Which, in retrospect, she should have found suspicious.
“Grandma thought it would be fun to surprise you.” Erin made a Sorry face at Nora behind Grandma’s back.
“I was hoping maybe we’d catch you in flagrante delicto with that large hunk of a man from last time,” her grandmother said.
“Jake.”
“That’s the one.”
Oh no. Jake. She had to call him. He was planning to come by with dinner, but hopefully he hadn’t left yet. With Eve and Sawyer gone, they’d decided to “revisit first base,” also known as “rolling around mostly naked in a pink room.”
She hadn’t seen much of Jake since actual Thanksgiving a week ago. She’d been a little worried about it, in fact. Had she come on too strong in the clinic? Was she inadvertently giving off let’s-be-a-couple vibes? She didn’t think so, but he hadn’t shown up with Mick for lunch until the end of the week—that had been the longest stretch she’d gone without seeing him since they started sleeping together. To her relief, when he finally showed up, he seemed his usual self. And when she’d reminded him that she was going to have the inn to herself and suggested a “change of venue,” he’d done his eyebrow wagging and his backward walking and enthusiastically agreed.
She was bummed to have to put him off, but it couldn’t be avoided. While she adored her family, they were a lot. Walsh-giving would last hours, and Jake didn’t need the hassle.
She grabbed her purse and started rummaging through it to find his phone number—he’d written it down for her after they’d done “second base” at his place that time, but she’d never used it. “You should have told me you were coming. I would have made food.” She would have tried, anyway.
“We brought leftovers from the big dinner yesterday!” Erin said. “It’s in a couple coolers in the car.”
“We have enough to feed an army,” her grandma said. “So if you have anyone you want to invite…like, say, Hunky Jake…”
She had to call Hunky Jake and uninvite him. “I’m so glad you guys are here. If you’ll excuse me for just one moment, I’ll—”
“Hunky Jake!”
Nora followed her grandmother’s gaze to the door, the bells on which were jingling to announce the arrival of a visitor.
Hunky Jake. Early Hunky Jake. Filling the door frame entirely with his oversize self.
His eyes darted around. He was trying to make sense of the unexpected scene.
Oh boy. Sighing, she moved toward him. “Jake. Hi.”
“Welcome to Walsh-giving, Jake!” her grandma said. She pounded the armrests of her wheelchair in frustration. “If I’d known you were going to be here, I’d have left this thing at home and let you do your knight-in-shining-armor thing. But you can help with the coolers. And dessert. We need to source some dessert. My heathen family ate all the pie yesterday.”
Payback was a bitch.
Jake wasn’t really sure how it had happened. He’d thought he was arriving for a booty call, but somehow here he was, seated around the inn’s big kitchen island with Nora covertly feeling him up.
At least there had been no prayers at this dinner.
“Thank you so much for the pie, Pearl,” Nora said sweetly as her hand slid up his thigh. After they’d gotten all the food inside, a discussion had ensued over where they would eat. The inn had a bunch of two- and four-person circular bistro tables in the dining room, where Eve served cocktails and snacks a couple of afternoons a week. But there were guests on the premises, and Nora didn’t think they should take over that public space with a big family dinner.
So Jake had dragged one of the tables into the kitchen, and it was accommodating Nora’s grandma’s wheelchair and her two grandchildren. He and Nora were sitting on stools on one side of the kitchen island, and Pearl and Erin were on the other.
Thankfully, someone had found tablecloths to cover the surfaces. So at least there was something concealing Nora’s groping.
“Thanks for letting me crash your party.” Pearl beamed at the assembly—when Nora had gone next door to buy a pie, she’d come back with the bakery’s proprietor, too.
“This crust design is so clever,” Nora’s grandma exclaimed. Pearl had developed a signature pie for the inn after Eve inherited it. It was a double-crust lemon pie, and the top crust was made to look like fish scales. “What kinds of tools do you use?”
“The scales are made with cookie cutters and laid over the finished pie. The edge of the crust is made with a pastry wheel.”
“Maybe I should take up pastry making!” Dr. Walsh said. She turned to Pearl. “I’m a retired surgeon. You have no idea how much I miss cutting people up.”
“Oh! Why don’t you come over when we’re done? I also have a pastry knife with a bunch of different-size blades you can swap out. It’s basically a scalpel for dough.” She looked at the boys. “Do you guys like video games? I have a brand-new Nintendo Switch.”
“Pearl’s not just a baker,” Nora said to Erin. “She’s a championship gamer.”
A few minutes later, the old ladies and the little boys were trundling out the back door, leaving him alone with Nora and Erin—and a boner.
Nora hopped off her stool and smiled at him. “Want to help me with the dishes, Jake?”
He glared at her. But keeping an eye on Erin and making his move when she wasn’t looking, he stationed himself at the sink. “Sure. You clear, and I’ll rinse and load the dishwasher.” Which he could do standing at the sink with his back to them.
She patted him on the shoulder, but she didn’t give him any more grief.
“What’s with the wheelchair?” Nora asked Erin as they shuttled dishes to Jake.
Erin sighed. “She’s going to talk to you later.”
“The cancer’s back, isn’t it?”
Erin didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Even Jake could tell the news wasn’t good.
“But why the wheelchair? If it’s spread, isn’t it in her lungs?”
“She’ll want to tell you herself.”
“Erin.”
“It is in her lungs, but there’s another tumor on her ankle. A new one.”
Aww, shit. Jake wanted to turn and check on Nora, but he didn’t. Not because of the boner. That was gone—nothing like cancer to take care of that. But because to do so felt too intrusive. He wasn’t sure if they even remembered he was here.
“She says she’s not going to treat it.”
Something clattered as it hit the marble of the island. “What?”
He did turn then. Nora had her hands flat on the island, her arms straight, like she was bracing herself. He wanted to be the one bracing her. But he knew she wouldn’t appreciate that. And she seemed to be holding herself up just fine.
“Yeah, I was hoping you could talk her out of it.”
“I’ll try. What does Dad say?”
“He says she’s an adult, and—”
“Mom! Look what Mrs. Brunetta gave us!”
The sisters turned toward the younger of the two boys, who was clattering back into the kitchen. They pulled away from each other like they’d been caught doing something wrong.