Page 12 of If She Only Knew (The Cahills 1)

“Her friend wasn’t so lucky,” she went on. “Did you know Pam? Ever meet her?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, well.” A sniff of disapproval caused Nick to wonder about the passenger in the car. But then, he wondered about a lot of things when it came to his sister-in-law. “Listen Nick, I’m calling you because you’re family and I thought you might understand. You and Marla, you were close once, and you know she and I, we always got along. I love her like my sister, well, if I had one and I . . . well, not just me, but Montgomery, too,” she added quickly, as if her brother was an afterthought. “I . . . we’d like to see her. The problem is Alex won’t allow it. He keeps insisting that she shouldn’t have any visitors aside from immediate family.”

So there it was. He glanced at the old Seth Thomas clock that hung near the kitchen alcove. “Isn’t she still in a coma?”

“I know, but I’d love to sit with her, read some passages to her. The Bible has a way of healing, you know.”

“As I remember it, Marla wasn’t too religious.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cherise said quickly. “Jesus hears all our prayers, all of them.”

Nick didn’t comment.

“Anyway,” she went on rapidly, like a train gathering steam. “I’ve been praying for her, you know. And . . . and Pam. And that poor man who was in the truck, the one with all the burns who they think won’t make it . . .” She paused for a second. “I’d just like to see her, Nick, just hold her hand and tell her I love her and remind her that the Lord loves her, too.”

“Maybe when she’s better.”

There was a painful, long-suffering sigh and he sensed the gears turning in Cherise’s mind. She was like a dog with a bone, never giving up, always finding a way to get what she wanted. Three husbands, all once-upon-a-time confirmed bachelors, were proof enough of her skills of persuasion. “Look, Nick, I assume you’ll be coming to visit, after all you’ve known Marla . . . well, a long time.”

The insinuation was there, left dangling.

Nick gripped the receiver a little tighter and didn’t dare wade into the treacherous waters of that particular memory.

“I’d thought you’d want to visit her,” Cherise suggested, and Nick felt the undercurrents, the silent accusations, running through the telephone wires.

“Maybe,” he hedged, leaning back on the couch, eyeing the yellowed planks that made up the walls of his home. Tough Guy bounded onto a beat-up chair, caught Nick’s glare and immediately jumped down to crouch under the coffee table and observe him through the glass top where rings from the previous nights’ drinks still remained.

“Well, if you talk to Alex, please tell him I want to see her. Try and get him to understand that we’re family. Despite anything that happened between our fathers, we’re still all blood. Kin.”

“That we are,” Nick said, standing.

“So you’ll talk to Alex?”

“Yep.”

“Good. Good. Thank you. The Lord works in mysterious ways, you know.”

“So I’ve heard.” A trace of irony tinged his words as Nick managed to disentangle himself from the conversation and hang up. He picked up the glass he’d left on the table and deposited it in the kitchen sink. Tough Guy hitched his way across the old linoleum.

“I’ll be back,” he said to the dog again as he shouldered his bag and walked onto the back porch. Pausing to check that the shepherd had food, water and a bed in the corner of the porch, he locked the door. Tough Guy raced to the truck, but Nick shook his head. “Not this time, fella.” He scratched the dog behind his ears, one of which was a little chewed-up, as it had been when the dog had limped, bloodied and half-dead, to his porch not long after Nick had moved in.

“Must’ve tangled with a raccoon or other dog,” the local vet had said. The result was that the shepherd had lost a leg, saved an ear, and found a new home with Nick. They’d gotten along just fine.

Now, Nick straightened. “You stay out of trouble,” Nick ordered

as he climbed into the cab and started the engine. The sky was a somber shade of gray that matched Nick’s mood to a T.

He jammed the truck into first and thought about Cherise’s call and her proclaimed faith. He supposed a little dose of that wouldn’t hurt him right now. A little divine help would be appreciated, but he wasn’t holding his breath. He glanced in the side-view mirror, caught a glimpse of the black-and-white dog watching him from the back porch and felt like he was leaving the only real family he’d ever known.

“Great,” Nick muttered under his breath. He reached the county road that would lead him, eventually, to the Interstate. From there it was due south to San Francisco.

And to Marla.

There were voices, several hushed voices that she thought she knew as she rose to the surface of consciousness. The urge to sleep was strong, her mind thick and dull, but she struggled to open lids that refused to budge and forced herself to stay awake, well, as awake as she could.

“Yeah, he said he’d show up, but I really had to twist his arm,” Alex was saying.

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