Page 77 of Fallout
Dark brown eyes lit up, a huge smile stretching his lips as he climbed to his feet. “Lor-wee!” he raced toward her only to be stopped by Jacob before he could get close enough to crash into her.
“Easy there, Madman. We have to be careful with Lory.” Jacob hitched Maddox onto his hip and walked over. “He’s asked about you non-stop since you left.”
He didn’t say since he’d sent her away, but they both knew that’s what he meant. “I missed seeing his handsome face.” She patted her lap. “You can put him here.”
“Are you sure?” Jacob pointed to her leg. “Is it safe?”
“Yes. I still don’t have full feeling in my thigh but I feel enough to know if his weight hurts.” Mallory held out her arms. And when Jacob handed Maddox over, she pulled him close and held him tight. “I missed you, Maddox. Maybe when I get out of here we can—”
She shook her head. She was presuming too much from their appearance.
“We’d like that. If you were to come to Sunnyville that is.” Jacob shuffled his feet; his hands shoved into his pockets appeared to be fisted. “I know things went sideways and nothing between when we met and now makes sense or seems like it really happened, but I was hoping we could maybe start over.”
“Start over? I don’t understand.” Maddox showed her his helicopter. “Is that like the one Daddy flies?”
“Daddy.” Maddox whizzed the toy through the air in front of them.
“Maz bought it for him. She got one for Zane too,” Jacob explained.
“How are they? I don’t know what happened after…” she swallowed. “Clark and Davis said no one else was hurt—physically—but, well, they didn’t give me details.”
“Mallory.”
She glanced over at Gavin who had taken himself over to the corner furthest from where he stopped her wheelchair. “I know. The doctors said not to worry about any of that, just concentrate on getting better, and I understand, I’m okay with not knowing everything yet but surely I can ask if everyone is still okay.”
“I wasn’t going to tell him not to tell you, I was just going to suggest maybe now wasn’t the time to get into those details,” Gavin explained.
“Oh.” Her gaze moved from Gavin to Maddox. “You’re right. We’ll save the details for some other time.”
“I can take Maddox to Mazey and Rylan for the night and come back later if you’d like.”
Jacob’s offer took her by surprise. “Oh, no, I can’t ask you to make that trip.”
“What trip?”
“To Sunnyville and back again. You’ve already done it today.”
“No, we haven’t. We came here yesterday. All of us.”
“All of you?”
“Yes. Me, Mad, Ry, Maz, Zane, Alyssa, and Jack. Penny.”
Mallory shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m the scouting party.” He smiled. “Or the sacrificial lamb to see if you would be receptive to having visitors tomorrow. They said this place has a beautiful garden we can have a picnic lunch in and Maz made a huge batch of cookies.”
“Cookies!” Maddox scrambled off Mallory’s lap and raced across the room to the bag she hadn’t noticed before. “Cookies!”
“Hang on, Madman. Let me get them.” Following his son, Jacob opened the bag and pulled out a plastic bag filled with cookies. Walking back, Maddox’s hand in his, he said, “It’s a peace offering. Maz thought we stood a better chance of getting you to agree to tomorrow and saying yes to the other question we want to ask you.”
“Other question?”
“We want you to come back to Sunnyville. We, Maddox and I, would like to offer you the use of our old room for the rest of your rehabilitation after they let you leave here.”
“You want…” Her gaze darted to Gavin. “You want me to live with you?”
“Yes.”
