It's Never too Late - By Tara Taylor Quinn Page 0,30
plant around here?” Jon kept pace with him.
“Sorry, where I used to work, back home. I work out at the cactus jelly plant now.”
“No kidding. I tried to get a job there. I really need the benefits. They work around your school hours?”
“Yeah. They’ve been great, so far.”
“You on the line?”
“Supervising.” It sounded egotistical so he added, “I’ve been doing full-time plant work since I was sixteen. My experience is what got me the position.”
“You’re supervising?” The dark-haired guy sent him a sideways glance. “You think you could get me in there?”
He had no idea but said what came naturally, “I’ll see what I can do, buddy. You working now?”
“At the gas station. But the hours suck. I can’t make enough to pay bills and I got my kid to look after.”
“You have a kid?”
“A son, yeah.”
“Where’s his mother?”
“In New York, last I heard. I thought we were in love but she was just having fun. When we turned up pregnant, she wanted an abortion. She agreed to have the baby instead as long as I took full custody. And here I am.”
They were almost at the student parking lot outside the building that housed most of the chemistry labs. Mark shook his head. “How old is your son?”
“Two.”
“Are you in touch with his mother?”
The younger man shrugged. “Nope, but Abe and me, we don’t need her, either.”
They’d reached their cars. “I’m on my way to work now,” Mark said, unlocking the door of his truck. “I’ll ask around and see what I can find for you.”
“That’d be great, man.” Jon’s vehicle was a an older truck, too, but unlike Mark’s his had a car seat in the back. “I’ll sweep floors. Anything they need.”
Mark believed him.
* * *
WASHING NONNIE’S HAIR wasn’t hard at all. After rolling the old woman’s chair up to the bathroom sink, she’d draped her bony shoulders with a towel and then helped Nonnie slide down in the chair until her head hung in the sink.
Addy took extra time massaging Nonnie’s head while she lathered and conditioned and rinsed.
“I think Mark likes school,” the old woman murmured while Addy’s fingers worked gingerly on her frail scalp.
“I know he does.”
“He told you?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“He told me you applied for the scholarship for him,” Addy said. She was in Shelter Valley to do a job. And had to find out everything she could about anything having to do with Montford University.
“I told him I didn’t.”
“He thinks you lied.”
“What would be the point? He’s already here. Besides, I’m not afraid of my grandson.”
With the help of a cup, Addy rinsed Mark’s grandmother’s hair. Letting the warm water wash over Nonnie’s head as the woman scoffed.
“So you didn’t do it,” Addy asked, just to be clear.
“Nope.”
“Who did?” One of Nonnie’s friends? Someone else the old woman had wrapped around her finger?
“I’ve been wondering that,” Nonnie said. “I didn’t know a thing about it till it showed up in the mailbox. Just like Mark.”
Frowning, Addy wrapped a towel around Nonnie’s head, used a second to drape her neck and helped her to sit up. “No one’s come forward?” she asked. “Even after he accepted?”
“Nope. I got my ways of findin’ out things and, hard as I tried, I couldn’t find a damn thing.”
The situation was definitely odd. She’d get to the bottom of it. Now that she had personnel concerns, scholarships were further down on her list of avenues to investigate, but she would look into it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MARK WAS WAITING for Addy when she got out of her last class Wednesday morning. They’d compared their class schedules and locations the night he’d stayed with her after she’d had her nightmare. It was hard to believe that had been just three nights ago.
She saw him leaning against the side of the building as she exited the doors with the rest of the crowd leaving the lecture hall. In his usual uniform of jeans, a polo shirt and leather shoes he should have looked ordinary to her.
But he didn’t.
“I wanted to thank you for yesterday,” he said, taking her books from her as he walked beside her toward the parking lot as easily as if they made the trek every day. Which they had, considering this was only her second day of class.
“No need to thank me,” she said. “Being with Nonnie is a treat. She reminds me of Gran.”
“For some reason I thought your grandmother was conservative. Proper.”
“She was.”
“Nonnie’s outrageous.”
“She’s smart. Savvy. Perceptive. And most of all, she adores you more than anything in