Page 72 of One Last Promise

Shep came out of the office cleaned up, having used the main-floor bathroom. “I’ll see you back at the Tooth,” Shep said.

“What’s the Tooth?” Hazel asked.

Moose walked over to the coffee maker forcup number eight thousand fifty-three. “It’s what we call our office down in Anchorage.”

“Are we going back to Anchorage?” Tillie sat in a pair of sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt, one leg up, her dark hair back.

He turned, nodded. “I think so. How’s the noggin?”

She touched her head, winced. “Tender.”

“I’ll bet. No more spinning?”

She met his eyes. “Not in the way you mean.”

Huh.

His mother set a plate in front of Tillie, then patted his chest. “Sit. Eat.”

He pulled up a chair and let her set a stack of pancakes in front of him. “I’d be just fine with cookies.” He winked at Hazel.

“I’m sure you would,” his mother said. “I’ll send some on the road with you.”

Only then did he notice Tillie’s pallor. She seemed to have gone white. He wanted to ask, but she looked up and offered a tight smile, then glanced at Hazel, and somehow he picked up a vibe that now wasn’t the time.

Still. “Tillie, should we stay?”

She looked at his mom. “Forever? Sure.” Then she smiled at him, and the haunted look seemed to vanish. “But maybe it’s time we got back to our lives.”

Hmm. Okay then.

But two hours later, she seemed painfully silent as they turned off Highway 3.

“I need to get my car,” Tillie said quietly.

Right.

He couldn’t get past the feeling that something might be slipping out of his grip. “You should stay at my house?—”

“Yes! Please!” Hazel, from the back seat. She’d begged to take Kip with her, too, so she’d been sulking mostof the trip, making do with a seen-better-days stuffed dog. Seeing her smile turned his heart.

“No, Hazelnut. Your school already started. And . . . I need to try to get my job back.”

He looked over at her. “They have someone else working night shift. She’s not nearly as good as you.”

“I can’t work night shift with Roz in the hospital and recovering. She’s my sitter.”

Right. “I . . . I could watch her.” And there he went, again making promises he couldn’t keep.

Tillie reached across the console and touched his arm. “No. You’ve done enough.”

And there it went again, the tiniest clinch in his chest telling him that something wasn’t right. That all was not as it seemed.

He swallowed it back, though, and headed home.

Tillie’s car sat in the driveway, a wreck that probably shouldn’t be on the road. And it occurred to him then that she should have used some of that prize money to buy a car.

Why hadn’t she?

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