Ties That Bind (15 page)

“Nee.”

“It's in the nightstand on the right side of her bed, second drawer from the top. Bring that and a glass of water, please.” Her use of the word
please,
which almost choked her, had less to do with politeness and more to do with begging him to get away from her sister.

Ariana would call the doctor after she gathered a bit more information.

“Berta, how are you feeling?” Ariana patted her hand, trying to get her to rouse more.

“Dizzy and weak.”

Quill returned with both items in hand. Ariana took the glass of water and helped Berta take several sips. She put the blood-pressure cuff on Berta's arm as Dr. Sidman had taught her to do. “While I check this, you need to hide your car for your Mamm's sake.”

Without a word Quill did as she'd said. It didn't take him long to drive it behind the barn. She was sure he put it in the old shed that remained locked. No wonder she'd never seen a key to that building. After checking Berta's blood pressure, Ariana left the cuff on and helped Berta take several more sips of water.

Quill strode back into sight, wasting no time approaching the porch. He gestured toward the gauge. “I know nothing about blood pressure.”

“I didn't either until recently. Ideally her readings would be one hundred twenty over eighty. Currently she's at eighty-five over fifty-five. It's low but not dangerously so.” Ariana removed the cuff. “Is it possible you took one too many blood-pressure pills today?”

Berta shrugged. “Not that I know of. I certainly hope not.”

Taking medication of any kind was new for Berta, and Ariana regretted she hadn't made sure she or whoever was staying with Berta doled out the meds. Ariana should be able to tell if Berta had taken two pills today by checking the number in the bottle against the date it was filled.

Ariana helped Berta with another sip of water, and as she drank, it seemed to wake her and clear her mind. “I think we need to move her inside, out of this heat. I want to check a few more things. Then I'll call the doctor.”

Quill moved to help her. “Do you need to be carried?”

“Nee.” Berta shooed him away.

Quill didn't back up. “Then take my arm and let me help you.”

Berta nodded, and Quill helped her shuffle into the house.

Quill led his Mamm to the couch, and Ariana went to the medicine cabinet. She took the container to the kitchen table and, after carefully pouring the contents of the bottle onto the table, counted the pills.

Quill returned to the kitchen, watching intently as Ariana finished counting.

“I think I have good news.” Ariana slid the pills into her hand and then into the bottle. “Your Mamm took two blood-pressure pills today. I'll call the doctor, but my guess is all she needs is lots of fluids and monitoring until the extra dose wears off.”

Quill seemed to melt into the chair next to her, relieved at the news.

She put the lid on the bottle and set it to the side. “I'll make the call and stay the night. Since you were telling her good-bye when this happened, you could finish that while I'm at the community phone waiting to hear back from the doctor. When I return, you can go.”

Quill didn't so much as flinch as she politely requested he hit the trail as soon as possible. He picked up the pill container, studying the label. “Remember the time we solved the incident of my grandmother's missing medications?”

“Ya. It took your
Grossmammi
about a month to convince family and friends that she wasn't misplacing them or accidently throwing them out.”

“Yeah, but after you and I believed her, it took us two long days and several flashlight batteries to solve the mystery.”

“Stupid cat.” Aiming to sow peace, Ariana repeated a phrase she used to say to him when teasing. The trouble began when his grandmother started setting the bottles in a different place, and the family cat must have thought the bottle was a new toy. She'd knocked each bottle to the ground and batted it until it rolled through the oversized gap under the threshold of the door to an old unused cellar.

Quill chortled. “Smart cat.”

Something besides distrust and anger began to stir in her, and the smile lifting the corners of her mouth while in Quill's presence felt odd. “Cat lover.”

Memories of solving the mystery flooded her. She had been nine and Quill fourteen. He was bored because he'd recently broken his arm, a bad break, and he was supposed to stay indoors the first couple of days; otherwise, he never would have helped a scrawny kid solve the case of the missing medicine. Then again, until the day he left, she couldn't recall a time he hadn't helped when she asked.

“You hissin' at me?” A rare hint of a smile embraced his handsome face.

For a moment he didn't feel like an enemy. He also didn't feel like a friend.

He set the bottle on the table. “I would like to stay until I'm sure she's fine…if you don't mind.”

It was his Mamm, so he didn't need Ariana's permission to stay. Maybe this was his way of acknowledging she had earned certain rights. But had he just buttered her up with that walk down memory lane and then asked? Regardless, she couldn't fault him for not wanting to leave yet. “Okay.” She picked up the medicine bottle and tucked it in her apron. She would dole out the medications until she had a weekly medicine organizer for Berta. “What did your Mamm mean on the porch about you being powerless in what happened?”

He stared at the table. “Nothing.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Nothing at all.”

She should've known better than to ask. Besides, she had other matters to tend to. “Are you fine while I call the doctor?”

“Sure.” He angled his head, looking up at her with a trace of cautious amusement. “I won't kidnap her or anything.”

Now that she was calmer—and maybe a little less bitter—she could see how humorous it was to think he might snatch his Mamm, and she couldn't resist a chuckle. “I appreciate that.”

The community phone was only a brisk, five-minute walk from Berta's place, and she hurried down the road. After talking to the doctor on call, she was armed with good information, so she ran back to Berta's. Once inside, she saw Quill encouraging his mother to drink more water. The poor woman would be getting up half the night to go to the rest room, but according to the doctor, rest and fluids were the best remedy.

Watching Quill with Berta made Ariana wish she could make sense of who he was. Was he the kind, caring daredevil she'd once known him to be, or was he the manipulating liar he'd appeared to be for the last five years? Was it possible to be both?

He looked up, and his eyes glued to hers. Did he know what she was thinking? He had always seemed able to read her mind.

She pushed away the eerie thought. “The doctor says she won't need to be seen as long as she doesn't get worse. But if her blood pressure isn't normal by morning, she needs to go to the ER.”

“That's good, but did he say what we need to do?”

“The things we're already doing, plus check her blood pressure once an hour until it returns to normal.”

Berta closed her eyes. “Could you two stop fussing around me, please?” She gestured toward the kitchen. “If you can't return to your usual lives, at least take it in the other room.”

That was Berta. She had more starch than a Sunday shirt. Ariana went into the kitchen.

Quill followed her and sat at the table. “She's still so young. Early sixties. How is she going to make it on her own for the rest of her life?”

Ariana couldn't possibly think of an answer to that right now. She had questions about Quill going through her head. Where did he live? If he hadn't left because he wanted to, why had he left? “You hungry?” She went to the sink.

He slid the glass salt and pepper shakers back and forth on the table, tapping the bottoms together as he did. It was as if he hadn't heard her. “I imagine Mamm here alone, things happening like her passing out and no one being here, and I wonder if I made the right decision.”

She needed no clarification concerning what decision, and she was glad she was at the sink with her back to him. Cool water ran across the bar of soap, creating bubbles as it slid over Ariana's palms. Her impulse to confront him about what he'd done fizzled before the emotion could form words. He was sharing as one person who cared about Berta to another, and Ariana tried to dig past her prejudices against him and find something in her that could relate to making tough decisions. He was unsure of what he'd done, and yet Berta had said it wasn't within his power to do anything but leave. What could Ariana say to him? Every decision she'd made in life seemed pretty cut-and-dried—whether or not to save for the café, who to date, how best to help her family.

She turned off the water and grabbed a dishtowel. As she searched her mind, a memory came to her—Quill endangering his life to set a poor creature free. “Maybe some things are like freeing a trapped bobcat. There's no right way, only a wrong way.” He used to say that the only wrong way to do something was to do nothing at all.

While he seemed deep in thought, she pulled out a chair across from him and sat, recalling the bobcat incident. She'd been ten when she'd overheard the adults talking after church about a poacher who'd caught a bobcat in a steel trap, and he was keeping it in his backyard. They were discussing whether to turn him in, but there was concern about retribution. Rumors said the man was mean and violent. Upset about the bobcat, she had told Quill. Right then he started making plans to free it. She'd wanted him to tell the authorities, but he thought Wildlife Management was likely to send it to the local game ranch. Quill never could tolerate the idea of something being caged—legal or illegal. Rescuing it had taken planning and guts, and it had involved a chain, a pulley, a wagon, and nerves of steel. But Quill pulled it off. He drove a wagon twenty miles into the mountains and set the animal free.

“True. Very true.” His smile almost returned, and he slid the shakers back to their spot. “So what were you and Susie up to today?”

“We—Susie, Rudy, and me—were selling sandwiches, baked goods, and coffee at the Labor Day weekend festivities because I'm trying to raise money to buy a tiny box of a restaurant.”

“Wait.” He frowned as if thinking hard. “Could it possibly be the old café in Summer Grove?”

“How did you…”

He laughed. “Because you swooned over that place when it was open and cried when it closed.”

“I did not swoon.”

Blank-faced, he folded his arms across his chest and waited.

“Fine, I swooned. But for good reason!”

“For girlish reasons.”

“Did you always gig me like this?”

“Pretty much, yeah. You found it charming and fun.”

“And how did you find it?”

“Entertaining.”

“Of course you did.” She pursed her lips, mocking exasperation. “Still, looking back, it seems you stopped your teasing at some point.”

“Ah, so you do possess the power of observation.”

“What I'd like to possess is the power to make you be nice. Maybe a shock collar could prove useful in retraining what you say.”

He clutched his throat, looking pained. “Ouch.”

Was it her imagination, or had some of the persistent sorrow in his eyes faded as they talked? She had a thousand questions. Why did he hate the Amish so much? Or maybe he didn't. Was her perception of that like a lot of things between them—confused and twisted?

“Why did you stop teasing me mercilessly?”

“You got older, and by the time a girl is nearing sixteen, she cries about such things. I stayed in enough trouble without your telling Mamm I made you cry.”

She stifled her laugh, shaking her head. “You still make up stuff left and right, don't you?”

“It's called being fast on my feet.”

“It's called lying.”

“Tomato, to-mah-to.” He shrugged, a spark of fun in his eyes.

She chortled, covering her mouth with the dishcloth to muffle the noise. Why was that so funny? Quill grinned, remaining silent of course. She'd forgotten how boisterous she was in comparison to him.

He interlaced his fingers. “Speaking of food, tell me how the money raising is going.”

“What was it you used to call me when it came to money? Oh, ya, a debt magnet.”

“That's because you lost every coin your parents gave you. More time was spent looking for the money than riding to town to buy anything.”

“That only happened twice.”

“And yet it gave me a lifetime of gigging-you rights. What are the odds?”

“Anyway, my point is that I'm no longer a debt magnet. I'm proud of the headway Abram and I have made, but I don't know that I'll have the down payment by October first.”

“But you've qualified for the loan?”

“Ya. The owner—”

“Lila McCormick.”

“Ya, that's right.” Ariana was surprised he remembered. “She's willing to do owner financing. It all has to go through her lawyers, but before that can happen, I must have twenty percent of the loan by October first, or someone else will buy it. Her children are pushing about the time line and down payment, so there's no give in it.”

“Ah, my forte.” He cracked his knuckles.

“What's a forte?”

“Something a person is particularly good at, and lucky for you, I'm amazing at devising plans that make good money.”

She didn't like his use of the word
lucky,
but for the sake of their truce, she chose not to share her thoughts…or judge his ways. How had they managed to have so much fun when he lived to push the limits of every line and it frightened her to do so?

He shooed her away. “Go get paper and pen.”

Was he serious?

“Well, go on.” He nodded his head in the right direction. “You know where Mamm keeps paper and pens, right?”