Chapter 24
She dropped Chick Pea off with her parents, then hit the freeway for San Francisco, driving at speeds that would have inspired feelings of rank betrayal if Eli had known. It was really kind of a miracle she didn’t get caught.
She’d gotten just past Black Oak, an hour and a half or so into her trip, before the fumes of fury and blind ache and grief spent themselves, and something like sense seeped in instead, and when it did, she was seized with an urge to see Mac.
To tell him that shedidunderstand him. That she thought he was a freaking hero for picking himself up the way he had. That he had indeed blown her off course, but that she also recognized that he’d just spent nearly the last month trying to steer her back onto it, trying to point out to her the things she loved, the things that made her truly herself, as only someone whoknewher—and loved her—could.
So she found the nearest off ramp and roared back the way she’d come.
Screeched into her own driveway and leaped out of the car, very like the way she’d screeched up to the courthouse the day she’d bought this house at auction. And she didn’t stop running until she was at the front door of Mac’s cottage.
She thumped on the door.
It swung open immediately, which gave her a start.
“Well, Avalon! Hello there.”
Avalon stared dumbly.
Morton Horton looked a bit awkward fully clothed. Kind of the way San Franciscans always look when they attempt to wear shorts out in public when the temperature in the city goes higher than seventy degrees.
“Oh, um, hello, Morty. Nice to see you again. Is Mac in?”
“Oh, Mac’s gone off.” He gestured airily toward the road.
“He’s... gone off?” Like a carton of bad milk? Like a roman candle?
In an ambulance?
Her heart lurched. “Is he okay?”
“He seems just fine. He called me up and asked me to look after his animals while he was away. He was in a huge hurry, so I gathered it was an emergency. He called in a favor, so here I am.”
“Where did he...” It wasn’t really any of her business, of course. It was so unexpected, she was struggling with equilibrium.
“He didn’t say.”
She cleared her throat. “How long is he...”
“He just said he’d let me know,” he said gently. “I don’t think he’d leave his animals for long. He asked me to look after things here for a bit and to see if there’s anything you might need. I can handle repairs or outdoor chores in a pinch. Helen will be by, too, and she’ll be happy to help, if you’re in the mood for a chat.”
And just like that, she felt like her heart was on an elevator and the cable had snapped.
It was a feat of heroic proportions to just get the next few words out.
“No. Thank you, Morty. That’s very kind, but... Iwasjust on my way to San Francisco.”
She couldn’t feel her limbs again. Everything she was—all her thoughts and feelings—seemed to have retreated as far from the surface of her skin as possible and gathered in a tight, hard knot around her heart. The pain was so ghastly it was almost blackly funny.
Somehow she hadn’t quite anticipated hisimmediateexodus. Whoosh! Like a cartoon character whose legs blurred as they scrabbled to get away.
She blindly turned to leave on her leaden legs and nearly ran headlong into a guy who was rocking a prosthetic leg, a huge smile, and carrying a big manila envelope.
Morty greeted him with a huge smile and a bear hug. “Hey, Mike! Long time no see, man! We were worried about you.”
“I found work, man, and I just wasn’t able to get away until now. Mac around?”
“Nope. He’s out of town.”