Page 14 of After You

“And so now you’ll help me convince her tostay.”

He took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly. “Here’s the deal, Alice,” he said. This was really more for Alice than for him, but fine, she could think that these were his feelings too. “If I do that, if I help her remember all the things she loved here and show her what she could have again, and then she gets in her car and leaves at the end of the six weeks to go back to Seattle, that’s going to reallyhurt.”

Alice nodded. And then, like a knife to his heart, her face fell. Sadness filled her vibrant blue eyes and she sighed. “I know. But at least then, I’ll know that she remembered everything. And I did all I could. Then there won’t be any what-ifs.”

Jesus. Kyle ran a hand through his hair, then grimaced as he realized he now had flour in his hair to go with the paint streaks on his arms andface.

But this was progress. Alice was at least admitting that Hannah leaving again was a possibility. She’d been pretty firmly stuck in her denial for a very long time now. He, on the other hand, had gone through the seven stages of grief, from shock and denial right up to reconstruction and working through. He’d adjusted to life and work without Hannah. He’d been dating for two years now. Sure, none of those dates went past number four and he wondered every fucking time if he was screwing everything up, and then he’d get out before he could screw them up for sure. But he was dating. That was a good thing.

Okay, so he’d gone through six of the stages. He wasn’t quite through stage seven, where he really truly had movedon.

“I think it’s really good that you get past the what-ifs,” Kyle said to Alice, seriously. And if it seemed that everything he said to her could be applied right back directly to him, so what? “If you need to do all of this, and try to convince her that this is where she wants to be, fine. But,” he added as Alice opened her mouth, “when it’s over and she does leave again, you have to accept that and be done withit.”

Kyle felt a kick in his chest as he heard those words out loud. Yeah, yeah, so he needed to listen to his own advice.

Finally, Alice nodded. “Fine. If she gets on that plane in six weeks, I’ll acceptit.”

“You promise?” Kyle asked.

“Yes. And to prove it…I’ll give you the key to the clinic if that happens.”

Kyle straightened. “Seriously?”

Alice didn’t look happy but she nodded. “Yes. But you have to help me. You have to show her what could be if she stays. But if she leaves again after everything we do, then I’ll give you the keys to the clinic and sign the papers.”

The clinic was the house that sat next to the house that had been turned into Kyle’s medical clinic. The two houses had belonged to Alice’s twin sisters, who had lived next door to one another, from the night of their double wedding to the day the younger one passed away in her sleep—exactly two days before the older twin died. Alice had inherited both houses, and had given one of them to the town. The town had raised money for the renovations that had turned it from a home into a medical clinic. They had also raised funds to turn the other into a physical therapy clinic. Though a chunk of the money had come from Alice. That clinic was supposed to have been Hannah’s. So, Alice had kept the deed to the house with the PT clinic. And the keys. She’d intended to give them both to Hannah when she movedhome.

And since that hadn’t happened, Alice still hadboth.

No matter how much begging and charming and sweet-talk Kyle had tried, she wouldn’t give it up and let him recruit another PT. She’d insisted that Hannah was coming home, and that then and only then would that house be a PT clinic.

The city council had tried reasoning with her. The mayor, TJ Bennett, had tried making a deal with her. Hailey Conner Bennett, the woman who more or less ran the town and made all the important things happen, had tried. Levi Spencer, the millionaire who had transplanted from Vegas to Sapphire Falls, had made her an astronomical offer on behalf of thetown.

Alice had heldfirm.

When another PT had come to Sapphire Falls and suggested putting a clinic somewhere else, he’d been unable to find anyone willing to sell or rent him a space or a plot of land. Which had seemed strange to him. Not so much to Kyle. Alice McIntire was one of the most beloved citizens in town, and no one would seriously entertain an idea that would go against her wishes.

Well, Kyle had. He’d asked Alice about letting another PT come to town and use another space. His grandmother had cut him off from his weekly allowance of sausage and gravy for a month. He wasn’t doing that again.

Of course, it was all ridiculous. Hannah was supposed to come home. She hadn’t. So they should get a new PT. But the town had put a lot of money into that clinic, trusting that Alice and Hannah would both do what they’d promised.

If Alice hadn’t taught most of the town aged fifty and under in kindergarten, or been their piano teacher, or been their Sunday school teacher, or been their Girl Scout leader, people maybe would have leaned on her harder. But she had been all of those things. And Kyle knew that TJ Bennett had said, “Please, Alice,” and she’d said, “No, I want that to be my granddaughter’s clinic,” and he’d said, “Okay, no problem, we’llwait.”

It had surely been that simple. Because Alice always got what she wanted around here. Even with the grumpy, gruff mayor.

“I can recruit a PT? We can use that clinic?” Kyle verified.

“I’ll sign the thing over to you,” Alice said. “You can do whatever you want withit.”

“And will you cry every time you go by it, or make me feel guilty about that every time I come over for dinner?” Kyle asked, knowing full well both of those things were possibilities.

Alice frowned at him. “I might make you feel guilty for thinking I’m planning to guilt you for the rest of yourlife.”

Kyle raised an eyebrow. “First, I didn’t say rest of my life, but good to know the time frame in your mind. Second, you still guilt me about the lamp I broke when I was eleven.”

Alice huffed out a breath. “Fine. I’ll give you the keys and be happy aboutit.”

He gave her a little smile. “You don’t have to be happy about it. You just have to act happy about it. And not over-salt my food when I come to dinner.”

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