private room, and he had been flanked by nurses all day. Apparently, the old man still had his charm working for him, and he had become a bit of a celebrity around the hospital. Samuel Logan, standing up to the misfits of Kent and taking one for the team.
I only wished he could have earned his popularity through anything else.
After a flurry of questions, and my incessant questions to a doctor who had looked like he wanted nothing more than to run far, far away from me, I had finally been able to calm down and enjoy the fact that, yet again, I had Samuel and Kelly ganging up on me.
I had called Jenni and given her the good news, fully expecting her to show up after her shift. Needless to say, we were all just a little disappointed, and I had started to worry when she had stopped answering the phone.
“Maybe knowing grandpa’s alright made her go back to her life?”
Kelly had looked like she was begging me to disagree, but I hadn’t really known if I could. I still held onto the hope that we would come back home and find her, probably asleep with her phone silenced.
Which was why I let out a sigh of relief when I saw her car.
“That’s a good sign,” I said.
Kelly nodded, a smile creeping onto her face. She looked a lot gladder about Jenni being here than I was.
She met us at the front door, towel in her hand, hair flowing around her face. She looked pale, her eyes bloodshot as if she had just been crying, and her shoulders sagged a bit. Nothing like the woman who had cooked breakfast and shoved us out of the house this morning.
“You okay?” I asked, kissing her cheek as I shrugged out of my coat.
Kelly had already made her way upstairs after giving Jenni a quick hug and a concerned look. My daughter had the good sense not to ask, though. Whatever was wrong with Jenni, it didn’t seem like something she’d be openly willing to talk about. She already looked like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.
She attempted a smile, and it only made her look worse. “I’m fine,” she lied.
I kissed her again and let the matter slide, for now. There would be time to talk about it later, with the door closed behind us and her lying in my arms. I kept a close eye on her, though, as we went about emptying the groceries I had bought on my way back.
“How’s Sam?”
“He’s doing well,” I said, smiling. “Looks better, except for the bruises and all. Besides, I think he’s actually happy he’s in the hospital. The nurses are all over him.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “He’s always been a sweet talker.”
“We missed you at the hospital.”
She sighed and smiled weakly. “I’m feeling a bit under the weather, that’s all. Didn’t think it would make sense to show up and spread whatever it is that’s got me feeling like this.”
“Samuel would have loved to see you,” I said.
“I know. I’ll visit him as soon as I feel better.”
I didn’t push, knowing that if I did, I would either make her angry, or worse, scare her away. Right now, having her around made me feel a lot better, and I didn’t want to do anything that might risk endangering that.
“I’m sorry about what happened with Sheriff Blake,” she said, cutting through my thoughts.
I felt a small pang of anger at the memory of this morning’s waste of time. “Yeah, well, apparently Garth Liston has a lot more pull in this town than I thought.”
I felt her body stiffen at the mention of Garth’s name, and frowned. Before I could read any more into it, my cellphone began to buzz in my pocket, and I fished it out, Raul’s number flashing on the screen.
“Gotta take this,” I said, leaving the kitchen and walking all the way out the front door.
“Catch you at a bad time?” Raul asked when I answered.
“Nah, was just about to help with dinner,” I said. “What’s up?”
“For starters, I don’t know how you do it, but you hit a gold mine, man,” Raul said.
“What do you mean?”