It's Never too Late - By Tara Taylor Quinn Page 0,4
in fire forensics. Hell, even ten years ago they was still using mostly guesswork to determine things about them fires, and you already brung modern science to Bierly with your volunteer fire work. Maybe, if you had the schooling and the position it would give you, you could have saved Jimmy.”
An explosion on the line the previous winter had killed his best friend. And now Rick Stanfield was working in Jimmy’s place.
“Jimmy didn’t follow the handbook, Nonnie.”
No one did. The rules in the book didn’t coincide with the cost-saving methods upper management expected them to use. But that was his issue to take up with the bosses.
“You’re wasting your God-given talents here.”
She was his grandmother and, for all intents and purposes, his sole parent from the day he was born. Her perceptions were a tad bit skewed where he was concerned.
“What will we do with this place?”
“Rent it out, furnished, as soon as someone answers the ad I put out on the internet. Just need enough to pay taxes. Wilbur’ll watch it for us in the meantime.”
Looking around him, taking in the scarred solid cherry-wood tables he’d learned to dust when he was four, the beige tweed couch that still carried the faded stain of the cherry Popsicle he’d thrown up after he’d had his tonsils out, the threadbare carpet that Nonnie had taught him to dance on because he was refusing to learn with other boys as mock partners in gym class, Mark couldn’t come up with any more excuses.
“We aren’t going, Nonnie. Twenty years ago, you could have dragged me to the truck by my ear and made me go, but not now. You need me now. And I’m staying here.”
It bothered him to play the health card, but leaving Bierly would kill both of them. Nonnie didn’t have many years left—not enough to risk four of them in an unfamiliar world across the country while he wasted time learning things he would never use just to have another piece of useless paper hanging on the wall.
Chances were she wouldn’t live long enough to frame the damn thing.
He watched as Nonnie’s shoulders dropped inward, her chin falling to her chest as her body leaned forward, and hated that he’d had to cause such abject defeat in the woman who had always championed him. Always fought for him and her right to keep him with her.
And then he saw the folder she’d bent down to retrieve from the thin wire basket he’d designed to fit on the outside wheel base of her chair. A second manila folder. Also half an inch thick.
The mass shook as she reached out bony, blue-veined fingers to hand it to him.
Confused, Mark opened the file. It also contained printed pages from the internet. Housing availability. And receipts. One for a sale. And one for the rental of a room in an assisted living facility.
“I don’t understand.”
She stared him down silently.
“You just said you were coming with me.”
Nonnie was the only person he knew who could deliver a taking-down without saying a word.
“You sold the land?” Ten acres behind the house. Her garden.
He glanced again at the second folder.
She had her own power of attorney. There’d been no reason for her not to have it. She was of sound mind.
But he had her heart. That had to count for something....
The folder stared up at him.
“Either we go to Arizona together, or I go there.”
Slamming the folder down, Mark crossed his arms and glared at her.
“You are not going into a nursing facility, Nonnie. You are staying with me until the end. We’re family you and I. We stick together. Take care of each other. That decision was made fourteen years ago. And revisited when you gave me medical power of attorney...”
And then he got it.
That agreement, his promise to her, was what she was counting on.
She had him.
Ella was right. He was moving to Shelter Valley, Arizona.
To become a thirty-year-old college student.
CHAPTER THREE
“HI, WILL, IT’S Adrianna Keller returning your call. I can be reached—”
“Addy?” She recognized his voice as he picked up, interrupting her midsentence. “It’s so good to hear from you.”
It had been a couple of years. She should have called more often. “How are your folks?”
“Fine. They’re trying to arrange a trip to Disneyland with all of the great-grandchildren before school starts.”
Will’s family—his parents, three brothers and sister—were lovely, not that she actually knew any of them anymore. She hadn’t been in touch with his parents, other than exchanging annual Christmas cards, since