A Time for Us - By Amy Knupp Page 0,78

said from his chair in the back.

“Oh, good heavens, Ted.” She swiveled enough in the passenger seat to shoot her husband a scolding frown, which made him cackle. “I’d like to see your condo, Cale.”

“You notice she didn’t say your home,” Mariah said from the back, where she sat next to their dad.

“I’m getting there,” Cale said. He knew his sister was kidding, but after the work he’d put in these past few days to try to finish it, the subject was a sore one. “Why do you want to see it, Mom? It’s not done yet.”

“You’ve owned it for, what, two years? And I’ve lived here for almost two months and you’ve never showed it to me once. I’m just curious to see the work you’ve done.”

“We can stop by after dinner, then,” Cale said.

“We’re a block away,” Mariah said. “Let’s do it now. They can see it in daylight and then we can relax and enjoy dinner.”

“That sounds perfect,” Ronnie said.

“Dad?” Cale met his father’s bushy-browed eyes in the rearview mirror. “You up for it?”

“Hell, if the women made up their minds, then that’s what we do. I’ve been married for forty-eight years, son. You learn these things.”

“Forty-nine,” Ronnie said. “You’ve been married for forty-nine years, Ted.”

“Forty-eight, forty-nine. When you have that much bliss, it’s hard to keep track, my dear.”

Cale pulled into his assigned parking spot outside of his condo. Getting his dad and his chair out took a while, and once again, Cale marveled that his mother had taken care of him by herself for so long, to say nothing of putting up with his blunt humor.

“Can I get in there?” his dad asked after rolling down the short ramp from the van.

“It’s on the first floor.” Lucky thing. His dad had still been mobile when he’d bought the place.

Cale unlocked the door and his dad waited for his mom to go in first. She gasped, first thing.

“It’s beautiful, Cale. I love this tile floor.”

“You remember Evan from the department? He helped me put it in on our day off. Then Clay helped me finish up the cabinets yesterday.” He looked at the kitchen—which was fully in view now that the wall was down and the cabinets moved to their places along the outside walls—through his mother’s eyes and realized she was right. It looked pretty damn good for a bunch of amateurs. It looked nice and new and contemporary, just like he and Noelle had discussed. Strangely, though, it didn’t feel like home. Of course, living in his sister’s apartment for so long, what did he know about home?

“Are these custom cabinets?” his mom, having moved into the kitchen proper, asked.

Cale followed her and his dad in. “Nope. Just refinished the old ones.”

“The finish is gorgeous,” Mariah said. “You know you can stay with me as long as you want, but I would think you’d be champing at the bit to get back here.”

“Yeah,” Cale said halfheartedly. He wondered at his own lack of enthusiasm but wrote it off to exhaustion. Anytime he’d been off-duty this past week, he’d been here slaving away, trying to make up for lost time.

“All this kitchen’s missing is a woman,” Ted said.

“Nice, Dad,” Mariah said as she snooped in the fridge, no doubt finding it empty. “Do you try to come across as a caveman or is that just natural?”

“If he wants good food, he’s either gonna have to marry or hire a cook.”

“Hey!” Cale said good-naturedly. “I can hold my own in the kitchen. I make a mean scrambled egg.”

“Let’s go see the rest,” his mom said. “I’m getting hungry, for something other than eggs.”

Mariah carefully lowered herself to their dad’s lap in his wheelchair.

“What in the name of Joseph are you doing?” he asked.

“I thought maybe you’d give me a ride.” She gave him her infamous puppy-dog eyes and he switched the automatic chair on.

Cale and their mom followed them through the dining area to the living room. Ronnie walked directly to the sliding glass door and pulled back the vertical blinds. Again, she gasped in appreciation.

“Marvelous view.”

“It’s the same as yours, Mom.”

“No. Mine is six stories up. This is better. The waves are...right there.”

One of the reasons Noelle had been so excited about living here, of course. Cale liked the gulf, too, but he did have concerns about being so close and on the bottom floor. The seawall outside their building, which you could barely see from this angle, wasn’t very high. The one hurricane that