Blind Faith - Sharon Sala Page 0,70

time anymore, and I do not want to die on a losing hand.”

“Then beat me,” she said.

He shook his head and tossed in the cards he was holding.

“You are unbeatable, unabashed, unconcerned and unforgivably brilliant, and if I have to lose to someone, I pick you,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said. She kept picking up the cards and then stacked them into a neat pile, putting them back in the box. “It’s past your bedtime, and there’s no need playing another hand tonight and watching you lose. I’ll bring the Old Maid cards up tomorrow. Maybe you can beat me at that.”

Merlin grinned.

“Sleep well,” Wyrick said, and then leaned over and kissed his forehead.

“Bring me some more tomatoes!” he said.

“That’s something you can do better than me,” Wyrick said. “I’ve never grown anything successfully.”

“Have you tried?” he asked.

She paused, then shrugged. “No.”

“Then you don’t know what you can do until you’ve tried,” he said.

“Is that fatherly advice?” she asked.

“No. Dr. Phil,” Merlin said.

Wyrick walked out laughing.

Merlin swung his legs back up on the bed and stretched out, smiling to himself. He could count the number of times he’d heard her laugh like that on one hand. It was satisfying to know he’d been the cause of it.

“He’s all yours,” Wyrick said as she walked through the kitchen, where Ora was making a cup of tea.

“I heard you both laughing. Laughter is good medicine,” she said.

“It won’t cure Merlin,” Wyrick said.

Ora paused. “Honey, I’ve been doing this kind of work for a really long time, and there’s one thing I’ve learned. When it’s our time, it’s our time. My job is to make every day count for them in whatever way they need. After that, the rest is up to them and God.”

Wyrick felt the words like a caress. No one had ever said anything to her quite like it, and it made her wonder about her own healing in a whole new way.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m going to my apartment now, and I’ll be going back to the office in the morning. So if you need to contact me through the day, just call or text.”

“I will do that,” Ora said. “Sleep well, honey. We’ve got Merlin’s best interests at heart, always.”

“I know that,” Wyrick said. “But I’m still just a call away.”

Her steps were slow as she went downstairs. She wrote a note to herself to get some tomatoes for Merlin before she left for work tomorrow, and then she sent a text to Charlie.

Done hiding. Opening up the office tomorrow. You do you.

It was that kind of night for Charlie—kicked back in his recliner watching football and eating tacos, happy with the moment. Then his phone signaled a text.

He read it and frowned. Damn woman. She was going to make him get back in the swing of things. If he left her on her own and Cyrus Parks tried something new, then he would have to live with the guilt of not being there to help. But going back meant peopling again. And putting up with her bossy ways.

He took another bite and chewed, thinking of the plus side.

Sugar-glazed bear claws.

Her coffee was better than his.

And he didn’t have to take a case that he didn’t have a feel for.

So, instead of telling her what he was going to do, he just sent her a thumbs-up emoji and went back to his tacos and the game.

No way would he ever leave her on her own. He could never do enough to repay her for how it felt when he’d walked out of Morning Light the morning Annie died and seen her leaning against his Jeep. She gave backup a whole new meaning.

* * *

Wyrick set the alarm for thirty minutes earlier than usual to go get Merlin his tomatoes, so when it went off the next morning, she sat straight up in bed, wondering why the hell she was awake before daylight.

“Oh. Tomatoes,” she muttered, and jumped out of bed.

A few minutes later she was running across the grounds toward the greenhouse with a little plastic bowl, her tennis shoes untied and her bathrobe belted against the cold.

“Crap on a stick, but it’s cold,” she muttered, as she reached the greenhouse and then slipped inside.

The grow lights cast shadows that weren’t obvious in daylight, shadows that took on the shapes of skeletal arms and legs. Shadows with no heads and only bodies. Basically, creepy as hell.

“Okay...tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes,” she said, and headed for the back.

It didn’t take