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“Oh, thanks.” She opened the door wider and Tate carried it in. She pointed at the small dining table and he left it there. “Sorry. I don’t know why they sent it to you. I would have thought they’d know to send it to Mrs. K’s house.” Her lips were slightly numb and the words sounded strange, even to her own ears.

“I’d ordered some things for the clinic and they got delivered to my house, too. I think Mr. Patton’s getting
a little senile these days.” He looked at her closely. “Are you okay? You seem a little . . . off.”

She might have blushed. Or maybe she was just warm in general. Either way, it was a little embarrassing to be called out like that. She just wasn’t sure why, though. She was an adult,
and
she was in the privacy and safety of her own home. She had no reason to be embarrassed, and she refused to feel that way. She lifted her chin. “I’ve had several glasses of wine. And I’m going to have more.”

One dark eyebrow arched up. “Bad day?”

“Yeah. Very much so.”

He looked concerned. “Anything I can do?”

There wasn’t anything anyone could do—which was the reason she was drinking. “Nope.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really. I don’t want to be my own buzzkill.” Belatedly remembering her manners, she got another glass from the cupboard and opened the fridge. “Would you like a drink?”

“Just some water, thanks.”

She’d been reaching for the wine box, but the filter pitcher was right next to it. For a second, she thought Tate might be making some kind of statement about how much she’d had already, but then something else surfaced from her memory. Had she ever seen Tate drink? Helena certainly did—just not in the house, because Ms. Louise didn’t allow it—but a quick review of the other places she’d been with both Tate and Helena came up empty. But there were stories that Helena had told her about the two of them when they were younger and alcohol had definitely been involved—and sometimes responsible for the results. She handed him the glass of water. “You don’t drink anymore, do you?”

Tate shook his head.

She looked over at her glass, wondering whether it
might be some kind of temptation for him. “Does it bother you when other people do?”

“Nope. I’m an excellent designated driver.”

“I’ll remember that.” She’d never heard any talk of Tate having a drinking problem—and it would have definitely been discussed, especially since his father had been such a raging . . .

Oh.

“And that’s exactly why,” Tate said.

Molly jumped. Surely she wasn’t drunk enough to be thinking out loud. Now she was blushing for real. “Um . . .”

“It’s obvious what you’re thinking,” he explained. “My dad was a drunk. There’s some science that says it might be a genetic thing, and that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.” He was very matter-of-fact about it, and she couldn’t tell whether she’d offended him or not.

“I think that’s a very wise position to take.” Still, she felt the need to say, “I’m sorry I even brought it up.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “It’s refreshing, in a way. Most people just talk about it behind my back because it’s more polite somehow than saying it to my face.”

“Etiquette’s tricky like that,” she teased. “But I think they figure they’re doing you a kindness. We all have family issues that we’d like to pretend don’t really exist. By not mentioning yours to you, they’re hoping you won’t mention theirs to them, and everyone gets to live their little fantasy that it’s not real. Or at least pretend that no one else knows the embarrassing and ugly truth.”

“I’d never thought about it like that.”

“Neither had I, actually,” she admitted. “My brain hurts a little now.”

Tate laughed. “Wine makes you philosophical, huh?”

“I guess so.”

“Booze always just made me stupid. And reckless.” He laughed. “I’m sure you’ve heard the stories.”

The swaying of the room was beginning to make her a little ill, so she went to the couch and sat, motioning Tate to sit as well. “And here I thought it was Helena who’d made you do stupid and reckless things.”

“Oh, they were always her ideas,” he said, settling into the chair across from her. “The booze just made them sound like
good
ideas.”

She laughed. “They always seem that way at the time. I now only drink with Nigel, because he rarely comes up with stupid ideas to talk me into.”

Tate looked over to where Nigel’s nose could just be seen peeking out from under the couch at the mention of his name. “Good kitty.”

Nigel disappeared back into the shadow with a growl, and Tate shook his head. “So what kind of stupid ideas are we talking about?”

“What?”

“It seems a little unfair that you know
my
past sins, yet I don’t know any of yours.”

“You think I moved across the state only to share all my past shame now?”

“So there’s shame as well as stupidity.” He leaned forward, forearms on his knees. “This sounds interesting.”

“Not really. Compared to you and Helena, I was a freaking saint.”

He conceded the point with a smirk. “Most people are. That’s not a very high bar.” After a moment, he prodded, “Well . . . ?”

What could she say? “I wasn’t exactly a conscientious student. For most of high school, I was more concerned about my popularity and having a good time than with my studies. I got into a lot of trouble.”

An eyebrow went up. “Like ‘call the sheriff’ trouble?”

“No, nothing like that. My parents would have killed me. It was more in the ‘mischief’ category. Rolling the high school, throwing a smoke bomb into the visiting team’s locker room, stuff like that.”

“So you were a cheerleader?” She couldn’t tell whether he was impressed or surprised.

“Junior varsity. Until I got kicked off the squad for drinking on the bus to an away game.” Why had she just confessed that?

“So you were a party girl.”
Okay, that is surprise on his face.
“I would not have guessed that.”

“Only in the loosest possible definition of the word ‘party.’” Tate looked confused. “My family is really conservative. Even by Alabama standards,” she explained.

“Religious?”

“Crazy religious. They put the ‘mental’ in ‘fundamental.’ My father’s a deacon in our church, so they were really strict. No drinking, no dancing, no Disney movies . . . I couldn’t even hold hands with a boy without getting the stink eye.”

“Drinking on the bus, then, would have been a pretty big deal.”

“Yeah. But it was a bottle of cooking sherry I’d gotten from my grandmother’s house.”

“Yuck.”

Her stomach rolled at the memory. “I felt like hell for days. I still have a taste for cheap wine, though,” she added, nodding toward the box.

“What did your parents say?” Tate leaned back, relaxing into the chair as if he had no place to go. Strangely, she found she didn’t mind the company. In fact, it was nice, and that was
very
strange, since she’d been in such an evil mood just a little while before.

She curled her feet up under her and leaned back. “Nothing I hadn’t heard a dozen times before. Jolie and Hannah are perfect, you see, so I—” She stopped herself. This was not something she wanted to be talking about.
This is why I don’t drink in public.
“Let’s just say that I might have been a wild thing by some standards, but I was a long,
long
way from Helena-style antics.”

“Well, there’s only one Hell-on-Wheels,” he said with a smile.

She was just drunk enough to have the nerve to ask
and
be able to deny it later if the question crossed a line: “Are you in love with Helena?”

Tate choked, but recovered quickly. “No. I used to have a pretty major crush on her, but that was a long time ago. Is that what you thought when you heard me tell Helena I didn’t want to ask you out the other night?”

“Not really. Y’all are just really close, and I’ve heard people wonder about it. You haven’t seemed interested in anyone since she got back.”

Tate’s lips twitched into a quick smile. “Oh, there’s interest.”

No wonder he’d reacted so strongly to Helena’s attempt to match him up with her. “Really? Anyone I know?”

“Hell, I’m still trying to figure out if I know her.”

That seemed unnecessarily cryptic. Or else she was just too wine soaked to make sense of it. “Well, you should probably tell Helena. At least she’d quit trying to set you up with me,” she teased.

Tate seemed to find that amusing. Okay, she had to be a lot drunker than she thought, because she was completely clueless to
some
thing. And she didn’t like being clueless. “I guess it’s really none of my business, so I won’t pry.”

“Well, I’ll let you know when I decide what I’m going to do about her.”

Yeah, she was missing a thread here.

There was a moment of slightly uncomfortable silence; then Tate reached for his glass. “Who are Hannah and Jolie?” When she didn’t answer immediately, he reminded her, “You pretty much know my life story. It seems fair to talk a little more about you.”

She weighed the options and the possible repercussions and decided there wasn’t anything to lose. “They’re my sisters. Hannah is two years older, and Jolie is two years younger.”

“Two sisters. That’s something we have in common.”

“Yes, but my sisters are sanctimonious, self-righteous bitches,” she snapped.

Tate blinked. “Wow.”

She cleared her throat, a little embarrassed at her outburst. “Sorry. I didn’t realize how much I needed to say that out loud to someone other than Nigel.”

“So you’re not close, then.”

That was an understatement. “No.”

“And your parents?”

She hesitated, then settled on, “We don’t really talk these days.”

“Why?”

She could hear concern in his question, not just nosiness, but the topic still got her hackles up. “That’s a really long story, and one I really am not comfortable discussing with you.” There was a brief moment where she might have seen a bit of offense—or maybe disappointment—cross Tate’s face, but she wasn’t really in any condition to read or guess at subtleties. “Sorry. My family is kind of a touchy subject. And I’ve definitely had quite enough of them today already.”

Tate nodded. “That explains the wine.”

“Yeah.”

He seemed poised to say something else, but the seconds ticked by in silence. She felt a little bad for shutting down the conversation like that. He obviously had questions, but at least he was taking her at her word when she said she didn’t want to discuss it. Just as the silence started to turn awkward, he pushed to his feet. “I guess I’ll leave you to it, then.”

She was more disappointed than she wanted to be—and that surprised her—but she stood, too. “Thank you again for bringing the box by. I’m sorry it got misdelivered and you had to make the trip over.”

“No problem. Good night, Molly. Hope your day gets better. And that your head doesn’t hurt too bad in the morning.” A gray paw reached out to swipe at his foot as he passed the couch on his way to the door, but it missed by a wide margin.

“Well, if it does, at least I know where I can get a good cup of coffee to fix it.”

He laughed. “Indeed.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, Nigel came out from under the couch looking very irritated. “You are one crazy cat.” He twined himself around her ankles, purring, until she reached down to pick him up again. She sank onto the couch, but the urge to drink had passed now. Strangely enough, the visit with Tate had improved her mood. She was still irritated with Hannah, but the frustration had passed, and she was easing back into the better-off-without-them zone that kept her sane.

But something was bugging her, and it took her a few
minutes to figure out what. Oddly, it was the fact Tate had stated an interest in some mystery woman. Not that it was any of her business, of course, but the fact that it was a secret had her wondering.

But it was good, really, that Tate had his eye on someone. Maybe all her weird feelings would go away if he started dating someone.

Damn it, now she wanted another drink.

•   •   •

There was no way Tate was going to tell sweet old Mrs. Lindlay that her dog was living on borrowed time and by every measurement available should actually be long dead. Of course, so should Mrs. Lindlay, actually, and Tate wasn’t unconvinced the two of them weren’t keeping each other alive by sheer willpower and stubbornness not to die before the other.

And while Cocoa, like her mistress, was arthritic and mostly deaf, she didn’t seem to be in any pain or distress. Cocoa was just ancient, her muzzle nearly entirely gray. He gave the dog one more very gentle pat before zipping up the backpack that served as his bag and pushing to his feet. “Cocoa seems fine to me, Mrs. Lindlay. The anti-inflammatory medication seems to be working well for her.”

“Oh, good. I get so worried about her poor little knees.”

“She’s just getting older and can’t keep up with you like she used to. You need to take it easy on her.”

Mrs. Lindlay laughed and patted his hand. “You’re so sweet to come over here and check on us. Not many doctors make house calls anymore.”

Including me
. But Tate was also not going to make a ninety-something-year-old woman trek to the clinic. She rarely left her house these days. “It’s my pleasure.”

“Let me get my checkbook.”

“I’ll send you a bill.” With luck, Mrs. Lindlay was getting forgetful enough not to notice when it didn’t arrive. “Call me if you need anything. Don’t get up,” he added as she started to rise. “I’ll let myself out.”

On the sidewalk out front, he sent a quick text to Jack Lindlay letting him know he’d been by and that his grandmother’s dog was probably immortal. Then he took the shortcut through the parking lot of Grace Baptist to get back to Front Street.

Seeing Molly come out of the church’s front door didn’t strike him as all that odd at first, but in light of her remarks about her family the night before, he’d assumed she’d left the flock. Even if she hadn’t, what would be going on at the church right after lunch on a Thursday afternoon anyway? Too curious not to find out, he angled across the parking lot and caught up with Molly about the time she reached the sidewalk.