Page 15 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

The end result wasn’t as dashing as I’d hoped, but black was the one color I didn’t own much of. I always felt like an impostor when I wore it, a stranger in my own skin. People who wore black were important. Thoughtful. Worldly.

As Octavia and Arthur McLachlan would have been sure to point out, I was none of those things.

Fortunately, my car was a lot more nondescript than Brett’s. It was a dark-blue Kia, and not one of the nicer kinds. No one would think to look twice at it—something I was banking on as I shoved a few granola bars in my purse and headed out into the night.

I wasn’t sure what compelled me to return to Arthur’s street, my car creeping along with the lights off until I reached a house a few doors down from his, but I suspected it had to do with the promise I’d made that nice lady. If I was the closest thing to a friend Arthur McLachlan had, then he needed all the help he could get.

Brett would have been the first to say that I was being ridiculous. And Octavia…well. She’d probably fire me on the spot—and with good reason. What I was doing right now technically qualified as stalking.

I didn’t regret my decision. All the lights in Arthur’s house were off—a likely outcome of it being well past ten o’clock, but also a cause for minor concern. I didn’t see a nurse’s vehicle parked anywhere. Chances were they’d send a new one in the morning, but it seemed like a good idea to stick around until one got here. I didn’t want him to spend the whole night alone.

If I were to take a microscope or one of Brett’s digital X-rays to my motivations in coming over here, I knew I wouldn’t like what I found. There was little enough I could do for Arthur from this distance. I wasn’t his relative or even a close friend, and as had been pointed out to me ad nauseam, he was the last man on earth who’d appreciate a ministering angel at his door.

“Good thing I don’t plan on ministering, then,” I muttered as I settled in with a thermos of coffee and a book to keep me company.

All I was going to do was keep watch. For two months, Arthur had been the timepiece to my day—a thing I’d looked forward to and anticipated, a thing I’denjoyed. That might not seem like much to most people, but I knew better.

Sometimes, the only thing you could give a person was a companion to lie under the covers with them and read late into the night.

For now, it would have to be enough.

***

“Here. I brought you a breakfast sandwich.”

The sound of a woman’s voice at my window startled a scream out of me. It also sent my book—a small-town cozy mystery with recipes at the end of every chapter—to the floor of my car, where the half-empty thermos had already spilled across the mat.

“Oh dear. You were sleeping, weren’t you?”

Dazed, I swiped at the drool sliding down the side of my face and blinked up through the window. I’d cracked it a little after midnight in hopes that the fresh, bracing air would clear my head, but that plan had obviously failed. Instead of keeping a vigilant watch on my quarry, I’d fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep that appeared to have left a kink in my neck.

“Sorry. I’m an early riser, so I don’t always pay attention to the hour.” The woman from yesterday—once again dressed as though she was about to head to an upscale yoga studio—smiled at me. “I’m a night owl too, so I noticed how late it was when you got here. I have a sausage biscuit or a vegan avocado smash. There’s nothing gluten-free in the house, but I can always run to the market if you’re celiac or anything like that. Are you?”

My bemusement upon awakening in a strange place under a strange woman’s watchful eye didn’t abate. “Am I celiac?” I echoed blankly.

“It’s hard to keep track these days, isn’t it?” She waved the two paper-wrapped sandwiches at me. “Well? What’ll it be? I can eat whichever one you don’t want.”

The wafting scent of breakfast meat under my nose worked wonders in bringing clarity. “Um, the sausage sounds great.”

“Oh good.” Instead of handing me the sandwich, she bustled around to the passenger side door and let herself in. “I was hoping you’d be a carnivore. Bacon is a gift from the gods, and we should treat it with the respect it deserves.” She raised her sandwich to mine and touched them together in what I recognized as a toast. “Cheers. I’m Maisey, by the way. Maisey Phillips. I didn’t catch your name yesterday—or of that gorgeous hunk of man you were with. Is he your boyfriend?”

I delayed my response by taking a bite of the breakfast sandwich, which was every bit as delicious as it smelled. The meat was hot and salty, the homemade biscuit pulled straight from the oven. Since the clock on my dashboard flashed the time as seven twenty-two, I guessed Maisey had been up well before the sun.

“It’s good, right?” She sighed happily. “I was going to take one to the other guy keeping an eye on Arthur’s place, but he didn’t show up today. I hope he’s all right. It can’t be easy, being forced to watch your loved one suffer from across the street.”

There was so much to unpack about this statement that I almost choked.

“There’s someone else watching the house?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. He’s been coming and going all week. For a while there, I thought he was some kind of security guard for the staffing company. To protect the nurses.” She rolled her shoulder in a half shrug. “They never did send another one after you left, by the way. I think they gave up.”

The breakfast sandwich joined my book and the coffee on the floor of the car.

“Wait. Mr. McLachlan’s in there all alone?Still?”

She cast a nervous glance at the front porch. “Um, yes? Unless that other guy finally got up the nerve to go in. I haven’t seen anyone pull up.”

I was out of the car before I knew it. My black clothes were rumpled with sleep, and I didn’t even want to guess as to the state of my hair, but I was carried along by a power that was well outside of my control.