

“I asked your grandmother if she knows anything about how you like it…” she mumbled, keeping her gaze straight down on the pot of chili. “I figured I’d try to get back at you for making eggs the way I liked them.”

That… did not make sense. But I didn’t need it to. “Anna—don’t you have a lot going on at work?”

“I can multitask. I have things taken care of there for long enough that I can make sure you’re not keeling over.” She turned with a heavy sigh, and she met my gaze with such a loaded look that it gave my heart wild flips, butterflies in my stomach. “Look, Lucy, I just—it’s—” She faltered, and I raised my eyebrows.

“Is everything okay?”

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