Page 87 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

It was the closest thing to a psychic reading I’d been able to get out of her. Not that I’d given her my palm or anything mystical like that. I’d just let her probe the recesses of my brain a little. For research. To make sure all those poor saps were getting their money’s worth when they called her up and handed over their credit card numbers.

I’d warned her ahead of time that I had no problems lodging a complaint with the Better Business Bureau if I found anything sketchy in her reading of my character, but it hadn’t been as bad as I’d feared. Other than that bit about parades, all she’d gotten out of me was the recipe for my favorite childhood dessert and a reluctant admission that I owed these nurses an apology. And eventhatwasn’t terrible, since she’d promised to drive me over here herself. No one else would have to know about it.

“Are you sure, hon?” The woman eventually reached for the checks, but not nearly as greedily as I’d expected. “The money is appreciated but not at all necessary. It happens a lot more than you’d think.”

“What does?” I didn’t let go of the checks right away, but only because I needed them to keep me from keeling over. “People run your nurses off?”

“Well, they don’t run them offspecifically, but we get some pretty strong reactions. It’s not easy, opening your home to a perfect stranger and inviting them in for the most intimate level of care. Especially when a scare is unexpected like yours was. You’re only human, after all.”

I gave up on the battle over the checks and tottered backward. I could feel Maisey behind me, but the woman was blessedly silent for once in her life.

“‘Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is,’” the woman added with a cluck of her tongue. “Don’t worry. I’ll see that these get where they need to go.”

I blinked at the woman, unsure if I could possibly be hearing her right. “I’m sorry. Did you just quoteCamus at me?”

“I don’t know. That’s what it says on the wall at my therapist’s office. That and ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ I can never decide which one I like best.” The woman beamed at me as though she hadn’t just committed sacrilege of the highest order. “By the by, who did you end up finding to take care of you? I processed your at-home care forms for the hospital, but I didn’t recognize the name. He’s not one of ours.”

“You mean Mateo Sharpe?” Maisey asked.

The woman snapped her fingers in recognition. “That was it. He worked out all right? You were happy with his level of care?”

“He kept me alive, didn’t he?” I demanded in my usual manner, but my heart wasn’t it. I sighed and added, “He’s a good kid. A little driftless, but who isn’t at that age? I like him.”

The woman’s interest perked. “Really? Do you think he’d be interested in applying for a job? We offer super-flexible hours. Qualified nurses are always hard to come by.” She grinned at me in a way I neither trusted nor cared for. “Especially when our patients do everything they can to scare them away.”

It behooved me to put this woman in her place, but my heart wasn’t in that, either. I’d never realized before how much effort it took to keep up all that bluster—to fight everything and everyone, to treat every square on the pavement like a battleground. If I looked anything like Nigel Carthage these days, my energy could be expended on much better places.

And much better people.

“Go on, then.” I waggled my fingers. “Give me an application. I’ll see that he gets it, but I’m warning you right now—he’s too good for this job. I went to hear him sing at a nightclub last week, and it was like being transported through time.”

Maisey snatched the application out of the woman’s hand before I could make the attempt. “Arthur, you old softie. You didn’t tell me you saw Mateo perform.”

“I had to get out of the house,” I said.

I hoped that remark would shut her down, but I needn’t have bothered. Shutting Maisey out of anywhere she wanted to go was an exercise in futility, and “there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.”

That was Camus, too.

“Tell me everything,” she said as she wound her arm through mine and dragged me out the door. “What did he wear? How did his mother look? And—oh—did Lincoln swoon the moment Mateo took the stage?”

***

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked Maisey as she steered her minivan down a street I didn’t recognize. We were supposed to be heading home, but she drove the same way she talked—wildly and without direction—so it was no wonder we’d ended up on the far side of town. “You silly woman. You’ve forgotten the way home. And everyone thinksI’mthe one in a decline.”

“Relax,” she said as she flipped the radio down and pulled up in front of a cemetery that had seen better days. “We’re taking a detour.”

“To where? An early grave? Thanks, but I’d rather stay on this side of the grass, if you don’t mind.”

She pointed at a house on the other side of the street. “No. We’re taking a detour to there.”

I followed the line of her finger to an abomination against architecture, a white box of a building with high-tech panels and a fence that looked to be made of plastic. The only decoration on the exterior was a potted palm tree that might look finenow, but would almost certainly die the moment the bitter Idaho winter settled in. I was about to enlighten Maisey about my feelings on anyone who found it acceptable to live in such a place when I realized there was no need.

Because I saw who was living there, and because Maisey already knew how I felt about him.

“Have you lost your ever-loving mind? I don’t want to pay Nigel a visit. I want to stay as far away from that man as possible.”

“We’re not visiting him. We’re checking on him. Just taking a peek to make sure he’s okay.”