The phone woke me up at seven-thirty.

Alexis was still here, naked and curled up next to me in my bed. I filed this away as a victory.

I didn’t want her to get used to staying in the big house. It wouldn’t always be available, and it wasn’t where I lived. Where I did live wasn’t great, but it was where I lived. And the sooner she got comfortable staying at my place, the better, because she had to keep coming back. She had to.

The sex was unreal. It was like finding the perfect dance partner and then only getting better because now you were practicing together.

I couldn’t keep my hands off her. Hell, she couldn’t keep her hands off

me. I was going to have to start keeping Gatorade on the nightstand.

I leaned over and picked up my ringing cell with a smile. “Hello?” “Hey, hon, it’s Doreen. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

“It’s fine,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “What’s up?”

“Popeye didn’t come in this morning. Now, I know sometimes he runs a little late, especially if Jean’s dog’s been doing her business on his lawn and he’s gettin’ into it with her, but it’s almost twenty past and he’s not here. I didn’t want to call for the sheriff, ’cause you know how Pops feels about Jake.”

Shit.

“All right, thanks for letting me know. I’ll head over there now.” I hung up.

Alexis sat up on her elbows. “Everything okay?”

I threw off the covers and started jumping into pants. “I have to run out,” I said. “I don’t know what time I’ll be back. I need to check in on someone.”

“Is it medical?” “I think so.”

She got up too. “I’ll go with you.”

I didn’t argue. One, because I didn’t like losing time with her, and two, because if Popeye was still alive, I could probably use the help. He was a handful. He always took to women, so he’d probably put up less of a fight if she was there.

She got dressed quickly, and Hunter followed on her heels right up until she jumped in the truck. “What happened?” she asked, slamming the door.

I fired up the engine. “Popeye didn’t come into the diner this morning,” I said as I backed down the drive.

Pops was like clockwork. He was at the diner by seven o’clock every single day, rain, sun, or snow. If he didn’t come in, something was seriously wrong.

“Popeye?” she asked.

“He squints with one eye. Kinda looks like him,” I said as I turned onto the road. It was only a two-minute drive.

“How old is he?” she asked. “Ninety at least.”

“Any preexisting conditions?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” “Dementia, high blood pressure, diabetes?”

I glanced at her. “I don’t know. Nothing he’s ever mentioned. He’s pretty sharp.”

“Any idea what medications he’s on? Has he ever been hospitalized?” I blinked at her. “No…”

I wanted to ask her about the questions, but I didn’t have a chance because I was pulling up to his tiny one-story house. I put the truck in park. “Stay here.”

She got unbuckled. “I’m not staying in the car.” “What if he’s dead?”

“I think I can handle it.”

I arched an eyebrow. “What if he’s naked?” “Nothing I haven’t seen,” she sang and got out.

I smiled after her, then jogged up the walkway and knocked. “Pops? You there?” I gave him a minute. When he didn’t answer, I fished the spare key to his house off my key chain. Popeye was armed and not afraid to shoot, so I knocked and called out as loudly as possible as I opened the door. I pushed it in slowly and peered inside. “Pops?”

A moan came from the bedroom. I ran through the dark, musty house and burst through the door. Popeye was on the floor next to the bed. He was awake and sitting up, still in his pajamas, his back propped against the front of his nightstand.

“Hey, you okay?” I crouched next to him.

“I fell gettin’ outta this damn bed. Couldn’t get my feet under me to get back up. Well, help me for God’s sake!”

I put an arm behind him and helped him to the edge of the mattress. He smelled horrible. Acrid sweat and ammonia. My eyes started to water. “Jesus, Pops, you’re ripe. When’s the last time you had a shower?”

He yanked his arm away. “Who the hell are you, my wife?” he snapped.

Well, at least he wasn’t injured enough to stop barking at me. “Do you think you broke anything?”

He glared at me under his thick white eyebrows, stark against his black skin. “No, I didn’t break anything. Gotta piss like a racehorse though. Took you long enough to get here.”

Alexis knocked on the doorframe and came up next to me. “Hi, Popeye.

I’m Dr. Alexis. Is it okay if I have a quick look at you?” I stopped and stared at her. “You’re a doctor?”

“I am.” She smiled at Pops. “Does anything hurt?”

He eyed her like he was trying to decide if he should trust her. “No.”

She pulled out her cell phone and turned on the flashlight. “Just a quick light here.” She flashed it in his left eye, then his right. “Good. What’s your full name, Popeye?”

He looked at me and then back at her. “Thomas Avery,” he grumbled. “Can you tell me what day it is?”

“It’s Wednesday,” he said grumpily. “Tuna melt day at Jane’s.”

She looked at me for confirmation on the tuna melt, and I nodded. Then she took his wrist and put two fingers on his pulse, looking at her watch.

It was like she’d transformed before my eyes. Everything about her shifted. She was a professional all of a sudden, going through a routine I could tell she’d done a million times. I just stared at her.

“What were you doing when you fell?” she asked Pops. “Just gettin’ out of bed.”

“Do you have any conditions you can tell me about? High blood pressure? A history of strokes? Heart attacks?”

He shook his head. “Fit as a fiddle.”

She smiled and peered over at his nightstand. “Are these the only medications you’re on?”

“Far as I know.”

She picked up the two bottles and studied them. She shook one. “Did you take this with food?”

“I take it like I always take it. With water before I get up.”

She smiled. “If you don’t take this one with food, it can make you dizzy. Do you have some crackers you can keep by the bed? Something to put in your stomach next time?”

He shook his head.

“Okay. Well, we’ll get you some. I think you’re in good shape. But you need to follow up with your primary care physician, okay? A fall at your age can be a big deal.”

“Fine. Mind if I take a piss now?” She grinned at me.

I helped him stand so he could use the toilet. He shuffled into the hallway bathroom, mumbling to himself. As soon as the door clicked behind him, I looked at her.

“I’m going to check around for other medications,” she said, walking out of the bedroom.

I stared after her. A doctor?

I felt like the chasm between us had just deepened. It was like every time I thought I was leveling up, I realized I wasn’t even close. A damn doctor.

I blew a breath out and looked around. The place was a mess. “Pops, is Jean still cleaning for you?” I asked through the door. “When’s the last time she was here?”

The long sound of Popeye relieving himself tinkled from the bathroom. “I told her to piss off weeks ago.”

I dragged a hand down my face. “This place looks like shit.” I started gathering all the clothes on the floor and tossing them into a pile. “Who’s

doing your laundry?”

The bathroom door opened, and he came out, grumbling. “I’m doing it.

She did a crap job. Made my T-shirts smell like petunias.”

“We need to get you in the shower,” I said. “Do you need help?”

He nodded in the direction of the kitchen, a white caterpillar eyebrow raised. “She could help me.”

I saw Alexis stifle a smile through the doorway.

I slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Okay, old man, let’s go.”

He had a hard time stepping over the rim of the tub. I had to brace him, and he almost had another fall. “I’ll come get you when I hear the water turn off. Don’t try getting out without me,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah. Get the hell out.”

I went over to talk to Alexis while the shower was running, leaning on the counter by the sink.

“Does he have any bruising?” she asked. “Not that I saw.”

“Does he have any family? Who takes care of him?”

I rubbed the back of my neck, looking around the dim house. “Nobody?

All of us? It’s sort of a group effort.”

“Daniel,” she said, her voice low. “He’s going to need more help than he’s getting. He needs food in the house and someone to make sure he’s showering.”

I dragged a hand down my beard. “He told me he fell getting in the tub last week. I think it scared him.”

“You can put a call in to Adult Protection Services. Try to get him a personal care assistant, Meals on Wheels.”

I shook my head. “It’s hard to get help out here. I’ll work out a schedule. I’ll get someone in here once a day to clean, check on him. And I’ll install a

railing in the bathtub. Maybe some treads on the floor of the shower.”

She nodded. “And he needs to take those pills with food. He probably fell because he got dizzy.”

“Okay. I’ll give them to Doreen. She’ll give them to him with his breakfast when he comes into the diner.”

She smiled. “What?”

She shook her head. “It’s just…I don’t know. I like that you guys take care of each other.”

“That’s how it is here. It’s what we do.” I tilted my head, noticing something. “Did you put makeup on?”

We’d ended up in the shower last night. She didn’t have any on when she went to bed, and she got up when I did. At least I thought she did.

“Yeah,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Why?” I looked at her, confused. “When?”

She paused. “Before you woke up.”

I blinked at her. “You got up just to put makeup on? Weren’t you tired?

You didn’t want to sleep?” She didn’t answer me.

“I hope you didn’t do that for me,” I said. “I don’t care what you wake up looking like.”

I meant it. I didn’t.

Her face called bullshit.

“I don’t care about that stuff,” I said. “I’d rather you sleep. If we’re gonna be pulling all-nighters, I need you to keep your strength up.”

She laughed. Then she bit her lip. “Okay.”

I nodded at the house. “I’m gonna clean up a little. When he’s ready we can take him to go eat at Jane’s.”

But she shook her head. “I think I’m going to head out.” My lips fell. “You’re not going to stay for breakfast?”

She slipped her hands into her back pockets. “No, I have stuff to do at home. You don’t have to drive me back to the house, I remember the way, I can walk. It’s not far, and you didn’t lock the garage. You take him to eat.”

She didn’t want to be seen with me.

Not out in public anyway. She’d been perfectly willing to stay for breakfast when we were back at the house…

I didn’t know what I expected. I guess it was a tall order, asking her to go around town with me. Things were new and we didn’t really know what this was yet. But it still bothered me.

“Okay,” I said. “When can I see you again?”

She gave me a noncommittal one-shoulder shrug. “I don’t know. I’ll text you.” She stood on her tiptoes and gave me a quick peck. “I had a really good time.” She smiled. “Thanks for having me.”

“Yeah. Thanks for coming.”

I watched her let herself out, disappointed that the visit was over.

While I waited for Pops, I went around combing for dishes. Then I grabbed a trash bag and started chucking old newspapers and take-out containers. The place was wrecked. Dusty and cluttered. A long double- barrel shotgun lay across the coffee table. It was bigger than Popeye was. He’d been cleaning it, and a metal rod and oil-soaked rags lay tossed around next to a box of shells.

I hoped he wasn’t planning on shooting Jean’s dog. Or Jean.

I came back into the kitchen and pulled out the kitchen trash. When I heard the shower shut off, I went to get him, and a few minutes later he came out dressed and clean.

Popeye wouldn’t let me help him into the truck. The diner was only a block away, but I could tell by how slow he was moving that he was a little sore from his fall. The second giveaway was that he didn’t fight me to let him walk there. I pulled up as close to the door as possible without it looking like I was trying to baby him, which he’d hate.

Doreen was relieved to see him, and we sat at the counter.

Doreen poured coffee in our cups, and when she was gone, Popeye mumbled at me. “She’ll come calling.”

I poured half and half into my mug. “Who?”

He pivoted to look at me. “The doctor! Acting like you don’t know who I’m talkin’ about…” he muttered. “The town’ll get ’er back.”

I wrinkled my brows at him. “I don’t follow.”

“The town! It’ll get ’er back! It picks who it wants. I’ve known every lifer going back ninety-six years. I know one when I see one. Your grandparents, you, Doug, Doreen. Not your mama. I knew it the moment she came into the world, she weren’t for here. The town knew it too, let her leave.”

I blinked at him. “Let her leave?”

He looked at me for a moment, squinting with his good eye. “It’s alive, you know.”

“What’s alive?”

“This place. It breathes like you and me. It’s got magic in it.” I grabbed the sugar jar, amused. “Magic, huh.”

He glared at me. “Go ahead, poke fun at me. But when things start happenin’ you can’t explain, snow in July, lucky coincidences, you’ll change your tune. There ain’t no coincidences here, boy. It’s the town, protecting itself. And I’m tellin’ ya, it likes that girlfriend of yours and it’ll get ’er back.”

I sighed. Maybe he was getting a little confused in his old age after all. Not that I couldn’t use some mystic intervention…

She was a doctor.

We didn’t have people like that here. Hell, I think there were less than a dozen college-educated people in the whole town. We were all in the service industry—we didn’t have white-collar jobs in Wakan. We didn’t have a clinic where she could work, let alone a hospital. We didn’t even have a blood pressure machine in the pharmacy.

I finished breakfast and took Popeye home. When I got back to my place, Alexis was gone. I sat on the bottom of the spiral steps, looking out into the garage. Hunter trotted over and sat next to me.

I looked at my dog and scoffed. “Please tell me you’re kidding. Is this how you looked when she came back? We’re trying to make a good impression and both your ears are inside out.”

He blinked at me, and I had to laugh. He had a pink lipstick kiss on his forehead.

I smiled and flipped his ears back and let out a long breath. “How you think we did, buddy? Think she’ll call us?”

He looked over at me, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

Then I noticed my black hoodie was missing from the hook by the front door.