Page 70 of Second Chance Fate

“Are you guys going to be around tonight?”

They both nodded.

“I’ll stop by.”

Once his parents left—after his mom hugged both him and the dogs once more—Caleb headed down the hallway to check on Taylor. On the way his phone buzzed, and he pulled it out to see a message from Judy letting him know that she’d just beeninformed by several people that his parents were spotted driving down Main Street, so they were back in town, and that Carol Miller was at the church office because she’d been to a prayer meeting the night before and heard that he was living in sin with a single mom.

He typed back a message letting Judy know that he knew his parents were in town, he had just seen them, and he asked her to get Carol a tea and tell her he’d be there in about ten minutes if she wanted to wait to speak to him.

When he rounded the corner and walked into his bedroom, he lifted his head and found Taylor curled up in his bed in the fetal position, on her side, sleeping. Her breaths were slow and steady, and her expression was angelic and peaceful. She looked so tiny, so fragile, so precious. The thought of anyone saying anything negative about her being in his home for any reason infuriated him, no matter what the intention behind it was.

Even though he knew it on an academic level before, in that moment he knew on a cellular level, on a primal, caveman, primitive level, he would do anything to protect Taylor and Owen, his family. Whatever it took to make sure no one ever hurt them with words or actions again, he was willing to do it.

After writing a quick note explaining where he was going and that he’d be back before Owen was getting dropped off by Gabe that afternoon, he crossed the room, left it on the nightstand, leaned down, and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead as he whispered, “I love you.”

He’d whispered the same thing to her while she slept in his arms the night before. He doubted she’d heard it, but he had to say it. It was compulsory. He had to tell his wife that he loved her.

22

“Areyou sure you want to do this by yourself?” Caleb asked her for the fifth time as they sat at the kitchen island, sipping lemonade Taylor had made that afternoon, watching Owen playing catch in the backyard with Minnie and Casper.

Gabe and Adriana dropped him off fifteen minutes earlier, and Taylor wasn’t sure who missed who more, the dogs or Owen. When he was walking up the driveway, both Minnie and Casper greeted him like he was a soldier coming home in one of the YouTube videos that always made her cry.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” She nodded.

“Okay.” Caleb leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. She tensed slightly, worried that Owen might have seen, but his attention was focused on the dogs. “If you change your mind, just text or call.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

It was obvious from Caleb’s hesitation that he didn’t want to leave, and she understood why. This was about him after all. But something inside of her was saying she needed to speak to Owen alone. It had been them against the world for so long, even when she was married. She wanted Owen to be comfortable feelingwhatever feelings he had, process them, and then express them. She worried if Caleb were there, he wouldn’t do that.

“Okay.” Caleb grabbed his keys from the counter. “Oh, and don’t worry about giving Minnie her pills. I’ll deal with it when I get home.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind.” Taylor knew better than most the importance of taking medication at the prescribed time.

“Yeah.” He sighed as he shook his head. “I’ve literally caught her eating cat poop but put a pill in cheese and suddenly she’s Gordon Ramsay.”

She couldn’t help but laugh and remembered how animated Owen was when he told her he’d tried to give Minnie medication when Taylor was in the hospital. “Owen said he even tried peanut butter, and somehow she managed to lick it clean and spit it out in seconds flat.”

“Oh yeah,” Caleb confirmed. “She has Houdini-level skills when it comes to extracting pills from food and then ejecting them from her mouth.” He took his phone out of his pocket. “I don’t think I sent this to you. It was the second night he was here, and you were out of it.”

Caleb pressed play on a video of Owen kneeling on the kitchen floor holding two cupcakes in front of Minnie and Casper. “Happy Gotcha Day, Casper!” he enthused as he fed each the treat. Casper had barely bit into the pastry in the time it took Minnie to swallow it whole; at the same time, not one but two pills flew out of her mouth in a perfect arched curve like water from the mouth of a cherub fountain.

“That’s insane!” She covered her mouth with her hand; her words were muffled against her palm. When she lowered her hand, she said more to herself than to Caleb, “I can’t believe I totally blanked on Casper’s gotcha day.”

As impressive as Minnie’s skills were, the thing that stood out to her in the video was that she’d missed Casper’s GotchaDay for the first time in all the seven years since she’d had him. Not only had she missed it, she’d totally forgotten that she had. Every year on the anniversary of the day they rescued Casper, she and Owen baked a cake and went to McDonald’s to get him a plain cheeseburger.

“I think Casper will forgive you since you were in the ICU fighting for your life.”

She forced herself to smile, still unable to accept the fact that the date had come and gone without even a flicker of recall on her part, ICU or not.

“And when Owen told me about it on the way home from the hospital, we grabbed a cheeseburger from Mickey D’s and even went by Barky Brush and got some cupcakes to celebrate,” he said.

“Thanks. I really do appreciate that.” She wasn’t trying to be ungrateful; she just felt a little off balance since she wasn’t used to dropping the ball on things.

“It’s the least I can do.” He said, his head tilting a little to the side. “And, if it makes you feel any better, the one-year anniversary of Minnie’s Gotcha Day is coming up soon, on May twentieth.”

Taylor froze when she heard the date. “May twentieth,” her voice was strained, barely audible above a whisper.

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