several times and called out to her but to no avail. Convinced something was horribly wrong, he was about to pick the lock when he heard a vehicle approaching.
An old classic car rumbled into view and came to an abrupt stop, narrowly missing the rear bumper of Tina’s truck. An old woman got out and menacingly pointed a cane in his direction.
“You there,” she called out to him in a surprisingly strong voice. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Doc instinctively knew he was looking at Tina’s grandmother.
“Checking on Tina, ma’am.”
She stepped closer and studied him through narrowed eyes. “You’re Tina’s Dr. Watson, aren’t you?”
Close enough. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, don’t just stand there. Open the door and put some shoulder into it. It sticks.”
She shoved a key into his hand and then barged right past him the moment the door was open, turning lights on as she went. “Is that soup you’ve got there? Good. Put it in the kitchen and get a fire started while I see what we’re dealing with.”
Doc hadn’t even considered not doing exactly what she’d said. Lottie Obermacher was a force of nature and exactly how Tina had described her.
He smiled to himself as he went down on his knee and got to work on the fire. Mr. O’Farrell had his hands full indeed.
“She’s had a rough time of it,” Lottie said when she emerged from the bedroom a short time later, “but it looks like her fever has broken. Best thing for her is rest. Let me put a kettle on, then you can tell me what your intentions are where my granddaughter is concerned.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Tina
The room was dark when Tina opened her eyes again. She glanced blearily at the ancient digital clock, groaning when she discovered that her short nap had lasted about ten hours.
The good news was, it looked as if her fever had broken. The sleeping shirt she’d hastily thrown on was soaked with sweat, and her hair was plastered to her face and neck.
Tina sat up, immediately sorry she had when the room began to spin. She took a moment and a few deep breaths, vaguely registering the sound of the television coming from the next room. She didn’t remember turning it on, but she’d been pretty out of it when she returned from the orchards.
The call of nature grew increasingly insistent, so once the room stopped moving, she got out of bed slowly and with great care. Her headache had lessened considerably, and the racking chills had abated, but she felt as weak as a pup. She leaned heavily on walls and furniture to make it to the bathroom without falling over. By the time she eased down onto the commode, she felt as if she’d run a marathon instead of walked the twenty feet from her bed.
As much as she wanted to take a shower, Tina opted not to tempt fate, even with the extra bars and bench seat she’d had installed. If she got dizzy again and fell, it could be days before anyone came looking. Instead, she splashed some cold water on her face, made liberal use of some mouthwash, and switched out her soaked nightshirt for a dry one.
Her stomach rumbled and cramped, reminding her that it had been running on empty for a while. Tina slipped on a fluffy robe and shuffled out of the bedroom in search of food, her delirious brain cruelly conjuring the mouthwatering aroma of homemade chicken soup on the way.
She made it all the way into the small kitchen before she fully registered the two people sitting in her living room. She turned around slowly, certain she couldn’t have seen what she thought she had, but, yep, there they were, staring at her as if she were the oddity.
“Gram? Doc? What are you doing here?”
“I got worried when you didn’t answer your phone,” Lottie explained, “so I brought out the Buick.”
Tina gaped at her. “You drove?”
“Rest assured, the citizens of Sumneyville are safe,” Lottie said, lifting her chin with a sniff. “I used the private access road. And it wasn’t as if I could ask that lazy cow of a granddaughter-in-law of mine to do it. Good thing I did, too, because I found this young fellow skulking around.”
Tina turned her questioning gaze to Doc. “And you—what are you doing here?”
He shrugged and looked only slightly contrite. “Same thing. You didn’t respond. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
She tried to process that. Lottie’s presence made sense because she and