Page 88 of Zane

She wasn’t terribly hungry right then, so she said, “No. I’ll be fine for now.”

“We can stop for a late lunch after we’re done at the storage place.”

“That’ll work.”

Once their coffees were ready, Kelsey looped her purse over her shoulder, then picked up both travel mugs since Zane couldn’t handle his with the crutches.

“Fall’s coming,” Zane said as they stepped out on the porch.

“I bet it’s beautiful around here with the turning colors.”

“It is. And we have some fall activities here in Serenity that make it a fun time of year.”

“When does school start?”

“Usually after Labor Day. So in about a week.”

Kelsey tucked one mug in the crook of her arm and fished her keys out of her pocket to click the fob to unlock the car doors. While Zane got in the passenger seat, she circled around the car to the driver’s side. Opening the door, she leaned in and put the mugs in the cup holder, then slid behind the wheel.

As she pulled away from the curb, Zane asked, “Did you like going back to school?”

“Not really,” Kelsey said. “Especially if we’d ended up moving because it meant I was starting at a new school.”

“Oh, yeah. That wouldn’t be fun.”

“No. It wasn’t fun at all.”

“I graduated with a few people who had been with me since kindergarten.”

“I can’t even imagine that,” Kelsey said, wondering how her life might have been different if she’d had that kind of stability in her life.

It probably wouldn’t have made her strong enough to deal with the situation she’d found herself in when Zane woke up without his memories of her and their marriage. Her whole life had been one unexpected event after another. She’d had to learn how to weather those times, and it had given her the ability to keep moving forward, even when all she wanted to do was run away and hide.

“Were you a good student?” he asked.

“I wasn’t brilliant or anything, but with hard work, I got pretty good grades.” It hadn’t mattered much to her parents, but she’d figured out she would need good grades if she wanted to go to college because she’d have to rely on scholarships and financial aid.

In the end, it hadn’t mattered. She’d had to do a lot of her college education without scholarships, and she hadn’t wanted to go into too much debt, which is why it had taken her so long to get to the point of taking the nursing exam. Working and going to school had been tough.

“How about you?”

She did already know howherZane had felt about school, but it felt like she should ask him questions that were relevant just soit wasn’t all one-sided. Plus, she wondered if she’d get different responses from this Zane than she had from hers.

“I liked school for the most part,” he said. “I think one of my favorite subjects was science, especially once I saw parts of cooking as a form of science.”

That was basically what Zane had told her the first time around. “Did you take cooking in high school?”

“No, they didn’t offer anything like that. I would find recipes online and then persuade my mom to buy the ingredients.”

“Were all the recipes a success?”

Zane gave a bark of laughter. “Nope. Especially not at the start. But after I’d been cooking for about a year, I had way more hits than misses.”

“At least you persevered,” she said. “And your family kept letting you try, even after you had disasters.”

That wouldnothave been the case with her family. Plus, their meals had been made from whatever was cheapest and/or whatever they had on hand.

“My parents have been pretty good at letting each of us find our own paths, and doing what they can to support us.”

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