Page 36 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“Who are you calling anelder?” Arthur asked. Not content with flinging his bad temper at me, he turned to his grandson and added, “Put me down, you fool. There’s no need to act like a circus strongman. I was stuck in a stair, not buried six feet deep.”

I had to fight a laugh as Greg dumped his burden onto the couch, depositing the old man into a cloud of pillows that left him even more annoyed than before.

“Is that better?” Greg asked, watching as a few puffs of goose feathers flew up from the cushions.

Since Arthur could hardly complain about his grandson doing exactly as he was bid, the only response we got was a series of low muttered curses. They did the trick, though, giving animation and energy to an old man who looked as though he desperately needed them.

“Forty-five minutes,” he said when he finished with his tirade. “That’s how long I was in that blasted stair. Where’s Sloane? Did she put you up to this?”

Once again, I saw my way with painful clarity. Some women were born to be great leaders. Some were meant to inspire greatness in others.

And some, like me, worked best as scapegoats.

“Sloane has nothing to do with this, so don’t take your bad temper out on her. Or Greg. Or the stair. It wasmyidea, and I stand by it.” Instinct warned me to make myself scarce, but Greg cast another of those pleading looks at me, so I settled myself on the nearest chair instead. There was a good chance I was about to be called a witch again—with or without a slight adjustment to the spelling—but if history had taught me one thing, it was that no good would come of trying to make myself the hero of this particular story.

Or of any story, really. Even my own.

“Why don’t you thank your grandson for coming all this way instead of yelling at him for helping out?” I suggested as I made myself comfortable. This next part would be good. “Go ahead. I’ll wait.”

“I’m not thanking him. I didn’t invite him.”

“No, you didn’t,” Greg agreed, and in a tone that matched Arthur’s for bullheadedness. “And you didn’t call, either. I had to hear about your fall from the hospital.”

“Ha! That shows what you know. I didn’t fall.”

Greg cast a pointed look at the stair, which looked even more battered now than it did before.

“I meant thefirsttime,” Arthur grumbled. “And what right does the hospital have to tell you anything? You’re not listed as my next of kin.”

“They were desperate to find a family member—anyfamily member. Apparently, that’s what happens when a man has to be restrained for fear he’s going to pull out his oxygen tube and kill himself.”

Arthur set his jaw. “What else was I supposed to do? They were going to let me die in there. Hooked up to a machine. Tied to the bed. Without a single—”

He cut himself off so suddenly that I knew exactly what he refused to say.Without a single person there to witness it. Without a single person to hold my hand and watch me go.

It was a fear I shared so deeply that I couldn’t find any words to fill the stark, sudden silence of the living room. Which was for the best, really, because a temper like Arthur’s had to be vented somewhere. Better for it to fall on the silence than on his grandson.

“Is this what you wanted?” Arthur demanded of me. “Do you feel better now that you’ve witnessed the happy reunion?”

“A little bit,” I admitted. “Should I pop into the kitchen and make us something to eat? I feel like we could use something to eat.”

“No.” Both men practically shouted the word. Interpreting this as an invitation to stay rather than a commentary on my cooking, I submitted.

“You’re not staying here,” Arthur said to Greg, with a mulish look about the lines of his mouth. “You’ll only be in the way. Sloane is turning my guest room into the nonfiction section.”

Greg’s mouth grew equally hard, both of them chiseled as if from stone. It was starting to feel like Mount Rushmore in here, only instead of presidents it was two angry men who happened to be related to each other. “You prefer books to the company of your own grandson?”

“Infinitely.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’m sure I can extend the stay at my Airbnb. No one else will touch the place.” Greg’s face twisted in what looked almost like a smile. “It has ghosts.”

As a psychic—even one with a phone headset attached to her face—I was always interested in things that went bump in the night, but there was no chance for me to follow up. As soon as I opened my mouth, the front door swung open. Sloane’s voice hailed us along with one of her light laughs.

“I know we were only supposed to read up to chapter five, but I couldn’t put the book down last night,” she called by way of greeting. “I finished it in the wee hours. I can’t wait to hear what you thought of—”

She stopped as soon as she spotted Greg, her eyes wide.

“You,” she said. “You cornered me in the basement.”