Page 10 of Sweet Home

“Oh, thank you,” Dulcie said, sounding almost relieved and confirming West’s suspicions that she needed a solid meal.

“It’s a little drafty out here,” West warned her as he led her to the enclosed sunporch Milly had used as an office. “But there’s a bed and I brought you an extra blanket.”

He was glad all over again that he had a local woman come in to clean once a week. Left to his own devices, he wouldn’t have prioritized this space. Though the room was a bit cluttered with old med school texts and notebooks, there wasn’t a speck of dust, and the bed was freshly made and ready for a guest.

“It’s great,” Dulcie said, sounding like she meant it. “So many books.”

“These ones won’t be fun to read,” he laughed. “They’re just my old med-school books.”

“Wow,” she said. “You read them all?”

He had practically memorized them all in a herculean effort, fueled by gallons of instant coffee and luck. He still couldn’t believe sometimes that he’d pulled it off. But he simply nodded, feeling an odd sense of satisfaction that she was impressed.

“There’s a bathroom right next door,” he told her. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“West,” she said suddenly as he was leaving.

He stopped in his tracks and turned back to her.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

Those big, blue eyes were filled with emotion and for a moment, he could sense exactly how lost and desperate she really was, and it hit him how bravely she had been trying to cover it up until now.

West felt ten-feet-tall and awed at the same time in the face of her trust. He had a feeling it wasn’t something she gave out freely.

“It’s my pleasure,” he told her honestly.

He half-jogged back to the kitchen before they could exchange another word.

This is a good deed,he reminded himself.Not a way to make yourself feel big.

“She’s lovely,” Mom said as he came in.

He joined her by the stove, where she was stirring leftover chicken stew in the pan. The kitchen already smelled amazing.

“I put a can of those crescent rolls in the oven,” she said, wrapping an arm around him. “I hope you weren’t saving them for anything. She looks like she’s missed way too many meals.”

“That’s great,” he told her. “And you’re right, she needs to eat as much as she can. Old Joe Fournier called thinking she’d gotten herself a concussion in the accident. But I think she just fainted from low blood sugar.”

Mom clucked disapprovingly, her eyes fixedon the stew.

“She seems like a good kid,” West said. “She’ll bounce back. She just needs a safe place to live and some solid meals in her.”

“Do you know she told me she’s twenty-one years old?” Mom asked. “She looks like she could be a teenager.”

“I hadn’t really thought about her age,” he said, shaking his head.

But Mom was right, Dulcie seemed far too physically delicate to be in her twenties.

Except those eyes…

She had the eyes of a young woman who had seen too much of the world’s sadness.

“I didn’t ask her much,” Mom went on. “But whatever she’s been through, she seems sweet as pie. She’ll be a good addition around here, for as long as she wants to stay. Let me know if you want me to keep her busy tomorrow.”

“I figure she’ll probably sleep all day,” West said. “But as soon as she’s up to it, I’d love for you to find something easy for her to do.”

“Oh, there’s always plenty to do around here,” Mom said with a smile.

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